[Wikipedia-l] What kind of moderation?

Thu Dec 12 14:28:57 UTC 2002

For those who are considering moderation of one list or another, let us consider our moderation options:

1. Each post from ALL subscribers must be approved.
2. Only posts from "naughty" subscribers need approved.
3. No moderation (status quo)

I myself reject option #1, since it would take way too much time. It would overwork any finite group of moderators. It would prevent urgent messages from being passed on quickly. (If this were the only option, I would withdraw my support for Larry's idea of moderation altogether.)

Option #2 means that posts would be transmitted immediately, as they are now. The exception, however, would be that a moderator could mark any subscriber's posts as requiring "administrative approval" (this phrase comes from the mailing list software). It would only be the small number of subscribers whose posts would be filtered by the moderators. Each post held for approval would then either be passed on or rejected. If rejected, it would get the appropriate comments: 
* reason for rejection
* notice of right-of-appeal

I would expect that anyone whose post was rejected, would then either:
(A) Clean up their language and participate like an adult, or
(B) Go sulk, like a naughty child (thus proving that they did indeed merit the "time out")

In either case, I predict that only someone who was deliberately working against the project would refuse to comply with the simple, easy-to-follow rules of civil discourse: exactly the kind of *ahem* troll no one wants on a mailing list anyway.

Ed Poor