Re: [ga] Message from the Chair - List Rules

["Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin@law.miami.edu>]

The fact that censorship was for a period of time applied arbitrarily and
secretly by the list management without authorization or disclosure of the
fact of censorship or the criteria applied hardly constitutes a reasonable
baseline. The appropriate baseline is before those arbitary, secret, and
in my opinion unfortunate actions began.

I propose that as a (partial) corrective, the list management draft and
post a *short* proposed text that would be posted to the filtered and
unfiltered lists weekly describing the two feeds and explaining to the
mailing-list-challenged how one tells which of them one is receiving, and
how one switches from one to the other.  At least this will ameliorate the
notice problem, especially for newcomers.  (Which is my biggest worry.)  
The text might also be sent automatically to new subscribers to either
list.  Does that sound reasonable?

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> At 08:52 04.02.00 -0500, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> >Will existing subscribers be automatically transferred to one of the lists?
> >
> >If so, I hope it's the full one, which preserves the status quo.  Taking a
> >limited feed should require action on the subscriber's part.  Imposing
> >this on people without even asking them is heavy-duty authoritarianism,
> >and would not be conducive to peace and goodwill.
> 
> Sorry to lose your goodwill, Michael - as discussed in the rules, the 
> status quo + any later additions are applied to the existing list.

There were objections to this.  They appear to have been ignored.  That is
a pity.

> 
> The full list will include all messages sent to ga@dnso.org, including 
> postings by nonsubscribers and postings crossposted to other lists; it did 
> not seem to make sense to create three levels (full, current and 
> current+moderation), and did not seem to make sense to subject the present 
> subscribers to an increased message flow compared to the status quo.
> 
> >(I read your proposal to imply the reverse - that the default option will
> >be the limited feed.  Please tell me I misunderstood...)
> >
> >(I also don't see appropriate nomenclature.  I.e. the default "ga"
> >subscription is the censored feed.  That is misleading to the uninitiated
> >for all the reasons discussed earlier on this list.  Again, apologies if I
> >misunderstood what you are proposing.)
> 
> Reminder: A month ago, we had a list that was operated with some filters 
> applied by the list management according to the list management's 
> understanding of what was reasonable behaviour and common decency to be 
> expected of list members.
> 
> As part of the discussion of list rules, the chairs asked the list 
> management to remove those filters.
> Thus, we have this month for the first time subjected our members to a list 
> where unreasonable, abusive behaviour resulted in no action.
> 

It's not the first time.  It's the first time since the filters were
secretly and arbitrarily applied.  The original position predates that.


> We now move towards a situation that is closer to the status quo ante of 
> December, hopefully with a greater transparency of rules and procedures.
> 

The key word above is "December".  That is not the starting point.


-- 

A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin@law.tm
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
                        -->It's warm here.<--