(no subject)

[elizabear]

I have heard many stories of people who leave the sca-east list or never want to join because of flame wars or rudeness or personality clashes. I find this really sad. I created the list all those years ago to be a way to connect people in the kingdom, to help share information relating to our hobby, to be a useful and interesting place to be. Sometimes the list does those things in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way. I propose to you: what can be done to make this list a more positive place to be, a more welcoming place, a place with less conflict and less clashing?

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

On one hand, email lists get like that. On the other hand, I hear it can get pretty bad. I left it a year or two ago.

One thing which might help, without censoring, is to put some limit on how many posts a person can make in a day. That would slow down the heated response reaction significantly. Say, 2 or 3 per 24 hours. I don't know if the software can do that, of course.

[siderea]

I don't know if the software can do that, of course.

Uh, actually, I was thinking (years ago) about writing a program to implement just that (well, a procmail filter and/or perl program). I don't think it would be that hard; I could investigate this, if useful. elizabear, you know where I am if this is something you want to look into.

[siderea]

(BTW, I should mention: There are social issues with doing that. Everything is tradeoffs.)

(Other things it's occurred to me would be useful to implement:

* Slashdot-esque karma system for email lists; karma-based throttling.
* Moderator thread-freezing.
* Thread-shape throttling -- vastly harder than the others to implement.

I, uh, have a thing for the anthro-hacking which fun email/forum affordance-tweaking amounts to. It's a sideline of the psych/anthro thing. :D )

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Someone suggested to me that she wished there were East-Announce. I opined that it would be a nuisance for you to hand-mod such a thing, but hand-moderation would be ideal. If you thought you wanted to do such a thing I'd say you should recruit backup mods. And it doesn't solve the nasties problem on the main list, just gives an alternate quiet/low-volume subscription option.

[artisticphoenix.livejournal.com]

I have over the past 10 years subscribed and unsubscribed to that list. The longest I have been able to stay on it was a week. The constant in jokes, the nasty fights, the incessant gossip, the few personalities talking and no one else, and the non-value of most of the posts made the signal to noise ratio very bad.

Since I am not one to complain without making suggestions for improvement.

Improvements -

Code of civility and bounce people (time out) who misbehave. Not bounce them forever, put them in time out and they can come back if they agree to the code of civility and they get a chance to improve. You bounce a few well known "characters" and they will begin to police the others. If someone gets bounced three times, they get evicted. I know this is hardline, but unfortunately the list has morfed from something that was a source of information to a gathering of gadflies.

Draft a core of people who will model the correct behavior - announcements, discussion of period research, sharing of knowledge - who will be your "plants" in the audience.

Discourage off topic posts.

I would be happy to talk with you more about this, and indeed, would assist in improvements that you would like to make.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

I have been on it a lot over my time in the Society. I have been off it a lot, too. (I also pine for the old Rialto, which had its own issues.

1. The announce idea is great! I was wondering if there was one. I would be willing to help there.

2. Suspend David R., Ralph, Phlip, me and Tibor. Barak Raz, maybe. I am sure there are a couple of others.

Give us a month off.

Second suspension is three months, third is banishment. (I actually wrote that before reading N's response.)

I guess what I am saying is active mederation, which is something I believe you do not want to do. I could not help there. I am too quick to criticize, but I can think of a few others who could.

PS: I still think it's a lot better than the Pelican and Silver Crescent lists.

[marysdress.livejournal.com]

I can think of four order lists it's a lot better than, but that is damning with faint praise - and lots of people don't subscribe to order lists for that reason.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

And someone doesn't moderate two for the same reason.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

I think active moderation is what it would take to make it safe. And I am one of those who left the list because I didn't like who I was on the list (and am thinking of leaving the order lists for the same reason).

Yeliz, you're a great person, this is nothing against you. I wish you luck with whatever you choose to do.

[marysdress.livejournal.com]

My initial reaction was don't worry about it, it's an internet mailing list.

However, the above comments to me highlight something that perhaps is a larger problem. For quite a while the signal to noise ratio of that list has been pretty abyssmal. Very little "useful" information goes out over it. Okay - it depends how you define useful, but it's not really used in the way it most usefully was in the beginning - to disseminate information. It's reputation probably doesn't help it if it does have this reputation.

I'd go with the suggestion to start sca-east announce, get people to encourage it's use to disseminate information about events and such, and let sca-east be a social thing.

[baronessmartha.livejournal.com]

Hi,

I also sent you an email this am (Selena Kaplan/Mahin Banu).
I really like the idea of modeling what we want the list to become. I would be willing to help with that.

I know there already is an sca-announce list. The suggestion of creating one means that it needs more publicity.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Modeling behavior is great, but it doesn't work on lunkheads.

Or on people who have temporarily lost their sanity due to an online discussion, and have become lunkheads on certain topics.

[artisticphoenix.livejournal.com]

Sure you can. I use it every day. It is part of classroom management.

Yes, it can be painful and a lot of work for the first month or so, until everyone settles down. Rewarding the good behavior and modeling the correct behavior is part of it. But once you establish that certain behavior will not be tolerated, behavior improves. Lunkheads need more than modeling behavior - which is the carrot, they need the mighty sword of teamwork and the hammer of not bickering. A couple of private emails to the lunkheads, even to the temporarily insane lunkheads from a moderator can do the trick. The simple observation - "would you do this in person? If not, take it private" - is enough to stop most.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I expect (if the list is much as it was when I left it) that sane folks model good behavior every day, and yet, it doesn't do much good in the absence of an authority figure to moderate.

I agree that moderation of the kind you describe would be effective.

[siderea]

BTW, did the sca-east FAQ idea ever go anywhere? I recall -- back when I played -- there was some talk about documenting the controversies in a FAQ, in a hope that that would keep people from rehashing them, or accidentally retriggering them.

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

Just two topics ended up being banned under this - the time scope of the society and the geographic scope.

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

I see several suggestions for an Announce-only list.

Excerpted from the email I got when I recently rejoined the EK list:

Welcome to the sca-east@mail.indra.com mailing list! In addition, the
mailing list SCA-EAST-ANNOUNCE is for announcements relevant to the
East Kingdom of the Society for Creative Anachronism.


So, according to this, there already is one. True or false, I don't know.

I decided to give it a second chance, and keep my mouth shut more this time. It does tempt my Dark Side, or did last time. If it doesn't work for me this time, well...I tried.

Colin of Tighan

[mikekn]

Hi there - just spotted this post and thought it deserved a reply (I've been discussing the topic with some folks since you first put it up on sca-east).

I am on the list, and have been for many years. I don't post much, if at all, because I don't want to deal with the personalities that are likely to reply. I don't recommend it for newcomers to the SCA or the East, because I don't want them to come away with a bad impression of us. I stay on the list so that I can get and pass along any useful information that come across.

To make the current list a more positive place I feel it would take a complete change in the list culture. People who behave badly need to be called on it, publicly and privately, by people who they respect and will listen to. Folks who continue to do so will need a stronger reaction. I like liamstliam's suspension idea ('though I was thinking in terms of giving folks a "Time Out" - make the punishment match the behavior).

I'd love to see sca-east become a place I can proudly point people towards.

- Michel Wolffauer
(sorry for the double post)