[governance] banning list members

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 08:33:15AM -0800, michael gurstein (gurstein at gmail.com) wrote:

> FWIW, I host several e-lists (in the area of Community Informatics),
> some with up to about 1000 participants. In one form or another I've
> been hosting e-lists for almost 15 years. During that time I've had
> to warn and ban list contributors, not often but occasionally.

I've been around for a while, too. Can't remember the first
time I've been hosting/moderating a list, but I've been
participating in them since late 1980s.

And I fully agree with this:

> From my experience (and predilection) discussion and argument is
> good, good for the lists, generates new ideas, gets people engaged.

> What isn't good are personal attacks, innuendo, a condescending or
> snearing style of discourse, and so on.

Exactly.

> In some of those instances a warning or two might lead to a change
> in behaviour. In others it doesn't because the temptation is too
> great, or the deeply engrained habits are too strong.

Yes. There are, however, ways of dealing with the situation
besides warning and then banning from the list.
In particular, I've sometimes turned moderation flag on for
the offender for a while, rejecting messages with personal attacks &c
with "please rephrase that more politely" or similar.
On some lists I've even set moderation on by default for new members
until they've learned to adjust their messages to the culture of the list.
It is more work for the moderator and still doesn't always work,
of course, probably not even most of the time, but sometimes it does.

I'm not saying it would solve the problem here, but it might be
worth keeping in mind, as another tool in the moderator's toolbox.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen

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