Text 45743, 137 rader
Skriven 2006-12-22 20:28:00 av Michiel Van Der Vlist
     Kommentar till en text av Matt Bedynek
Ärende: Kindergarten
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Hello Matt!

On Friday December 22 2006 12:01, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> The difference was that the moderator in the first event
 MvdV>> attempted to ban a user and failed.

 MB> Some of those involved in the fray were hubs or linked to hubs
 MB> sympathetic or actively engaged with their cause.

Yep. That was one of the reasons banning the user failed.

 MvdV>> In the second event the moderator refuses to attempt to
 MvdV>> moderator by force.

 MB> I see that the moderator chooses to moderate (specifically Z1) because
 MB> he knows it will do no good.

I take it you meant "not to moderate"?

 MB> I can imagine these type of exchanges:

 XX>> Hey Ross, they want to cut my feed to fn_sysop/fidonews/______
 XX>> because I refuse to be moderated.

 RC>> We'll just see about that. ;-)

I can imagine that too.

 MvdV>> The parallel is that users revolt against the moderator.

 MB> So, having endorsed the first one what reason do you have to complain
 MB> now?

Eh? What makes you think I am complaining? I am just making an observation.

 MvdV>> Now you make it look like there was a precendent set ..

 MB> Presedent is not the right word but you can be the next echo where you
 MB> have so many vendictive people squeezed together that you will see a
 MB> similar outcoume when views and agendas clash.

Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

During the Dutch CSO war (1992-1996) I was the moderator of POINTS.028 (still
am) At that time the region was divided in two camps and POINTS.028 was one of
the less than half a dozen echos that was distributed "across the border". In
the haydays it was a lively echo: 100 msg/day.

It was as much an explosive situation as the situation here and moderating it
was like walking on eggs... ;-)

 MvdV>> Well, maybe it was for Z1, but here in Z2 users defying
 MvdV>> moderators is much older. In fact I remember a dissident sysop
 MvdV>> named Paul Dickie who managed to circumvent feed cuts by the
 MvdV>> the then ZC and moderator of ENET.SYSOP, ..

 MB> Z2 sounds like a  chaotic place.

It is not really. The incident with Paul Dickie was just that: an incident. But
it *did* teach moderators a lesson regarding feed cuts.

 MB> In my brief tenure in fidonet (since 92 as a user and 94 as node
 MB> [broken service]) I have not had to deal with that many feed
 MB> cuts--even when I moved much larger volumes of echomail than I do
 MB> today.

In all those years I have asked for a temporary feed cut only half a dozen
times. Ranging from a week to six month.

 MB>   Oddly enough, I see more potential problems today than I do between
 MB> timeframe 96-99.

 MvdV>> Now that Fido has almost become a sysop only network and almost
 MvdV>> everyone has the ability to lay links all across the globe at
 MvdV>> no or very lityle cost, it has become even more a fact that
 MvdV>> feed cuts are impossible to enforce. Fido over IP has freed us
 MvdV>> from the dictator distributors, but the flip side of the medal is
 MvdV>> that moderation by rattling the sword as a deterrent is no
 MvdV>> longer possible.

 MB> So what you're telling me is that sysops hold their users to a
 MB> different set of standards?  That some sysops have lower standards?

Nothing like that. All I am saying is that the moderators have to make do
without the ultimate deterrent of the feed cut. Not complaning, just making an
observation.

 MB> Might not be too surprising.  That timeframe I mentioned above was
 MB> also when I moved most of the mail via IP; I always have.  And, I
 MB> never felt I had a problem with 'dictators'.

We definitely had a problem with dictators among the *distributors*. As in "if
you want echomail from me, you have to dance to my tune".

 MB> Z2 may have been different?  The wide array of political views,
 MB> squeezed into one zone, wouldnt be surprised...

If I read it correctly, you (Z1) had exactly the same problem with your
backbones.

 MvdV>> Those who preach "respect" are daydreaming. There will never be
 MvdV>> a moderator in an echo like this that is universally repected.

 MB> The way I see it is: there will never be a moderator in this echo as
 MB> far as you are concerned unles he shares your "z2 style of
 MB> moderatoring" and as far as some noisy z1 sysops are concerned, there
 MB> will never be a moderator unless they share the "z1 style of active
 MB> moderatoring". Are sure what side of the glass you are on Michiel?

I have already made the observation that moderation by oppression is a thing of
the past. We had better adapt to the new reality.

 MB> I say this because you are did the exact same thing in fn_sysop a few
 MB> years back as some of them are doing today.

Your point?

 MB> To tell you the truth, I kind of find this all fascinating... Can so
 MB> many people really be so vendictive and miserable that they have to do
 MB> whatever they can to make another person's life, be it moderator or
 MB> other people, miserable too?  What does that say about humanity?

Not very much. Electronic communication is just a vague image of a situation
where people interact in real life.

Cheers, Michiel

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