[PLUG] Do it yourself moderation

[Keith Lofstrom]

Michael Robinson wants a moderated PLUG list.  There is a very easy
way to do this.  He can start another mailing list, moderate it 
himself, and include and exclude any posting he pleases.  If he wants to
talk about his classes, textbooks, gays, communism, CSI(?), or any other
subject that flits through his head, or exclude me or Jeme or AthlonRob
or Carla or Eric or anyone else, he is free to do that too.  He can
finance it with teeshirts - I would be proud to wear a teeshirt that
says "My Postings are Rejected by Michael Robinson".

I am a relative newcomer to this list myself, and I suppose if I was
NetGod I would design it differently.  But I'm not, and where the 
reality differs from my expectations I am learning to moderate my
expectations.  The really wonderful thing about the plug list is how
well it works with no moderation at all.  Out of dozens of lists I
have worked with over the last two decades, only one other has worked
as well, and that with occasional ejections of the obstreperous.

I read the digested list, and it is fractionally harder to killfile
Michael Robinson or Jeme Breslin.  Which has turned out OK;  every
once in a while Jeme comes up with something useful and I am glad I
haven't missed it.  As Jeme matures, his signal-to-noise ratio will
improve, and perhaps Michael Robinson's will leave the zero peg
where it is now.  So un-moderated has my vote;  I want to be present
when Michael finally has something useful to say, or when he learns
that is is his infantile behavior rather than some defect in the entire
rest of the world that brings on the relatively restrained criticism
he finds so objectionable.

The most important thing anyone here can do to improve the quality of
the plug list they read is improve the quality of their own postings.  
If Michael Robinson wants to see a better list, he has a lot of 
opportunities completely under his own control.  And if, with the
impatience of immature youth, he wants a better list "right now only",
he is free to moderate his own.

And thanks to all the rest of you that have shown remarkable restraint
in discussing this.  I think I will let it go with this posting (which
follows a private one to M.R.), as this discussion will never end until
M.R.  feels he has had the last word.  Let him have it, because his own
words do more to scuttle the idea moderation than anything the rest of
us can do.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs