[Sigia-l] list constitution, maybe? (was List Moderation)

[Richard Hill]

ADMIN - I have removed any restriction on Zia.  I put it on, intending to
moderate comments.  All that happened was that posts were held for approval
-- and nothing was rejected while that hold was on.  After seeing the lists
thoughts, I took the hold off as soon as possible today.  Putting the hold
on was solely my decision.

ALSO The admin of this list has not changed.  I removed Jim as a listed
moderator as his e-mail was bouncing.  He will be back and listed when the
bounce problem is resolved.

And regarding a "CONSTITUTION" as Karl describes, below is text that we
added to the welcome message for new subscribers.

Dick Hill
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Richard Hill
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American Society for Information Science and Technology
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-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf Of
Karl Fast
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 9:35 AM
To: 'SIGIA-L'
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] list constitution, maybe? (was List Moderation)


Has anyone proposed the idea of creating a constitution for the list?

By constitution I mean a simple set of "rules" that we can all agree
to and that will help each of us understand what constitutes useful,
acceptable, and positive discourse within the group.

I don't mean laws for doling out punishment. I don't mean moderation
either. I simply mean making some of the social conventions of the
group a bit more explicit so that when things start to slide we can
use the constitution to re-orient ourselves. Some sort of simple,
lightweight, social governance structure that gives modest shape to
the discourse and lets us know when we've gone off the rails.

I'm suggesting this as an alternative.

We need alternatives. 

The current options (moderation and explusion) are negative. They
are controversial and sit uneasily with most of us. They are
sufficiently distasteful that I fear, even if successful, they will
poison the group in subtle and permanent ways. I fear the cure being
worse than the disease.

Yet we all believe that inaction is an equally unsuitable course. We
agree that we need some sort of action in order to move forward.

I suggest we look for positive alternatives, not negative ones. We
need a solution that we can look back on with a sense of pride and
accomplishment, instead of regret and self-loathing.

So I am suggesting a constitution.

I confess that I don't know how to go about doing this. I haven't
looked into any details. And maybe there are other alternatives.

I'm treading into unfamiliar water here, but the suggestion stems
from things Clay Shirky has said:

   http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html
   http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

Shirky argues that groups like ours *always* break down at some
point because there are no ground rules. The group says "We want to
encourage freedom of expression" and "We don't want to muzzle
controversial voices" so the forum is completely open and
unrestricted. But at some point these kinds of groups always,
always, always break down.

To Shirky, what is happening to SIGIA-L is unfortunate, but also
"natural" and expected. 

We need to do something. I believe we should do something that is
primarily positive. The current options seem wrong to me.

So I suggest a constitution. There are probably other options here,
but I wanted to put that out there as a first step.



--karl
http://www.livingskies.com/
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