Re: Restricting the list

[Nathaniel Borenstein <[e-mail]>]

Kudos to John Noerenberg for this extremely clear statement:

> I wish it no more than I seek ads for magazine subscriptions I have no
> interest in.  Nevertheless, I'm not about ask the US postmaster to validate
> everyone who might send a message to my postal box.  There is no reason to
> think my email address should be treated any differently.

There is a middle ground worth considering, however.  FV has faced a
similar problem on our "fv-users" list.  We wanted this list to be
available for free & open discussion.  Moderating it would make it look
like we were censoring anti-FV comments, which we certainly weren't. 
Restricting access to FV customers was useless, because some of our
customers are the  very people who would post inappropriate
announcements.  So we evolved another solution:  a bozo list.  The list
operates freely, except that anyone who has developed a history of abuse
is added to a bozo list, and posts from THAT person are re-routed to the
list owner, who can post them or not.

The combination of a strong presence by the list owner, the THREAT of
bozo status, clear explanations of what is and is not appropriate, and
occasional USE of the bozo mechanism can go a long way towards solving
problems like this one.  -- NB
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Nathaniel Borenstein <[e-mail]>
Chief Scientist, First Virtual Holdings
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