|
Background:
Each mailing list or web forum will have exactly three people whose role is to maintain civility, order and generally keep the discussion on
topic. For any action to be taken, all three must agree.
These "guardians" act like moderators, but the lists are
distinctly not moderated in the usual and formal sense of the
word as it applied to mailing lists. The term moderator will be used here but please understand what is trying to be achieved is somewhere between the rigid constraints of a moderated mailing list and an complete anarchy that sometimes happens with unmoderated mailing lists.
- The mailing list will be a place where all discourse is civil
and polite. No personal attacks or slander, no negative sarcastic or facetious remarks. No name-calling. We're not a completely humorless bunch here, but simple etiquette is expected. Emily Post defines etiquette this way: "If what you say or do makes somebody uncomfortable, that is a breach of etiquette".
- The final arbiter of the definition of "civil and polite" will
be the list moderators. The list moderators are Brian Reid <brian@reid.org>, Dan Steinberg <dstein@travel-net.com> and Richard Sexton <richard@vrx.net>.
- Complaints may be sent to any of the addresses above, either by the person offended or by any other member of the list. They should not be sent to the list as well.
- Upon receipt of such a complaint, the offender will be invited
to submit to the group, and to the person offended, an on-line apology which has been accepted by the latter.
- Beginning with the third warning, the moderators shall have the
authority to remove the offenders ability to post to the mailing list.
- The mailing list will be otherwise open and unfiltered by the
mail distribution server.
- All discussion about the moderator's performance is explicitly
permitted, but must take place in messages that deal ONLY with the
moderator's performance, and not with any of the other topics of
discussion on the mailing list.
|