[CLUE-Admin] Proposed language for email lists . . . please comment

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003 23:12:19 -0700
David Anselmi <anselmi at americanisp.net> wrote:

> El Presidente de CLUE wrote:
> [...]
> > Dave,
> > 
> > I suppose we could do nothing, but I thought Zonker made a good point
> > when he wrote:
> > 
> > "We can't just assume there's an unspoken policy that everyone will
> > absorb through some kind of netiquette osmosis."
> > 
> > So, maybe I should have asked:
> > 
> > 1)  Does everyone think we need a policy?
> > 2)  If yes, then what should it be?
> 
> I think our de facto policy works fine.  Note that no one has proposed 
> anything that has bearing on Rick's post.

Jeff's #2: Thou shalt not harvest

> Even with more explicit 
> policies (and many only cover posts to the list, which Rick didn't do), 
> there will still be people who break the rules (intentionally or not). 
> They will be dealt with and life will go on, as happened this time.  So 
> the discussion about policy changes needs to happen separate from 
> everyone's feelings about Rick and spam.

Agreed that the debate needs to be depersonalized (and it seems to have
been), except that these sorts of discussions always happen after some
such event (unless the list manager deliberately brings them up when the
list is activated), so the latest infraction is always what's on people's
mind during the discussion.

> If we are going to change policies, it should be to shape the lists to 
> be a better place.  What do we need to change about our community?  Is 
> there a recurring misunderstanding that a policy could prevent?

Doesn't seem to be. IIRC, spam is being filtered already (hazy memory here
of Jeff posting something a while back about spam on one or more of the
lists). And policies won't stop any of that.

> We need to be especially careful with off-list behavior.  Besides being 
> something difficult to enforce, we don't necessarily want to get in the 
> middle too much.  Suppose Rick had sent his message to one person and 
> that person complains to the list?  Rick says he thought the person was 
> interested.  The person demands Rick's removal for policy violation. 
> What to do?  (Though policy needs to be clear, there needs to be some 
> discretion built into enforcement.)

While I agree, at the ideological level, with the impulse to have
policies, they do very little on the practical level, except to provide
the justification for some other action, such as removing someone from a
list, or complaining to their ISP. In truth, the justification is there
whether there's a policy or not, but having one provides a little more
leverage, because each individual presumably has agreed to it implicitly.

I'm reminded of the policy debates which used to happen quite frequently
in a couple of usenet groups I was active in. One has explicit rules, the
other implicit. Being topically similar, 98% of the time, the two groups
were indistinguishable. Same level of spams, trolls, etc. I point this out
by way of illustrating that people can spend an awful lot of time on
policy, and it doesn't make any difference, real world. I used to spend a
lot of time fighting usenet spam, and nearly all of the complaints I sent
would have been valid under usenet norms, without the need to cite the
policies of the newsgroup.

You're correct about the off-list behavior issue. The thing is, all of our
e-mail addresses are public, by way of having the archives web accessible.
Anyone can collect them. We have no control over what people do with them.
If we need to do something about a particular case, then the policies
already exist for that, by way of the AUP/TOS for the sender's ISP
account. If people are going to ignore (for whatever reason, including
assumed familiarity) their ISP's policies, will ours fare any better?

> I guess I disagree with Zonker.  There is an unspoken policy and people 
> absorb it.  We can't assume that they will *if* we want or need to 
> enforce the policy more rigorously.  Then it has to be explicit. 
> Perhaps there are other reasons to have more policies but I haven't 
> heard them.

One reason would be to provide yet another reminder for those people who,
having read their ISP's "no spam" policy, still aren't clear on the
concept. Whether that's our job or not is obviously debatable.

The other reason would be to provide a handy "you broke this rule" reason
for when the list administrator feels action is necessary WRT a
subscriber. This would be easier than tracking down the AUP/TOS for that
persons ISP, and provides coverage in case the ISP's policies aren't quite
explicit or sufficiently anti-spam. However, the truth is that the list
administrator doesn't really need to be able to cite anything to
remove/ban a subscriber. We're under no obligation to run "open" list
servers.

I actually agree with both you and Zonker. Most geeks do, in fact, absorb
netiqette by osmosis, and we reasonably expect that situation to prevail
within the CLUE community. But there will always be someone who doesn't
quite get the picture. So the question is do we deal with those on a
case-by-case basis, or try to be more proactive.

> I have been tempted in the past to put together policies dictating what 
> I think are mail list best practices.  I've been sensible about it, but 
> perhaps not altruistic.  Never had the time.  Perhaps that's for the
> best.

Step 1) Google. Step 2) plagiarize. ;-) Well, I can't portray that as a
time-saver, because a search for "listserv policy" gets 445,000 hits. I
think you and I are in agreement about what list-serv policies should be,
but obviously there are subscribers who aren't. (Dare I whisper, "Top
posting is bad"?)

So, what's the decision making process here? Are we going to first reach
consensus over whether to have policies or not? It seems the question has
been raised.

jed
-- 
I wouldn't even think about bribing a rottweiler with a steak that
didn't weigh more than I do. -- Jason Earl