Most mailing lists I am on seem to get by fine without overt moderation - including this one. you have your facts wrong. the operators of this mailing list are
capable of sending private mail to people like me who keep posting off-topic drivel like the message i am now typing. yup - I have had one or two of those (admittedly justified too :) but
Most moderated lists I am on seem to get by with thread killing - an argument is allowed to run for a few posts, then the moderator posts
he is officially killing the thread, and further posts on that will be rejected (and should be taken to email). sure. namedroppers@ops.ietf.org works that way, as an example of one such. I am not in a position to argue this one either way - I don't sub to
Prefiltering to suit *any* one individuals opinion of what is or isn't on topic seems highly suspect for any list, and unacceptable on a list supposedly to define policy. so in order for a policy-defining forum to be considered representative, it must be open to all posts on all topics from all parties at all times? no, but it must be open to anything even *remotely* on topic, or how can you make a balanced judgement? If individual people are offensive to individual readers, they have killfilters... Meta-discussion (to a certain extent) must also be on topic -
Note I have never read the list in question, so am arguing on general principles here, not this specific instance..... perhaps a parallel
setup (with $listname and $listname-filtered) could be set up with
perfectly there is a difference between a handslap by private email and censorship by selectively rejecting posts; there is also a much bigger difference between a handslap over something already posted (even in public) and precensorship by making sure the rest of the list never see the posts in question in the first place. that that list, having little to contribute. If you say that namedroppers is not in the class of lists I am attacking, then I am happy to take your word for it :) particularly discussion of the list charter. list posts
making it to the second list only with moderator approval? i'm sure that if one were set up it would be used by many people. (not me.) I don't see why not - if it were reversed (and $listname and $listname-unfiltered) would that be more acceptable to you? it would even be transparent (you need change nothing, and everything will look just as it was)