Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 13:40:25 -0500 From: Den Collins & Dickens Subject: Re: Is some kind of moderation preferable ? To: LSTOWN-L@SEARN.SUNET.SE I am a member of the Corgi-L Administration Team. We were set up late last summer in an effort to relieve the two list owners from the daily grind of errors and questions from our about 750 subscriber list. About 10 members of Corgi-l volunteered to become Administrators. A few, like myself, are now in the list header as Owners. We deal with the technical stuff. The rest are the Cordial Correction Cops (for lack of a better term). They rotate weeks taking care of the netiquette issues like TYPING IN ALL CAPS, or reminding the digest folks to alter the subject line when they respond to a digest posting. To date this has worked out fairly well for us. The one list owner who had been handling most of the errors and daily work of the list changed jobs in October. We were able to continue without interruption until she settled into the new job and got her email account active. The setup for us involves 3 lists. Corgi-L is the original and main list. Corgi-AD was set up for the Administrators to communicate without getting the whole list involved. Corgi-ER receives the error reports from Corgi-L. Both administrative lists are as private as the listserv software can make them. The only minor opening is in Corgi-AD. We set this up so that anyone can post to Corgi-AD. This way any subscriber who wishes to complain, query, ask for assistance, can contact all the administrators without having to know our individual addresses. There aren't may problems, but this has helped to keep the "How do I get off this list?" from going to all the subscribers. The bottom banner of each posting gives the address of Corgi-AD. New subscribers are set to Review. After a few postings of non- inflammatory nature they are removed from review. We think we had a couple of "trolls" last fall. This is our method of trying to avoid this creature in the future. To date, we have succeeded. Trolls seem to want a quick thrill. Having to wait a few weeks to post without going through a Moderator takes the thrill away from them. (We hope.) This setup has provided a way to "test" new settings and policies before springing the on the entire list. If we like it on Corgi-AD then we move it to Corgi-L. This has helped to keep the list running smoothly. We are international with most subscribers in the US and Canada. Australia and New Zealand don't have the language barrier. France, Finland, Norway, and Japan have a fair representation. We have managed to make just about everyone feel at home. Local Geographical groups have started to have picnics and gathering to meet in person. Good luck with whatever you decide. - - - - - < < < < < * > > > > > - - - - - Dickens, COMH (PWC) dcollins@hoflink.com Den Collins, MOHH (HS) http://hoflink.com/~dcollins Hicksville, Long Island, New York The home of Spotted Corgi Cookies. Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 08:42:28 -0500 (EST) From: Den Collins & Dickens To: Sylvia Caras On Sun, 9 Feb 1997, Sylvia Caras wrote: > I'm writing an article and collecting some resources about owning > on a gopher. > > May I add to what I have already your post to LSTOWN? Sorry for the delay in responding. I wanted to check with the other folks in my group to see if I had our story correct. There seem to be no major omissions. I never thought our little corner of the 'net would make a contribution in an area like this.