Into the Web.. Some Creepy Crawlies Will Fall

Did you happen to see the episode of "The West Wing" where Josh finds out there is an online forum dedicated to him, and Donna has to teach him how not to interact with them? The memorable line, after Josh's disagreement with the moderator's take on something he did and he becomes her target rather than her hero, is "The women who run these things are mumu wearing chain-smoking harpies" -- I think she said "harpies" -- who live to attack. These moderators come in all gender, size and tonsorial types, but the essence is true. There are a lot of Internet tyrants out there.

My rant for today is these discussion group despots who make it their personal quest to destroy communication for everyone. Now let me tell you, I have run llists since 1994, at least some years before many of these control freaks could reach a keyboard. There is a reason that I have been as successful as I have, and that is my light touch. I have one group that just had its fourteenth birthday. Another even older one I sold to new owners for $2,500. I made another grand switching two more to a new host. My groups do well, are almost always productive and civil. Why? Because I have a firm policy of "Censor the reading, not the writing."

Too many moderators think the world needs more mommies and daddies to take care of and protect them. These self-appointed guardians seem to forget that the point of online communications is.. well, communication. The "Com- in "communication" signifies something assayed together. Now I can see reasons to set up rules on groups, though the posts usually meant to eliminate are made by those who have no intention of following them. The usual rules, like no spam, no flaming, fall into the "well, duh" category. Other rules are there primarily to allow moderators to punish you. The groups I am on that are the most congenial and useful tend to be the ones that if they have rules, they are mostly guidelines and rarely enforced.

You know, my friends, that most of the groups we are on are made up of adults who are perfectly capable of deciding which emails they wish to read and which members' posts they want to avoid. Thus, "censor the redimg, not the writing". You don't have to protect your members. It is far more respectful to allow them to decide what they want to read.

One issue I have had with control freak moderators is that they often confuse enthusiasm and helpfulness with aggression on their territory. I can name a particular craft swap group that interpreted such heinous actions on my part as creating mailing labels and then sharing them with the rest of the participants as my trying to make people think I ran the group. The other problem I have is that since I have so many resources I like to share, I get accused of being on lists only to promote myself. I have even been characterized as spamming.. oh I see, when I ask members of a group for titles for my medieval-novels.com site, I am as awful as anyone trying to sell their list members fake Viagara... Well, villains get all the best lines, so I should probably call it good. Most of the time though the issue is just that I post what I am thinking or doing and that gets under their skin for no reason I can fathom. Do the moderators ask the members if they mind my posts? No way. That would give away their control.

Yes, I know there are lots of legit reasons to guide discussions on a group. Relevance, a safe environment, etc. But most of the time it's far more judicious to allow your members/subscribers to make their own choices. The result will not be chaos, not in my experience. The result will be a vibrant, healthy online community.

Now, c'mon! Look at that sweet smiling face? Do I really look like I am interested in challenging your control? Do I look like a rapacious pouncer-on? Don't you just want to sit me down on your softest chair cushion and offer me a hot cup of jasmine tea and your purring-est cat to hold? If she doesn't bite, I won't.