[TYPES] stricter moderation...?

[Stephanie Weirich]

Well, responses are coming in, both on and off list. I haven't yet  
counted whether I've received more "tighter moderation, please!" or  
"everything is ok by me" email. (Do note that, people who are happy  
with the status quo have been more likely to email me directly.)

However, I would like to clear up a few things:

* With the change to "only list members can post" I have become *a  
little* more lax, but I haven't abandoned moderation all together.  
Mailman does give me an interface to reject messages with an  
appropriate response, and I do reject them! It is technologically  
feasible, and not too much trouble, for me to reject *more*  
messages---we just need to fine tune where the dividing line should be.

* My intuition is that the reason the list contains more conference  
announcements and less discussion is not completely due to weaker  
moderation. There are more conferences out there (types have infected  
places like security, database systems (through XML) and quantum  
programming languages), and for some reason, people have not used the  
list as much recently for discussion. I, like many, would like to see  
more discussion. I don't really believe that more announcements  
equals less talk, but that is a point of contention. I am willing to  
post a monthly reminder about the purpose of the list, but that would  
be even more non-signal email.

* As of today, there are 1560 subscribers to TYPES. We have been  
slowly gaining members as long as I have moderated the list.

* I am attracted by the idea of separating the list into an  
announcement version and a discussion version. The best way would be  
for me to just sort the messages as they come in to the appropriate  
list, but I don't think mailman supports that feature.

Please keep sending me your thoughts---I'll tally them up and send  
out the results after the holidays.

--Stephanie Weirich
TYPES forum moderator