Some details on a moderated pianotech

[Andrew Rudoff]

I don't have the list changes ready to go yet, but since there's
some discussion going on about what moderating pianotech means,
I thought I'd let people know what's in the works.  I've got some
travel coming up, so it will be a couple weeks at least before we
go live with it.  In the mean time I welcome comments on how it
will work: send them to ecc@ptg.org.

We're not changing pianotech.  Any post from a list subscriber, on-topic
or off-topic, will still go through (with the exception of things caught
by our virus and SPAM filters, of course).  So please do not feel you have
to argue against moderating the list.  If you just stay subscribed to
pianotech, you'll received all posts, unmoderated, as you always have.

What we're doing is creating a new way to view the same list.  For those
of you who do not wish to read off-topic posts, you'll subscribe to a list
called "pianotech-m" instead of "pianotech" and you'll only see the pianotech
posts that the moderator approves.  All replies and posts from members of
pianotech-m go to pianotech, just as if the subscriber was still on pianotech.
But only posts that meet certain criteria will go out to pianotech-m subscribers.

I'll say it again: pianotech is not changing.  We're just giving people
a new way to view the posts if they choose to use it.  And it is important
to understand that this is an *experiment* and if we don't like the way it
turns out or if we cannot keep the moderator position staffed, we'll just
consider it a failed experiment and no harm will be done.

Here are some ideas on the guidelines a moderator could use to decide if
a post goes through to pianotech-m.  Again, all messages would still go out
on the regular pianotech list, so saying a message is "dropped" below simply
means it doesn't go out on pianotech-m.

- If it contains nothing piano-related, it is dropped.

     [ so everthing below refers to posts that *are* piano related...]

- If the moderator considers the post to be flamebait, vulgar, or rude
   it is droppped.

- If it contains a joke, but no serious content, it is dropped.

- If it contains a redundant reply, one which is equivalent to an earlier
   post on the same thread, it is dropped.

Posters who wish to understand why their post was dropped may send mail to
pianotech-m-owner@ptg.org and ask.  Feedback on how to tweak these rules is
welcome but no promises are made -- posters annoyed that their posts were
dropped are reminded that the post still went out on pianotech and that moderating
is not an exact science.

-andy