[activities] Re: Comments on "mailing list policy"

["Silvia Pfeiffer" <silviapfeiffer1@xxxxxxxxx>]

We have had multiple incidents of flame wars on the SLUG mailing
lists, which this has to address.

One way to address it is that we ultimately warn the people that they
will lose SLUG membership and be expelled from the mailing list. Since
such an ultimate consequence is quite substantial, and therefore there
may well be a case for putting the ground rules of behaviour on SLUG
mailing lists into the constitution and explaining the consequences.

Cheers,
Silvia.


On 5/8/07, activities-request@xxxxxxxxxxx
<activities-request@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mary Gardiner <mary@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: activities@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 04:23:47 +1000
> Subject: [activities] Comment on "mailing list policy"
> On Mon, May 07, 2007, Zhasper wrote:
> > If you'd like to comment on those changes, or to suggest further changes,
> I
> > look forward to your post on the Activities list :)
>
> Re "addition of a mailing list policy": the policy is not there yet so
> we can't get details, but why does this need to be a *constitutional*
> change?
>
> Things specified in our constitution are very difficult to change.
> Mailing list policy, unless you're very careful not to do this, tends to
> be software specific or at the very least, forum specific (ie, if SLUG,
> heaven forbid, sets up a web forum at some point, you immediately have
> to call an SGM to set up policy for it to go with the mailing list
> policy). If you are very careful to avoid all of this, you end up with
> very vaguely worded policy. If the policy is agreed to by the committee
> and established outside the constitution, it can be more specific,
> because it's easier to change it.
>
> The constitution, as far as I can see, specifies:
>  - the process of becoming a financial member
>  - the process of getting voting rights (happens to be the same as being
>    a financial member)
>  - the governance via an elected committee
>
> Unless you want to set up some system where mailing list membership
> equals voting rights, surely the committee or its delegates can set up
> mailing list policy without adding it to the constitution itself.
>
> -Mary
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ken Wilson <kenwilso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: activities@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 09:48:14 +1000
> Subject: Re: [activities] Comment on "mailing list policy"
> agree with this
> Ken
>
> Mary Gardiner wrote:
> > On Mon, May 07, 2007, Zhasper wrote:
> >> If you'd like to comment on those changes, or to suggest further changes,
> I
> >> look forward to your post on the Activities list :)
> >
> > Re "addition of a mailing list policy": the policy is not there yet so
> > we can't get details, but why does this need to be a *constitutional*
> > change?
> >
> > Things specified in our constitution are very difficult to change.
> > Mailing list policy, unless you're very careful not to do this, tends to
> > be software specific or at the very least, forum specific (ie, if SLUG,
> > heaven forbid, sets up a web forum at some point, you immediately have
> > to call an SGM to set up policy for it to go with the mailing list
> > policy). If you are very careful to avoid all of this, you end up with
> > very vaguely worded policy. If the policy is agreed to by the committee
> > and established outside the constitution, it can be more specific,
> > because it's easier to change it.
> >
> > The constitution, as far as I can see, specifies:
> >  - the process of becoming a financial member
> >  - the process of getting voting rights (happens to be the same as being
> >    a financial member)
> >  - the governance via an elected committee
> >
> > Unless you want to set up some system where mailing list membership
> > equals voting rights, surely the committee or its delegates can set up
> > mailing list policy without adding it to the constitution itself.
> >
> > -Mary
>
>
> --
> SLUG Activities
> Subscription info and FAQs:
> http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html