No longer moderator--PLEASE READ

[Jon Beasley-Murray <jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As of now, I have decided that I no longer want to be regarded as a
moderator of the marxism list.

This probably doesn't affect anybody very much, except for me, but I
thought I might as well announce this decision.

I will continue to do the admin work of putting things on the archive,
various spoon-related admin etc., especially as when Howie and Lisa took
on co-moderation some months ago I told them they need not take up their
time in such things, though they now have learnt some of it, and will no
doubt learn more.

My reasons for resigning are as much to do with my life outside and off
this list and in the "real world" as anything else--so this is not
supposed to be a criticism of how the list is or has been going.

If anyone else want to become a co-moderator, then please get in touch
with Howie or Lisa.  As always, my personal concern is to have diversity
of all sorts flourish on the list.

Some potted observations on moderation follow:

As you should know, spoon moderators do not see themselves as referees or
umpires in any way.  No posts to marxism are censored, and even the most
raucous or offensive participants on the list, even those whose
life-project seems to be to disrupt the discussion of marxism in
cyberspace, are allowed to remain on the list for as long as they
themselves can bear their pastime.  I am quite sure that Howie and Lisa
will continue this policy: though it is not the easiest one, it is, I
think, certainly the best.

So what does a moderator do?  None of us have much of an answer to that.
In the shower just now, I thought that perhaps an analogy might be the
die-hard fan of a baseball or football team.  The one who doesn't leave
after the eighth inning to get out of the carpark quicker, who keeps
buying his or her season ticket even when the team plummets down the
league, down to third or fourth division.  The "one man and his dog"
who'll be out there in the hail or the snow, even though he knows the
team doesn't have a cat in hell's chance of winning this "friendly"
against Stanley Accrington or whomever.  But he or she feels kind of
responsible, and hopes that his or her support, perhaps talking to the
players occasionally, cheering, encouraging, will pay off.  And when it
does, and the team wins a pennant or the FA cup, or even when he sees a
good goal or a tremendous double play, it's the die-hard fan who feels
most pleased, who gets most out of it.

But now, after a year or so of the list's existence, I think there are a
whole number of such fans, plenty with season tickets, who've seldom
missed a match, home or away.

Besides, the moderator does have a more public profile.  Perhaps he or
she should be imagined more as a cheerleader or mascot (the analogies to
football begin to dry up here).  Prancing around, as Bully Bull does for
the Bull Durhams, sweating in a stupid costume, he or she organizes and
encourages both fans and players, so that all concerned do their best.
Perhaps sometimes Bully Bull wants to take off his or her costume, and
sit down in the crowd, free to sneak off for a beer occasionally, to eat
a brat, to have a smoke.

And of course, the moderator also perhaps prints the program, hires the
tour bus, operates the score board, makes the announcments.  This is what
I'm happy to continue doing.

And, as with most of the other die-hard fans, the moderator comes onto
the pitch, as twelfth man, substitute, relief pitcher, whatever...
sometimes even as captain for a game or two, scoring some crucial goals
if lucky.  A kind of player-manager, a Kenny Daglish of the email world,
though under all the more scrutiny as a result.  Well, I hope to continue
kicking or throwing the ball around.

And for any who want, I can be the old gaffer who says "well, you should
have been there in the home game against Bolton Wanderers, 1932.  It was
when the team that later became great, winning the 34, 35 and 36 FA cups
began to show their promise.  Louis and Ralph as strikers, Jerry and Jim
in midfield, Steve and Paul flankers on opposite wings, Chris' capable
hands in goal...  I tell you, m'boy, though the rain was coming down in
sheets, those were the days..."

[and you could go to the chippie, take a girl to the picture palace, and
still come home with change from tuppence... and we'd walk barefoot to
school come rain or shine... none of that rubbish on the TV like there is
nowadays... I tell you, I've seen more revolutions than you've had hot
dinners...]

Take care

Jon

Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------