moderating the pkt list

[rholt@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Pkters,
I was going to wait until after Warren's seminar before sending out this
message, but given the number of recent flaming and personal messages that
have been sent over pkt recently this is the approporiate time. I have spent
a lot of time thinking about whether pkt should become a moderated list. I
have not been happy with what has been going on and something needs to be
done. I find it absolutely ironic that we have been carrying on a discussion
over pkt about the difficulty of having heterodox views discussed in the
media, while having the behavior of some people on this list actually kill a
forum that wants to support heterodox discussion! Also some people act like
it's their right to participate on pkt instead of a privilege. It requires a
tremendous amount of private financial resources and time by certain
individuals to keep pkt running and free. All the messages that are sent
over pkt are saved forever.
This cost money. The idea behind pkt is to allow a free and open forum that
discusses post Keynesian issues where the messages sent will be stored for
future scholars. I'm not interested in saving messages that simply flame
people. I'm determined to get pkt back to it's original mission. But what is
the most appropriate action to take?  I have consulted with numerous people
about this, and an old pro of discussion groups made the following observations:


>Your message below does indeed address my issue.  Let me make a more
>complete statement of the problem:  I think that if you want to
>genuinely raise the level of conversation, you'll be faced with charges
>of censorship and if you avoid charges of censorship you won't
>raise the quality of conversation.
>
>There are two models of moderation.  The most common is
>  xxx and xxx-cafe
>  xxx and xxx-cafe
>  xx  and xx-cafe
>  xxx and xxx-cafe
>where the cafe version is unmoderated.  In those cases, we retained
>the original listname for the moderated version and asked those
>who didn't want moderation to migrate to the cafe version.  That's
>what caused unending outcries of censorship and freedom of speech.
>
>Another model is xx and xxx:
>xx is the original and still-unmoderated list and xxx is the one-year
>old moderated list.  In this case, people who wanted moderation were
>asked to migrate to xxx.  the list owner was not charged with censorship.
>
>People tend to be stationary and not move as one can see from the
>subscriptions below where the right-hand side is the list to which
>people had to migrate.
>
>orig-list   new-list
>xxx (1000) xxx-cafe (5)
>xxx (700)  xxx-cafe (40)
>xx  (600)  xx-cafe  (10)
>xxxx (300) xxxx-cafe (5)
>xx  (900)   xxx  (150)
>
>xxx keeps growing because traffic is low but xxxxx is disappointed because
>there is so little from xx that he wants to approve for xxx and
>moderation takes time.  It's certainly not the 'refereed journal' that
>he sort of hoped for -- the main conversation is still back on xx.
>
>Some other lists are moderated and/or have limits, but those
>above (plus yet a minor variant with xxxxx) are our dual lists.
>
>I doubt that people will complain if you leave their playground, pkt,
>unchanged and start a moderated version of the list.  If you only get
>about 30 people to migrate, will it be worth your time to moderate?
>Perhaps you could write all your former unsubs and invite them back --
>that probably won't get many to return, but perhaps 20 or so.  Just
>remember that most people are stationary and won't migrate even if they
>basically prefer moderation.
>
>If you run your's like xxxx runs his, then all mail
>To: xxx   is posted on xx automatically and to the xxx moderators
>To  xx    is posted on xx automatically and to the xxx moderators
>
>Moderation is hard to sustain -- everyone tires of it.
>You might require some volunteer moderators before
>proceeding with moderation.
>
>Subscription Problem: You can make it very clear in the
>web area that there is a choice to exercise before subscribing.
>If someone subs to PKT, you can put a reminder inthe welcome
>message that there's a moderated alternative.  You can tell them
>to unsub pkt and sub the moderated version, but I an assure you
>that they typically won't go to the trouble.
>
>ALL our moderators have been surprised, very surprised, at how high
>their rejection rates have been.  They usually think they're approving
>90% when they are in fact approving less than 50%.  It's natural because
>there's so much noise -- we're all habituated to hitting the del key
>as we skip through our overflowing mailboxes.  So you might wind up
>with 60 people on the moderated list and spending your time protecting
>them from the noise.  I think that's what xxxx is doing,
>
>xxx grows because traffic is low but xxx subscribers aren't interacting
>much.  So rather than creating a refereed journal, xxx is spending
>his time keeping so a lot of stuff out of xxxers mailboxes.  He's not
>raising the level of conversation bec he's not moderating the large
>list.  If, alternatively, you followed the xxxxx strategy and
>moderated pkt while creating pkt-cafe for anyone who felt pkt was
>censored, you'll face howls of protest.  Since the protestors can join
>pkt-cafe.  they can't be howling about your censorship of mail coming
>into *their* mailbox.  What they are implicitly complaining about is
>that some people should move to pkt-cafe but they won't and, therefore,
>these other peoples' mailboxes are getting censored.  I.e., their
>argument is patronizing to the other subscribers.  So if you want to
>raise the level of conversation, you need to moderate the big list but
>if you do you'll get charged with censorship.
>
 is this a waste of time?  -Ric
>
>If you create pkt-moderated, you'll spend a lot of your life in a
>thankless but socially helpful job saving your 60 pkt-moderated
>listmembers from having to waste their life hitting the del key --
>you do it for them.  It also takes/wastes time to find others to
>do the moderation.  xxxx spent considerable time finding two others to
>help moderate xxx last year but I think they quit.

I have decided that pkt will continue to be an unmoderated list, but now
there will be very strong rules that must be followed. When people decide to
subscribe to pkt there will be a message sent to them explaining the purpose
of pkt and the general "golden rules" for civilized discussion. I want
people to recognize that participating over pkt is a privilege and not a
right. The focus of the discussions have to do with post Keynesian economics
defined in a broad way. You shouldn't feel obligated to send a message
everyday, or use pkt as your own personal public platform. In the future, I
will enforce the following guidelines:

Except for the seminars, you shouldn't send anymore than three message a
day. Pkt is a very active list and we need to make the number of messages
sent over pkt managable. Also the cost to us in storing these messages is
going up, and so to keep pkt free we need to control the flow of messages.
If someone after numerous warnings continues to break this rule they will be
taken off the pkt list.

There is absolutely no reason to send a message over pkt that flames
someone. After a number of warnings, if a person continues to do this they
will be taken off the pkt list.

People should not feel obligated to tell us their personal philosophy or
views about every issue under the sun. I want our discussions to cover many
different areas and topics, but there are limits. If I believe that a
discussion is simply being dragged to the ground or has no relevancy to the
pkt mission then I will ask people to stop the discussion. If particular
individuals continue after numerous warnings they will be taken off the pkt
list.

Some people have argued that I should make pkt just a list for professoinal
economists, and this would improve the quality of conversation. I disagree
with this, and doesn't follow the lines of post Keynesian thought. Some of
the best discussion on this list has come about from people outside of
economics. But it should be remember that the topic being discussed is
fairly focused -- post Keynesian economics and that the tilt here is mostly
toward scholarly pursuits. Now, I have given myself a lot of authority.
I don't like it, but something has to be done. And there is only so much I
can do. Many post Keynesian economists have complained that they find too
much "noise" over pkt and not enough discussion of post keynesian issues.
But these same people never made any contributions to the discussion! For
example, recently a very important post Keyensian died ( though he claimed
not to be a post Keynesian), Hyman Minsky. Outside of Randy Wray there has
been very little discussion about his work.  I'll do what I can to control
the flaming, but the quality of discussion, the topics covered are up to the
members of pkt. One of the most successful parts of pkt has been our
seminars. Volunteer to do a seminar that will help the quality. I have asked
people to put up their working papers and provide class syllabi for the pkt
archives that can also improve the quality. Bring your research into the pkt
discussions. Respond to the needs of undergraduate and graduate students who
request reading lists over pkt. And be tolerant! To stay an unmoderated list
means that you are going to receive messages that you don't like, but I've
tried to put a limit on this. Don't get involved with a flaming war -- just
ignore it if someone starts egging you on, think about the list and the
people on this list instead of one's ego.

The issues we are facing on pkt are not uncommon. But for pkt to remain an
open and free list will require uncommon behavior. We are facing an
important crossroad for pkt. It's up to you.

-Ric Holt
editor of pkt