Re: list moderation

[David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant) wrote:
>
> I read a newspaper which prints only 4 or 5 letters out of
> 400 or 500 submitted.  Is that censorship?
>
> Our department only accepts for graduate study maybe 1 out of
> three or four applicants.  Is that censorship?
>
> I could live with some moderation.

Hell, I moderate a Usenet newsgroup which only publishes about a quarter
of the stuff that pours in.  But at least I'm frank about it: yes,
that's censorship.  I think that "If you carry on like this I shall have
to ask the list owner to moderate you" is one of the uglier
Orwellianisms of the late 20th century.  Why not say "censor" when you
mean censor?

Greg's problem is that he underestimates the difficulty of censorship in
many situations.  I have it easy on sci.econ.research; ideologists,
yahoos, and kids who want their homework done for them are pretty easy
to identify.  (The last large category get a polite note telling them to
RTFFAQ.)  On a discussion group, by contrast, it is difficult to tell
who is serious and who is just some fool on auto-pilot carrying on
faculty-club blither by other means.

                                 -dlj.