>From: "gb savage" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>a) keep the discussion relevant
>b) no personal attacks, threatening language etc
>c) hone your listening ability, support democratic exchange
>d) encourage diversity
>e) attend to logic and relevance of your own posts, be wrong gracefully
>f) not a drop in centre
>
All these points (except maybe the last which I think is a matter of
opinion) should go without saying. The problem with codifying them is that
it won't have any effect. I say this based on extensive experience with
many different on line forums. First of all, nobody reads the rules, or if
they do they forget them instantly. Then subsequently everyone who breaks
the rules insists that they are not breaking them. For instance:
a) keep the discussion relevant
"This is too relevant! Poetry is supposed to deal with
political issues (or sports or social fashions or ...)
b) no personal attacks, threatening language etc
"I was not making a personal attack, I was merely responding
to the personal attack made on ME, which I could not allow
to go unrefuted...", or "I didn't threaten you, I just made a
general statement that anyone who makes cracks like that should have
their ass kicked!"
c) hone your listening ability, support democratic exchange
"Democracy means free speech so I can say what I want!"
etc. etc. etc. In short, where the written guidelines are not ignored their
effect is just to serve as a platform for the type of discourse they were
intended to discourage. I've seen this again and again on the net; it seems
to be almost a law of net behavior.
>I'd be interested to hear some constructive ways of helping the list
>move towards more pro-social behaviour.
a) Post the sort of things you would like to see others post.
b) Do not respond to the sort of things you do not want to see
others post.
c) Use your email filter to exterminate the brutes.
===========================================
But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of man.
-- Keats
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