Oy, and I thought it was obvious..

[kengr]

As some of you know, I run a mailing list for a local SCA group.

A few days ago a long time friend who was the moderator for the list (I just handle the technical stuff) posted a note saying she was stepping down and anyone who wanted to apply for the position should contact me.

When after a couple of days there were *no* responses, I posted a note of my own noting this and saying that they *really* didn't want me to have to take over the task.

Gee. I got three responses in less than 24 hours.

But *all* of them asked the same question. One that floored me.

They wanted to know what the list moderator *did*!!!???

I more or less winged it, but then threw together a post to list list going into more details.

Still, I'm wondering if the problem is me, or everybody else.

Comments

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Has the moderater had to use her power very much? I find it hard to imagine that any group can manage politeness well enough that the moderator can be invisible most of the time. But if she's been at this long enough, and not been needed very often, some people might not realize that the list has a moderator.

[morgan-gw.livejournal.com]

As the owner or moderator of several lists on which the only thing I need to do is change people from moderated to un-moderated status once they prove themselves to not be spam-bots, I can say with certainty that it _is_ possible :-). SCAdians do seem to be better at this than the general population, but then again we're a group self-selected for a belief in courtesy (usually, the only time I see moderators speak up on SCA lists has less to do with politeness than it does a thread having drifted off-topic *g*).

We're not perfect, of course, and I'm on non-SCA lists that are equally light on the need for moderator input, but really, most of the times when I see calls for moderation, it's on a list that's getting spammed from outside (and the moderator's gone AWOL so no one else can change the settings).

[kengr]

Since (due to a bug in the list software which isn't likely to get fixed because I'm the *only* person on the host using it!!!) I have to subscribe/unsubscribe folks manually.

And the list is set to bounce posts from non-subscribers. So spambots can't get on the list (they'd have to know to send the request to my email address for SCA related stuff. Which has nothing but the domain in common with the list address.

[morgan-gw.livejournal.com]

Our baronial lists (which I also moderate) are on Mailman, with the "bounce non-subscribers" option, though I have it set to notify me so that if someone posts who may want to be subscribed (or who may think they are when they aren't) I can let it post if I choose and then contact the person about their list status.

Sounds like, even with the manual sub/unsub, moderating that list is pretty light duty -- I'd hate to have to moderate a list where I had to make regular judgment calls on what to allow for a populace that was contentious enough to make that necessary in the first place :-).

[kengr]

I get copies of the "bounce" messages for the list. I get about 100 spams for every actual "legit post from non-subscriber"

Requires a bit of massaging to get the bounce turned into a proper forward, but it doesn't happen that often.

But that and subs are my job. The moderating is the "cat herding" part of the list maintenance. Fortunately, the members aren't too bad. :-)