The number of posts per day is irrelevant, if they're helpful. Off-topic posts are another story. LEt me tell you what it's like being the moderator of this list. Not a day goes by when you don't get a deluge of e-mail. Half the people say you're being to strict with enforcing the rules, the other half say you're too relaxed and shouldn't be letting all the off-topic posts through. The best you can hope to do is to be consistent, and that inconsistency makes you a little unpopular with just about everyone, instead of being loved by half and hated by the other half. But if you're consistent, at least people know waht to expect. In many respects, being list moderator is about the most thankless job around, because with very few exceptions, the only feedback you get is when someone's mad at you. You might find a post terribly interesting, but you know that to let it through would be against the list policy, and if you don't enforce the policy, what's the point in having one. So you stop it. If the person is moderated, you prevent the message from going through and get yelled at by the poster who feels all his or her psts are relevant. Otherwise you have to decide if a public or private reprimand is in order. If public, you wind up with a dozen "I agree"'s and another dozen "I disagrees", which themselves contravene list policy, and you have to decide how to deal with it. If your reprimand is private, then the person invariably feels singled out because they don't realize that other people have received similar warnings. Then there are the posts which are borderline, but you feel they are relevant. Invariably, you have a bunch of people saying that it's really off-topic and why did you let it through. Then the people who felt singled out by your rejection of their postings wondering why you let these other messages through. On top of all that, you ahve the people who just can't figure out how to read the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of the message, and on top of all that you have people with real problems who genuinely require your assistance, and sometimes you find yourself snapping at these legitimate requests for help just because of all the other crap you've had to put up with. When I gave up moderatorship, we were at around 600 people, and I found that moderating this list was cutting into my real job. I couldn't afford that, and who knows how much the list has grown since I stopped moderating it. Just thought you might like a glimpse into the life of the list moderator. Bruce -- Bruce Toews E-mail and MSN/Windows Messenger: water_drinker@xxxxxxxx Web Site (including info on my weekly commentaries): http://www.ogts.net For information on my weekly radio show visit http://radioclassics.ogts.net On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, Francis Daniels wrote: > I'm with Jack on the issue as to how many posts we should do per day. If I > am on a list, I want to participate. Isn't that why the list is there? If > I see that some one has responded to an issue, and if I have something to > add, I will add to it. There are some days where I listen in but not add to > the thread. Sorry, but I'm not going to count how many posts I write. > > Francis > > > -- > To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to > jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. > Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw > > If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the > way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the > list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > -- To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx