I urge strongly that we support Marcello unequivocally on this point.
His record is outstanding and his longstanding struggle to reconcile the
rights of individuals with the health of the list is one that I doubt
anyone wants to take over, or that anyone wants anyone else to take
over.
It is evident from the archives that Marcello has been pushed to this
only with the utmost reluctance. It only needs a little imagination to
realise that such a decision also has been taken after much consultation
and consideration of the pros and cons of alternatives. Neither past
evidence nor present imagination can answer the question of exactly how
well it will work, but no one is saying anything is forever.
Nick
[email protected]
Schaffer, Mark E
Umm... I think Marcello's posting to the list has all the details of the
new policy, no?
I too was very unhappy about the whole business. I am sure Marcello
considered alternative solutions before settling on this one in
particular. But ex ante screening of membership is labour-intensive
(Eric's first point), makes the list less open (my point), and may not
stop the problem from happening again (Eric's second point).
Personally, I would have opted for ex post banning for bad behaviour
instead of ex ante screening.
Just my 0.02, as they say. I freely admit that it's easy to kibbitz
from the sidelines, and that if I knew what Marcello knows, I could
reach the same conclusion as he did.
Martin Weiss
> Wait a minute before you torpedo a policy whose details you
> do not know yet!
> The bleeding had to be stopped! Remember, we were down to
> nationalities and mother tongues as arguments!
Schaffer, Mark E
> My reaction was similar to Eric's. Making Statalist less
> open, even if ever so slightly, may not be worth it if events
> like these happen only once every decade or so.
DE SOUZA Eric
> > Does it happens often enough for you to spend so much time on it
> > screening new applicants?
Marcello Pagano
> > My apologies for allowing the tenor of the list to degrade.
> > We have now made a change to see if we can stop this from happening
> > again. For those currently on the list the change will not
> affect you
> > other than you will possibly experience an improved tenor. New
> > subscribers will have to go through a screening process
> that will add
> > time, hopefully less than a day, before they can subscribe. The
> > screening process is designed to keep some, hopefully very
> few, people
> > out.
> >
> > Thank you all for your patience while we cleared this mess
> up.
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