Dear List Owners,
I have been on this list for months and what I've mostly seen
are (wonderful) technical discussions, I therefore don't know if
it's appropriate to ask your help on the following topic.
It's about net behaviors -- if this is the wrong place, please
ignore the following and point me the right place to go. Thanks.
* * * *
I started to become the list owner of CHPOEM-L at the beginning
of the year. The list is about 3 years old (there was no active
list owner last year), and it's a forum for people who are
interested in Chinese literature, with the emphasis on poetry.
The common language used in the list is Chinese.
Although I am nowhere near writing a poem myself, I have enjoyed
the work by many of the list users. Sometimes, however, there
are nearly out-of-control verbal fights which greatly irritated
the silent and innocent majority. A very few have used INCREDIBLY
foul language blended with personal attacks and sexual harrasment.
The magnitude of the nastiness is beyond my imagination...
Needless to say, I have been pondering how to stop this.
Some netters who cannot bear the verbal polution have stood up
and voiced their anger, but sometimes they became so emotional
-- I am in no mood to joke, but they are, after all, poets --
that more chances were created for the dirty mouths to open.
Don't we have list rules? Not really, and as I mentioned above,
I became the list owner just a few months ago and was not a
member until only a couple of months before that -- I saw no
list owner and volunteered the position. I had no idea what was
coming.
Now, I am certainly against foul behaviors and the abuse of
freedom of speech. Unfortunately I am a person who's probably
too mild and too patient; I personally don't want to see any
hard rules on this list with merely 150 people, for example, and
I don't want to set precedence of kicking anyone out -- unless
some of you convince me to change my mind. I am here to ask for
your help -- your kind hearts and rich experience -- how do I
balance the control of the net behavior and the freedom of their
writing activities? Have some of you encountered similar situ-
ation and how did you handle it? -- It might not be the main
responsibility of a list owner at all, but as a member of list,
I'd like to do anything to help the situation.
Any help will be appreciated.
Kindest regards,
Jim Yu
--
Go isn't everything. Go is the only thing. -- zhuge
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