You'll all let me be a little sarcastic in think about the following:
"In the US the Right of Free Speech is only limited by the right of the
listeners to bear arms. On the cyber-highway, there ain't no cyber-guns
yet, so many US citizens see their only limit lifted"

That said, I've experienced a month of debate on Free Speech when I
recently proposed that the co-owners set both flamer and flamee to
REVIEW to act as a sprinkler on flame fest ... The Free Speech advocated
all along that we should not even vote for that and that I was a
Neo-Nazi Censor with no support. The proposal was beaten 8 CON to 5 PRO
(81/48) exactly ... From this I gather that often the *voicy few* poison
the list ...  The Free Speech groupp actively monitors the Internet ...
I had an ACLU lawyer use ACLU contacts to intervain in the debate.
(PS the opening US comment from that our our list is about 70% US based
but those for laissez-faire counted less than 10% of US votes against
40% if the for pro-active measure being non-US)

My point was it is *not* a Free Speech issue but it was Free Blues
against Free Flames ... And I demonstrated it by sending a mail to all
list subscribers without using the list address ... So what you
subscribers must understand is that the only thing you are regulating is
the accepptable behavior to use your list address ... Check with your
hosting site if they have policies. Brown only asks that each list be
managed responsibly and users treated fairly ...

I have *no* respect for those making a political ativist forum from a
music oriented list as our list (now if your list is about politics you
are in quite a ride) ...

Final after 2 weeks frantic e-mailings we adopted the following:
1)- Welcome letter explaining the list dynamics to new comers
2)- A list posting guide (no enforcement only educationnal value) to be
written given more specifics details along with info Netiquette e-mail
and promoting the "spam" approach towards offensive/unwanted post
3)- Monthly posting of that
4)- Promote the Guide via private mail by list members, and encourage
list memebers to use private mail to give positive/negative feedback to
posters
5) - A "Welcome wagon" comittee, for those who want to be notified of
new comers to give them tricks and ease them in the finer nuances of the
list grey area
6)- Using TOPICS: for "teeth grinding" topics ... In your case you could
have NLRC: No list Related Content and the few hundreds annoyed by the
15 making noise can let them resolve it between themselves
7) - More volunteer co-owners, yeah right! But it's nice to dream ...

I would strongly suggest you go for a vote and get list approval for the
way you want to do things ... If they say NO then you have a choice
either you stay or they find someone else to cater to their "Free Seech"
needs ... You can even propose that way ... The other approach requiring
more time, effort and patience is the "educationnal" approach ...

Not if things get very very rough: Look into the QUIET keywords some
experienced owners do perform "surgical removals" in case of a dangerous
tumor i.e. extreme case ... It you list is set to auto-delete who knows
what can happen when a backbone might gone haywire ... Stranger things
have happened ... I'm not advocating it but this was suggested to me.

Don Cichetti had in his sig file:
"It is up to us to create pplaces worthy of our affection"
I don't recall to whom credit the citation but I think it fits the
situation perfectly ...

Now if you are paid to own the list, they just do what you boss tells
you or wat the majority of the paying customers want :-)

For a sample INFO file and Welcome letter send:
GET BLUES-L WELCOME
INFO BLUES-L
to: [log in to unmask]

*and please* edit out any reference to BLUES-L I've got my own Free
Speech Lawyers :-)) ...

In short you already have war so what could be worse ? Try a
compromise... And since we are at the suggestion stage: Eveness and
humor  in public post and civility (even against flaming) will go a long
way in preserving your blood pressure, sanity and peer esteem on your
list ...

Standard disclaimer: YMMV, IANAL, Void where prohibited by law etc ...

Good luck !

PS See Maureen you're not alone !
--
Eric Paul-Hus