Anthea said:
 
> I have the extreme misfortune to own a large (3,800 +) academically-oriented
. . .
> number of postings has increased explosively and their pedagogical value has
> declined precipitously.  In fact, about 85% of our postings are worthless.
 
> (Please do not suggest a moderated or edited list....that is out of the
> question for reasons of philosophy and time)
 
You have my sympathy.  We have recently made the transition to
full moderation for one of our KIDLINK lists.  Our lists are for
kids, so the issues are very different, but some of our
experience may be relevant.
 
I had no inclination to do the message reviewing myself.  I
recruited a team of moderators.  There are four of them, but only
two are now actively doing it.  I got an account that is used by
the moderator team and not for anything else.  The moderators
telnet to this account and review the messages that have arrived.
Each message is approved or rejected with a form letter.  We are
*not* having any difficulty coordinating the work of the
moderators because they all use the same account and review the
messages that have arrived since the last person did it.
 
> Which brings me to the daily threshold.  Ours has been at the default (50
. . .
> But supposing I DON'T issue the "FREE" command? What happens to the held
> messages?  Do they get held over to the next day (and added to that day's
> total)? Do they get discarded at the end of the day?
 
I've assumed that they are *not* discarded.  I'm sure the
LISTSERV manager has a way to dump messages out of the queue, but
I've never seen anything hinting that owners can do it.
 
> If the held messages are simply discarded when no "FREE" command is issued,
> I think that I might have the solution to our "list-pollution" problem! I
> would like to hear from owners who have some experience with this.  Here is
> my idea:  Rather than RAISE the daily threshold to accommodate the increased
> traffic, how about LOWERING it?
 
> Since many of our members complain bitterly about the large message traffic
> and the low level of substance on the list, I feel that lowering the threshold
> and announcing it to the members might cause people to think more carefully
> before posting and then to post only that which will add to our knowledge or
> understanding of our field.  I am hoping that people who use up the low
> threshold will be flamed into compliance!
 
I would expect people to be *very* angry if they spent time
writing a serious and appropriate message and then it got lost.
 
Here is another idea for you:  Moderate the list, but don't
reject any messages--just approve N messages per day.  Send a
daily note telling people how many messages are in the queue.  If
you are approving 30 per day, a queue of 90 means that their
message will appear in 3 days.  Slowing down the exchange would
make people think a lot more about what they post.
 
> anyway, but I think that it would hurt many members who have legitimate
> academic interest in the stated purpose of the list and who are pained by its
> current gutter level.
 
Could you get some of them to be volunteer moderators?  If you
got seven of them, each person would only have to do it one day a
week.
 
Good luck with this.
 
                          Peace,  Dan
 
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