Hi Louise,

Who does the list _belong_ to? Are you the owner, or are you running it
for an organization? If it is _your_ list, then you have every right to
decide how you want to run it. If you are running it for someone else,
then yet again, you must enforce _their_ policies.

I also run a support group. It belongs to me. I pay for it (well, it's an
employee benefit, but I pay for it in the sense that I have to keep
working for L-Soft to keep it, and if I ever leave L-Soft [perish the
thought!], I will have to start shelling out real $$ to keep it going.) As far
as I'm concerned, it's the same as hosting a party. I have every right to
ask people to leave my house if I feel that they are mistreating the other
guests or scratching up the furniture. Just because you have opened up
your list to total strangers -- a "public" list -- does not mean it belongs
to the "public". It belongs to you and you are totally justified in running it
the way you see fit, and requiring that people be civil to each other when
they are in your "home". If they don't like it, they are free to pay for their
own list and run it the way they want to.

If nobody "talks to you that way anywhere" then there's no reason you
should have to put up with it on your list. Indeed, if someone on my list
did that, I would delete them, put every one of their known addresses in
the header under "Filter=Also,...".

My list is set up with Default-Options=Review, and I take new
subscribers off of review once I've determined that they are not
spammers or trouble makers. (Generally after the first post -- just don't
publicize that to the list or the person can get back on by pretending to
be nice on the first post).

I've only had to do that with one member in the 2 years that I've been
running the list. He was civil to me, and mostly civil _on_ the list, but
then he would send scathing remarks privately to people who posted,
telling them that they were idiots for asking such stupid questions or
making such moronic statements. Several people signed off the list
before one of them told me about it. I gave him a warning. He persisted,
and I kicked him off. Haven't seen him since. I still felt a little bad,
because if anyone on the list needed help, he certainly did. But I
decided that I personally do not have the resources to help him, and I
had to protect the rest of my list. Hopefully, if he gets kicked off enough
lists, he might eventually get the professional help he needs so much. I
am very determined that NO ONE is going to use MY list for abusing
other people, even if it's by collecting addresses to abuse via private
emails. If the abusive remark is made in response to a post to the list,
even if it's done privately, then it still falls under list guidelines. The point
is that you do not want people to be scared to post to the list, and if
they are subject to private abuse for posting publicly, then it still falls
under the list guidelines. You might want to make that point explicit in
the list guidelines.

There is no dilemna. You did the right thing.

Francoise