On 14 Jun 01, at 18:04, Noctifer@aol.com wrote:

> And yes, I know full well that most other listservs, particularly on
> pheonix, are more heavily moderated than this one...this one's _still_
> too heavily moderated for my tastes, at times.  It has a tradition
> that has been slowly eroded away over the past few years.  The
> decrease in readership and postings reflects this, I think.  People
> are afraid to post their ideas because if they seem too rude in
> expressing them or too controversial, they know they'll get squished.

Something I considered but didn't actually type, or if I did, blame 
senility:

There are two types of "rudeness."(1)  One is simple personal 
rudeness.  The other is more complicated.  It involves a group with 
history and traditions, and being rude to outsiders as both defense 
mechanism and initiation rite.  GMAST used to have the latter type 
of rudeness.  When the group dissolved, that went away.  People 
still unthinkingly offer/accept this as justification for simple 
personal rudeness, in misguided nostalgia for a time when the 
group was a cohesive social unit.


Qualifications:  I have, over the course of many years, drifted in 
to GMAST, decided the group did not sufficiently jibe with my 
personality, and drifted out again.  No animosity (hence the repeat 
drifts), it just never clicked for me.  But I do know a little bit of its 
history and personality as a result, and from an outsider's 
standpoint.  (Thus, "qualifications" is used in both senses of the 
word.)

1 - There is also "abuse."  Posting obscenities for their own sake is 
abuse.  I'm fairly certain that if I agreed with Mr. Feldhusen's 
sentiments concerning a religious war by saying "Yeah, fuck /that/ 
noise," I wouldn't encounter much official resistance.  I may be 
wrong.

----------------------------------------------------------------
GMAST Home Page:  http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/