X-NUPop-Charset: English Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 18:26:30 -0600 (CST) From: "Alan Spector" Sender: spector@calumet.purdue.edu Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: revs@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Part Two: Reinventing REVS ********************ANNOUNCING REVS AND REVS-CAFE*********************** E-mail lists such as REVS are truly treading where no other form of communication has ever gone, into a veritable wilderness. It is part free bulletin board on the corner, part public speaking space, part library, part private conversations in a cafe. This creates contradictions between those who favor a completely free exchange of commentary and those who favor a focus and wish not to be distracted by what they might perceive of as "junk mail" in electronic form. Historically (given the short history of all this), e-mail lists have been of two types. "Unmoderated" lists are almost completely free flowing; anything any list member posts to the list is sent to all list members. This is how REVS has functioned for the past fifteen months. "Moderated" lists have one or more moderators who review each message and evaluate whether or not it serves the purpose of the list. At worst, moderated lists might prevent unpopular political views from being expressed; at best, moderated lists might prevent, for example, someone from posting cookie recipes to the list 50 times each day, much to the annoyance of other list members. Many people object, in principle, to moderated lists, feeling that it is an unnecessary form of censorship. On the other hand, many people quit UNmoderated lists because they do not want to spend large amounts of time reading messages that are of no interest to them in order to find the few that are of interest. Many members of REVS are familiar with the positive and negative aspects of both. *************************************************************************** The hard-working, sagacious people at Communications for a Sustainable Future at the University of Colorado came up with a proposal six months ago to help satisfy all concerns. After six months of debate, we have decided to implement it. Beginning October 10, 1995, there are now TWO lists. One list, REVS-cafe will function exactly as REVS did before. The second list, REVS, will be a moderated list. Anyone who is a member of REVS-cafe will receive all messages posted to either list. Those who choose to subscribe to REVS are voluntarily agreeing to let a panel of moderators screen messages on the basis of certain generally agreed upon criteria, including relevancy to REVS interests, substantive rather than personal comments, interest to the whole list rather than to just one member, and other similar considerations. When someone posts a message to REVS, it will AUTOMATICALLY go out to all members of REVS-cafe, as it has gone to REVS in the past. But before it goes to the REVS list, it will be reviewed for saliency. That means that the same person posting to either list might have some messages sent to both lists while other messages would only go out to those on REVS-cafe, for example. As of October 10, everyone is a member of REVS, the moderated version. If you wish to unsub from REVS and sub to REVS-cafe, there are instructions below. Or you might consider staying on REVS for daily mail but checking into REVS-cafe one/week to review what was posted on that. Instructions for that are given below as well. Some people may object to this, arguing that their freedom of expression is being limited. But members of the REVS network will be asking for assistance in filtering out messages, much as someone might give an assistant the authority to discard irrelevant mail, much as someone might have an assistant screen telephone calls to avoid telemarketers, much as someone might use a device to block certain stations from his or her television. Does the broadcaster have the right to DEMAND that everyone receive that transmission, does the telephone marketer have the right to demand that the resident speak to him/her, or does the viewer/resident have the right to delegate that authority to others? In the case of REVS, it is obvious to me that many list members would favor having some sort of preliminary filter, while they would still have access to all the REVS-cafe correspondence if they choose to review it. The way to do that is described below. ********************************************************************** This two list approach has been tried on other networks and has proven to be quite successful. A wise choice between the moderated and unmoderated version of REVS entails an understanding of the relation between REVS and REVS-CAFE. The diagram below shows that all mail, whether addressed to revs or revs-cafe, goes into a single channel: to revs----->--| single |--->to revs-moderators --->to revs subscribers |======>===>===| to revs-cafe->-| channel |--->to revs-cafe-subscribers If you are subscribed to *either* list, your posting, to either list, will go to both revs-moderators and to revs-cafe-subscribers. The list to which you subscribe determines how much mail you receive. If you join revs-cafe, you receive all messages addressed to revs as well as revs-cafe. ********************************************************************** Warning: Please do not send your message to both addresses -- if you do, it may (depending on how smart listserv is) appear twice on revs-cafe. ********************************************************************** If you want to sub revs-cafe and unsub revs, send listserv the two requests unsub revs sub revs-cafe Your Name If you would like to see the difference between revs-cafe and revs while staying subscribed to revs, I would like to suggest the following subscription configuration: Send listserv@csf... the following two-line message sub revs-cafe Your Name set revs-cafe mail digest REVS-CAFE is set up to ship a week's worth of messages each Sun morning for those who use the digest mode---- i.e., when a revs-cafe subscriber has his/her mail set to digest, the subscriber receives all the week's mail in one Sun morning message. The digest places an informative neat-looking header on one's morning digest message -- so most people seem happy with it. In short, I'm suggesting subscribing to the low-traffic revs message-at-a-time and to revs-cafe in digest mode to help make the decision. The way that one re-converts from digest mode to message-at-a-time, is with the command (to listserv@csf...) set mail ack where is either revs or revs-cafe. The command to unsub is, of course, unsub Hope you find this choice between moderated and unmoderated lists useful in helping you make your decision. ********************************************************************** Two more issues remain for now. 1) I want comments from REVS members about what the criteria for REVS postings should be. As you know, I am generally more favorably inclined towards a looser approach than others; I think that some sharp exchanges/conflict can be constructive, provided that they are based on substantive debate rather than egotistical boasting and self-promoting insults designed to demonstrate how clever someone is. But I do want suggestions on this. 2) We are quite committed to developing a serious set of archives. An original promise of REVS has been to develop an archive, an electronic library which people all over the world can access for information about REVS issues. I need the help of a REVS listmember in developing those archives. This person does not have to be a technical whiz at computers. This will not take hours and hours of work each week. There are a few simple commands to take various submitted work and place them into the REVS archives. If someone on REVS would volunteer for that, I could focus more on contacting people to encourage them to submit their work to the REVS archives. If you are interested in helping with this project, please contact me at the address below. We hope that the changes in REVS will serve the needs of all current REVS members. As always, I appreciate whatever comments you choose to send me on suggestions for improving the list. Alan Spector ############################################################################ Alan Spector, Ph.D. Phone: 219-989-2387 Behavioral Sciences Department FAX : 219-989-2008 Purdue University Calumet E-Mail: SPECTOR@CALUMET.PURDUE.EDU Hammond, IN 46323 USA {Editor of REVS--- an international email network for Racial-Religious-EthnoNationalist Violence Studies} ############################################################################