[Tango-L] Tango-L Part 3: Why weren't people posting to Tango-L? And Moderation (everyone's favourite subject!)

[Shahrukh Merchant]

As promised yesterday, here is the answer to the survey questions:

* SO WHY DON'T YOU POST TO TANGO-L YOURSELF?

And it also includes my commentary on moderation (past, and future, 
should the list actually succeed in having a renaissance). First the 
statistics on the answers to the above question as to why people have 
stopped posting:

35% I was always a lurker
10% Don't think anyone is listening
10% Not much to say anymore
10% Someone may flame me
5% Use mobile device (not convenient for writing long emails)
2% Moderator may scold me
25% Other (broken down roughly as follows)
	4% Annoyance or boredom with others' posts
	4% Prefer other media
	2% Difficulties with mechanics of posting
	2% English not native language
	2% Prefer in-person discussion
	10% Other unspecific

Most are self-explanatory but two points are worth commenting on:

APATHY

The largest single reason by far (1/3 of responses) is that of always 
having being a lurker (happy to be passive participants, posting rarely 
or never, instead being more a "consumer" of postings by others). And 
"Not much to say" and "No one is listening anyway" boil down to a form 
of apathy as well (though from the survey results, clearly people ARE 
listening and WANT more posts). So that's 45% or almost half of the 
responses that boil down to a form of apathy of some sort! That's 
certainly fine, and people have their own reasons for that, whether it 
comes from being timid, or feeling "unqualified," or busy or whatever. 
But that 45% is now close to 100% based on the lack of any postings, and 
it is not clear how or if that would change if the list were resurrected 
(but obviously it would need to).

MODERATION

The high percentage of people who seem to be have been intimidated into 
not posting from fear of being flamed or otherwise attacked is 
unfortunate (the highest reason after apathy-related ones), but confirms 
that lax moderation on the list, which happened at various points during 
its existence, that allowed the rude and inconsiderate to run rampant, 
was "bad policy" at best. More on this below ...

 From the significantly smaller percentage (3 persons altogether) who 
cited their dislike for the moderation as a significant factor--the 
comments they made are instructive (since there were just three such 
responses, I'll comment on all of them).

1. "The moderation was inconsistent to the extreme. Some very minor 
violations might get a rebuke, and at other times major violations were 
tolerated. If you're away, then get another moderator to help."

Notwithstanding that "I'm willing to help in the moderation" would have 
been more constructive than "find another moderator" :-), this 
respondent was actually correct. The moderation I think was reasonably 
consistent at any given period in time, but changed from time to time, 
depending on the moderator's available time, experiments to unmoderate 
everyone and "see what happens" (wasn't a good idea--discussion 
degenerated rapidly), evolution in moderation philosophy as the list 
evolved, etc. And at one point there were three moderators, so while we 
tried to maintain a consistent general moderation philosophy, there'd be 
differences from person to person as well.

2. No written comment by the second such respondent, but he was the only 
one of the three to identify himself, and I didn't recognize the name at 
all. I'm guessing that it was the case of someone who made an innocent 
newbie error, got a form response that came across as curt, and decided 
not to post again. (Sorry!)

3. "Moderatorial abuse by Shahrukh Merchant," and later in the general 
comments by the same person, "The first step in reviving the Tango-L 
list should be the replacement of Shahrukh Merchant as administrator. 
His abuse of moderatorial powers to ban many members from posting is the 
primary reason for the moribund state of the list."

This comes no doubt from someone still harbouring a grudge from a 
bruised ego (wow!! and after at least 5 years??). :-) Actually, no one 
was permanently banned from posting. The real abusers (flaming and ad 
hominem attacks were ultimately the only rules strictly enforced) were 
told that they had to send a statement that they had reread the rules 
and agreed to abide by them before they could post again, and this 
remained an open invitation. They were even invited to suggest changes 
to specific rules they had problems with (a few took up the first offer 
and could indeed post again, but none took up the second). The others 
just felt the rules shouldn't apply to THEM, and undoubtedly that same 
arrogance led them to the delusional belief that the survival of the 
list actually depended on their rantings, when the truth was just the 
opposite (as indeed supported by this survey, for those for whom that 
was not self-evident).

The above comment is not to negate the validity of this person's 
opinion, such as it is. After all, the purpose of the survey is to get 
opinions, and I suppose it was (and apparently still is) sincerely felt. 
Rather, it's to state unequivocally, as a reassurance to the far larger 
numbers that have been reluctant to post for fear of being flamed or 
otherwise receiving belittling personal comments, that the ongoing 
policy would clearly be a continuation of one that can be summed as as 
follows:

- "Take no prisoners" approach on flaming and ad hominem attacks.
- Light moderation (which generally means that transgressions are 
ignored, or an email "reminder" sent if it's frequent enough) on all 
other rules "violations" (which would be ultimately be more guidelines 
than strict rules).

That doesn't mean that a grossly inappropriate post can never get 
through (e.g., someone who doesn't have better things to do could 
subscribe under a fake name, post a couple of innocuous posts to get out 
of new-member moderation and then sneak in a parting blow). The point is 
more that it wouldn't be tolerated than that it could never happen.

Another general comment from another survey respondent on point (coming 
from a reference to the TangoDJ list), "Don't know why the DJ list has 
petered out, but it was tightly moderated. The posts are almost always 
interesting, sometimes very technical. The rare flamage was always put 
down hard and fast by the moderator(s), and some people always 
complained about it." As a lurker on that list myself, it was clear to 
me that this moderation approach helped the list succeed as long as it 
did, though it seems to be suffering similar apathy blues now.


For completeness, here are the remaining verbatim comments on this 
question (those not already quoted above):
- Didn't understand how I could post myself.
- It seems that most of the long time members are very opinionated and 
you are not going to change their minds about anything.
- Came late to the party and just discovered its existence six months ago.
- other social media more user friendly
- Use Yahoo groups and Facebook
- Most of my contributions were in response to someone else's thought 
provoking original post.
- Plentiful tango discussion on Facebook.
- I no longer keep my email page open all day.
- Not much activity
- English is not my first language, posting is harder than reading
- I am not traveling back to BsAs as much anymore, and it seems like the 
the locals in NYC don't know or care about the difference between show 
tango and social (milguero) style.
- A lot of the new questions etc are rehashing old ground.
- uninteresting audience whose opinions will not weight too much
- Others have more to say.......
- Don't know how to post to Tango-L. I assume it's like most list-servs, 
but don't know. Would be good if a faq was sent monthly or quarterly
- A lot of the information one may contribute is now available 
elsewhere. Also, I have found that an in-person discussion is valuable 
and one can see whether one is being understood, whereas on an 
international list, this is much more difficult. Lastly, it does kind of 
seem like everything has been hashed out.
- I have in-person discussions

Since this post is long enough already, we'll have more tomorrow with 
survey results on "Part 4: What Tango fora ARE people using now?"

Shahrukh