Someone anonymous wrote:
 
>Please forward this anonymously to the ferret list.  Thanks!
 
>The FML is a great resource, but there are a few problems with its
>moderation.  The biggest problem (IMHO) is that the moderator often
>injects his own opinions and comments whenever he feels like it.
 
An ordinary subscriber can too.
 
> ....
>but commenting on a message is not [okay].
 
Why not?  Everybody else can.
 
>A moderator should
>be practically invisible to the group so that no poster feels like
>they shouldn't post because the moderator might make some comment
>or other.
 
Why should this be any different than anybody else.  What is it
about a "moderator" that's more intimidating than anybody else?
 
>In a sense, the content of the posters' messages are
>altered because the moderator's comments are included.  If the moderator
>wants to comment on a particular message, let him submit his own
>message; that's what everybody else does.
 
To tell the truth, I don't understand this argument at all.  Why
should anybody worry about whether the moderator will make a comment
any more than anybody else?  After all, the moderator is also a member
of the mailing list and is just as entitled to his opinion as anybody
else.  The only place where you should be concerned is if the moderator
is being unfair and "cheating" in a discussion by changing the
content or truncating conversations.  If you think that simply
by inserting comments the moderator is "altering" the content,
then why isn't my message exactly the same thing?  In fact much
worse, because I've drastically chopped it up - in a way that's
perfectly acceptable in separate replies to mail or USENET articles.
 
On the other hand, by inserting his comments within "[]", he
is clearly delineating what he's writing, saves lots of text in
*your* mailbox, is providing an implicit guarantee that you're
not being quoted out of context, and saves the moderator money.
As the moderator mentioned a couple of issues back, the moderator
has to pay per byte for mailing list publication.  He's not getting
paid for this.  The money is being donated to support this list.
Who are you to insist that he pay more?
 
As I've been involved with the mailing list since the beginning, I
remember the moderator did initiate a poll on this very subject
back around, I think, issue 50 (4 years ago?).  There were a
fair number of replies, given the membership size of the day,
and all were in favour of the status-quo.
 
And finally, "[]" is standard practise in many considerably larger
mailing lists.  Like the telecom digest.
 
[In case it isn't completely obvious, I wrote this.  I wrote
it this way to make several important points explicitly obvious
by example.  Tho, I think I'll be seeing double for a few hours
yet ;-)]
 
[Posted in FML issue 0332]