re:fixation

• Mission Statement by John Suler, 6/21/97
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    • re:fixation by Wanda Hill, 3/16/98
      
      

> >IMHO, a newsgroup or list is a small community with its own unique personality and dynamics. Whatever that personality is, in the long run it tends to prevail over the influence of a single person.

> Your last statement is very enlightening and uplifting. It gives me faith that our ng has what I consider a worthwhile and positive personality, and that it's worth upholding.

The personality may change over time. It may change for the worse as newbies enter. For the most extreme example I've seen, the (admittedly unfortunately named) misc.jobs.misc group basically suicided. Perhaps it was doomed from the start, having a schizoid definition (two meanings of misc, the first meaning "miscellaneous" and the second "discussion") in its very name. When usenet was a relatively homogenous group of computer geeks, having such a name made little difference. As the general populace came online, with each large provider getting usenet access, a new group of recruiters would start dumping loads of job postings into what was formerly a vibrant discussion group that specifically did not want job postings. Despite the valiant efforts of several longtime participants, there was no stopping the computerized onslaught backed by newbies who viewed their own renumeration as dependent on maximum distributions of their job listings. So it goes. Someone tried replacing the group with misc.jobs-discuss, but it just never caught on.

This has stimulated me personally to netcop the groups I participate in. I've found a brief, neutral message to those who would try to impose their own will on the group, including a reference they can easily verify independently supporting the groups position, in an authoritative voice, goes a long way towards preventing drawnout flamewars. I am by no means convinced that a single person cannot take down a newsgroup, or certainly tranform it to a point where most contributors leave (see Dr. Turi on ca.earthquakes for a classic example).

Some cases simply require someone to stand up to a person. I was surprised to have my name recognized (in a positive manner) by the high muckety-mucks at a conference I went to, after having done so on a compuserve forum years before (yes, even moderated forums can suffer from an individual, an odd result of moderators being constrained by possible charges of over-moderation). Obviously this has not worked in your specific case, as the person is somehow being rewarded by the interplay. I'm not sure that there is an answer in such a case, other than hoping the newsgroup personality can outlast them. So you must keep on responding to each point of misinformation clearly and concisely, and hope he eventually just gives up and goes elsewhere. Newsgroups just don't have an efficient mechanism for self-moderation, despite what many afficionados would like to believe. (Of course, there's always the nasty way of cancellation, but, as Nixon would say, "that would be wrong." It could also escalate.) Given the popularity of that type of car and the external to usenet factors regarding the owners, I think you have a pretty good chance of outlasting him - eventually he will find something else to focus on.

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