Unwelcome subscribers (was: List Moderation and Profanity)

[pshuang @ MIT . EDU]

 > From: agoodloe@best.com (Amy Goodloe)
 > Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 09:54:39 -0800
 > 
 > [....]
 > 
 > I have a similar concern.  There is someone who is subscribed to one
 > of my lists who is clearl NOT welcome on the list; the list policies
 > state as much and he has been told privately twice.  [....]

I used to run a mailing list for people who wished to conduct
discussions about Greek Letter organizations (both social and
non-social fraternities and sororities) with less flamage than could
be found on various Usenet newsgroups (e.g., soc.college), a topic
which can also "draw maggots out of the woodwork".  (I'm sure another
such maggot-drawing topic would be religion.)

At one point, someone who was fair well-known in those Usenet
newsgroups for taking one side of long flaming effectively
content-free threads wanted to subscribe to the mailing list.  After
some discussion amongst ourselves, the other list owner and I decided
to let him subscribe, after explicitly letting him know he needs to be
on "good behavior".  Although he WAS on pretty good behavior ON THE
MAILING LIST, many other subscribers immediately engaged in ad hominem
attacks, flooded the mailing list itself with protests despite
requests from myself and the other list owner to send such protests to
us, and in general made mayhem.  One of the reasons the other list
owner and I decided to discontinue the list was precisely our disgust
at this kind of reaction.  There wasn't much question that we could
have denied him a subscription; however, we felt that he was being
more reasonable than many others on the mailing list and therefore did
not deserve to get kicked off.

Quoted below is the policy about such problem subscribers from a
different mailing list I help maintain, which sets an explicit policy
for removal and appeal.  Other list maintainers/owners may wish to
adapt such a policy for their own mailing lists; alternatively, you
may decide that you would rather not set such a policy in stone.

 > ******** Policy concerning removal from the lists
 > 
 > The administrators reserve the right to remove individuals from the
 > lists under extraordinary circumstances.  It is difficult to
 > anticipate every reason why someone might be removed from the
 > lists; in general, behavior which is substantially disruptive to
 > the list and which is known by the perpetrator to be inappropriate
 > may lead to removal.
 > 
 > An individual who is removed from the lists will be notified of the
 > removal by the administrators.  If he or she wishes to appeal the
 > removal, a poll will be taken of the current membership of the
 > faq-maintainers list.  If 10% or more of the current membership
 > supports reinstatement, the individual will be returned to the lists.

--
Yours in Leadership, Friendship, and Service,
Ping Huang (INTERNET: pshuang@mit.edu), probably speaking for himself