The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.1187 Tuesday, 30 April 2002
From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Subject: Self-Moderation
Dear SHAKSPEReans:
Regarding civility, I have received supportive e-mail about my
suggestion that "personal attacks and recriminations" be conducted
off-line. There was even a suggestion that we conduct a straw poll on
the subject.
Let me share some of my thoughts.
SHAKSPER is one of the oldest academic listservs. I would like to
believe that one of the reasons for this longevity is the time that I
take lightly editing and formatting the individual messages I receive
for the list into digests with tables of contents and a consistent look
and feel, not to mention the sometimes hundreds of spammed messages that
I deleted before they reach the membership.
As I have said, I have consistently advocated self-moderation and
membership response in lieu of my exercising heavy-handed intervention.
I do occasionally refuse to distribute some messages I receive and I do
occasionally suggest that a thread has reached its useful end.
I have also advocated "counting to ten" before hitting the reply key.
Similarly, I have suggested that members pick their threads carefully;
there is no need daily to reply all or a great many threads.
The reason for much of this is selfishness on my part - an inordinate
number of messages a day exponentially increases the amount of work that
I need to do. Also, please remember to sign your messages if your
complete name is not in your message header.
Now, back to my suggestion about responding off-line to make ever effort
"If you feel flamed, attacked, or personally insulted, first contact the
person responsible off-line."
Let's just work toward keeping the focus of the list on Shakespeare,
Early Modern Drama, and closely related issues.
Hardy
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