Andy, another PTG list?

[Andy Rudoff]

>As it seems completely hopeless to get people to stick to piano technology on 
>a piano technology list, or even to label OT posts, how hard would it be to 
>create a separate, non-moderated list for non-technical posts? Then piano 
>techs (and others) could chat (and argue) to their hearts' content. 
>
>I subscribe to pianotech, ptg-l, and caut. That is transparent to me, as they 
>all come into the same mailbox. If I were not interested in PTG matters, I 
>would simply unsubscribe to ptg-l, and still get the other two. The same 
>would be true of pianoNONtech - those who want a place to chat would have 
>one, seamlessly. There would be NO justification for OT posts (or mail 
>yelling about them) on pianotech, with another easy place to put them, and 
>the choice to tune in or not. 

Creating new lists is quite easy.  But, let's face it, there are already
many hundreds of active lists for idle chit chat, political discussions,
religious debates, and just about any other topic I can think of.  So
I would say there is already no justification for OT posts.

The trick is to get people to stop posting the off-topic noise.  As
you can see from watching the way pianotech works, it isn't easy.
Sometimes enough people gripe until the noise dies down a little,
but eventually someone who gets much less mail than I do gets bored
and kicks off another thread on pianotech that has nothing to do
with pianos.  That's really a shame, but creating another list for
them to use won't cause them to use it, in my opinion.

As we discuss every year or so, the only way to create a version
of pianotech which stays on topic is to create a moderated list.
If we created pianotech-m, and allowed people to subscribe to
either pianotech (for the raw signal-to-noise ratio) or pianotech-m
(for the improved signal-to-noise ratio) then people could choose
which way they wanted to read it.  They could even digress into
off-topic drivel without bothering anyone but the poor moderator
who decides when to let a message through to pianotech-m.

The only problem with this solution is finding someone to be
the moderator.  It would require someone who reads every pianotech
post, and doesn't usually lag behind by more than half a day or so
(if the moderator delay is too long, people start posting "is the list
working?" noise).  The job would be thankless, and would require
someone with a thick skin who could stay dispassionate and not
get caught up in personal or political arguments.

-andy