Report on our off-topic filtering experiment

[Andrew Rudoff]

As a tremendous number of you have reported to me privately, it
has been really great to see what a piano-related list looks like
when filtered down to piano-related posts.  It has been fun to
read for the past couple days, even for me (who has to read the
rejected posts as well).

This evening I had a class to go to, so I figured since I had not filtered
out a *single* off-topic post today I would turn off moderation and let
the posts fly while I was at my class.  As timing would have it, off-topic
stuff sprouted right back up.

Due to the limited manpower we have, continuing with full-time moderation
is not practical at this time.  But I will try to arrange for the list to
catch the most obvious off-topic stuff and hold it for review.

So let's continue this experiment with pianotech: I will make a "best effort"
attempt to reject off-topic posts for a while.  Some will get through,
because I will use some filtering rules to catch them rather than reviewing
every single post (something impossible to do and keep my "day job").  Some
of your posts may be delayed while they are reviewed, some will go right out.

This is just a continuation of our experiment, so please don't read too
much into this.  We'll just try this for a few days and see how folks like
it.  As one might expect, the reaction to just two days of moderating
pianotech has been incredibly positive.

As I mentioned before, the non-piano-related posts have plenty of other
places to go -- literally thousands of lists at places like Yahoo, AOL,
Google, etc, on every topic you can imagine.  But if you feel there needs
to be a place for the pianotech crowd to share their off-topic posts, do
not despair -- I have created a forum for you.  It is called "pianotech-ot"
and any of you who wish to may subscribe to it by visiting:

	http://ptg.org/mailman/listinfo/pianotech-ot

Rest assured that your posts will not be moderated or filtered to that list
(but you're still on your own when it comes to getting chewed out by other
list members).

Comments?  Questions?  Please don't follow-up to this message.  Please send
them instead to the ECC at ecc@ptg.org.  We're happy to hear from you.

thanks,

-andy