<html> Consider the time lag a moderator would induce. How many times have you read a post in which someone desperately needed info and received multiple replies within a few hours, not the next day...or two. Can you imagine what a chore it would be to censor the list? The hours per day dedicated to weeding out the 'undesirable' posts?  (x)hr/day X $$ / subscribers = sub. fee. Administration of money owed and the membership would be another job for someone. Who has that kind of time to take away from their piano business. I find the paperwork for myself to be bothersome. This list originated as a network for College and University Technicians (CAUT). Slowly, traffic increased as other technicians discovered its convenience and soon the list became too busy for the CAUT, much the same circumstances as happening now. So CAUT moved to their separate list leaving pianotech for the international forum into which it has grown. Much obliged. For those desiring the idle banter there is MPT@talklist.com; there, the occasional piano post does appear.  Then again, some find the MPTlist to be too social and not enough technical. It's like sandwiches, you can only eat so much all beef, you need to balance it off with baloney  ;-)    Pianotech is the beef : MPTlist is the baloney; restaurant : deli;   lunch counter : hot dog stand.   I'll have mine with chili and cheese. Don't let the baloney clog your archives, post appropriately. Jon Page At 05:28 PM 12/18/2000 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Friends, Forgive my ignorance, but what would a moderator actually do?  I have this perception that a moderator would read every post and forward to the list only those deemed of general interest.  Potentially every one of us could get steamed about that, because something *we* thought was of general interest was kicked out by the *big boss.*  What form of government would that most resemble? Certainly not democracy. Maybe we are having growing pains.  How many people subscribe to the list now, compared with maybe two years ago? I favor moderating ourselves.  It would take some energy, but if you feel a post should not be on the list, just send a private message, probably only a single sentence, to the sender.  Maybe "Please send such messages privately" or "I feel this doesn't belong on the list."  I know if I got a half dozen responses like that toward something I wrote, I would soon consider what I send much more seriously. Regards, Clyde Hollinger Robin Blankenship wrote: > Perhaps a > moderator to keep things focused would be useful. </blockquote></html>