From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Who owns and runs the ewsfa list?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2020 08:14:02 -0400 (EDT)

If you're a paid-up member of WSFA, please attend tomorrow's meeting.
It will of course be held online; see wsfa.org for details.

I was kicked off of the ewsfa list without notice because one person
was offended by my April Fool's joke, and because I'm not a paid club
member.  Since the rules of that list seem to be secret, you could be
the next person to be kicked off.

I think these questions should be brought up as new business:

* Who owns and controls the ewsfa list?  Does it belong to the whole
  club, or just to one member of it?

* What should the rules for allowed posts be?  And who should decide
  what those rules should be?

* Should those rules be posted for all list members to see, or should
  they be kept secret?

* If someone violates one of those rules, should they be given
  warning, or should they be immediately have all their posts blocked
  or be permanently kicked off the list?

* If someone has their posts blocked or moderated (i.e. held for
  moderator approval), should they be told of this, or should they be
  left to try and figure out why their posts aren't going through?

* If someone has their posts moderated, should the moderator approve
  all inoffensive posts within a day or two, or should the moderator
  ignore their posts for weeks?

* Who is allowed on the list?  Is it just for paid club members?  If
  it's also for former club members, are they equal members of the
  list, or are they second-class citizens, subject to harsher and more
  arbitrary rules?

* Should the existence of *this* list, the original, open, uncensored
  WSFA list and its online archives, continue to be kept secret from
  new WSFA members?  (Since not one new WSFA member since I left the
  club 15 years ago has asked to subscribe to this list, it's obvious
  that the club isn't informing them that it exists.)  Nobody has ever
  been censored, kicked off, or put on moderated status on this list
  in more than 18 years and more than 17,000 posts by 72 subscribers.

I thought I was doing a good deed when I suggested, two months ago,
that everyone on this list move to the new ewsfa list now that it's no
longer on the objectionable Yahoogroups platform.  Two competing list
means that people subscribed to just one list miss lots of messages,
and that people subscribed to both lists see many messages twice.
But it seems I was played for a fool.

I still hope it will be possible for everyone to move to the new
list.  That's up to whether WSFA's membership can regain ownership and
control of it, and institute rules acceptable to everyone including
former members.  People have many reasons to drop out of the club.
Few of us wish to break off all contact with all members.  There's
no reason why those who are not consuming the club's refreshments,
picking up hardcopy issues of the WSFA Journal, or otherwise costing
the club any money should have to pay $20 per year just for the
privilege of being allowed on an email chat list.

I have no objection to continuing to run this list if ewsfa continues
to be objectionable or unusable to any of us on this list or to any
other past or present WSFA member.

So please bring this up during tomorrow's meeting if you are a
paid member.  Thanks.

Please immediately forward this to the ewsfa list if you're subscribed
to it and if someone else hasn't already done so.  This means *you*,
not some other reader.  (If you're afraid of the consequences to you
if you dare to forward this to ewsfa, what does that say about the
atmosphere on that list?)

I still have no idea why one person was offended by my April Fool's
joke, unless it's because someone somewhere will always be offended
by anything whatsoever.  I posted the same joke to several other
forums, including rasff, PRSFS, and math-fun, and nobody else had any
complaints.  Several had praise.  Was it because it was about the
current pandemic, as are about a third of the daily comics and about two
thirds of the editorial comics in The Washington Post?  Was it because
it ridiculed Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton?

I never did post that joke here.  To satisfy everyone's curiosity, I
will do so in a separate message, so those who are easily offended
can skip it, and so that forwarding this message to ewsfa won't cause
another copy of the joke to appear there.