Thanks for the quick response. Sounds like a great approach. Eliminating private
messages, elimination of all the virus stuff that seems unique to your site,
elimination of duplication, elimination of irrelevant commercial messages
(whatever that means). Use of the delete button. Lots of work for you. But you are
the volunteer. I simply wrote because I have a very specific interest in history.
One friend of mine comes to my seminars at The Wilson House in Vermont, knows of
my interest, and repeatedly forwards stuff from Bill L. which has good content. No
one muzzles her or Bill; but when he proposed sending something of mine to the
history buff site, he discovered the Goebbels renewal. Who needs it. There are
literally hundreds of thousands of raw materials now available on the net for our
perusal, study, copying, research, and analysis. Anyway, I'll enjoy what you send
and regard your effort as a valiant and onerous one and appreciate your service.

David Fahey wrote:

>  From Dick B.
>
> Just a comment, David, about the "moderating" of your posts. I've seen many
> extraneous posts recently, and I'm sure we are all too busy on the internet
> these days to be deleting stuff from groups we want to hear from. As you know,
> I'm not one who has been posting. But I can tell you from recent unpleasant
> reports and personal experiences that the "moderating" of one history site is
> so offensive that the moderator chides those who submit materials she doesn't
> like, then refuses to post them, uses personal bias to exclude, and eventually
> in a case or two simply sends a "you are banned" notice. The site has less
> than 150 people I believe, but many are good researchers and writers and ask
> why history items are not appearing. I don't know what they are missing and
> they don't seem to either. But I do know that the subject matter of the site
> is not open to scholars, inquirers, or "buffs" if the "moderator" doesn't like
> the material--regardless what the members of the list might or might not want
> to learn. The answer--which should be kept out of your fine group--is that the
> "moderator" can be, and is, in this case, a censor. And what do we need with a
> censor in the world of historical research. How would we know how much Solomon
> drank, Nero burned, or the Huns destroyed if we didn't like details about
> Jews, Romans, or Germans?. Extraneous wine tastes and brands don't seem to add
> much to your site, but neither would editorial exclusions. So you have my best
> wishes for healthy First Amendment freedom. Dick B.
>
> ***
>
> I hope that I don't become a censor.  My intent is modest: to screen out
> totally irrelevant commercial messages, to intercept messages meant for
> somebody else, and to edit out duplication (such as forwarded posts in
> which, for some reason, the text is repeated twice in the same
> post).  Maybe I'll also discover and block virus-tainted messages.  All
> that the listserv asks me to do is type <OK>.  I plan to answer <OK> to
> almost everything and post messages that may seem irrelevant to some
> subscribers in order to meet the needs of other subscribers.   Individual
> subscribers will still need to exercise their delete key!
>
> David Fahey

--
God bless,

Dick B.
P.O. Box 837
Kihei, HI 96753-0837
(808) 874-4876 (tel/fax)
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml