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10/21/2005: "Imbas Backs Down; Changes Spam Rules to be more Hospitable to Celtic Authors' On-list Ads."
music: I'm Winning - Santanamood: Vindicated
After a 4 day exchange on the Yahoo Imbas public discussion list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imbas-public) that saw a native Celtic language speaker post an ad for a book on Celtic life experiences, a knee jerk rule change reaction by list moderators, debate from both sides about the wisdom of such changes, and the moderation of yours truly from the Imbas public discussion list, DubhTine and Vanya Tucherov, two of the moderators of Imbas-public responsible for the rule change have reconsidered their over re-action and begrudgingly amended their rules to be more hospitable to Celtic authors.
The incident began on Saturday June 11 when
list member Angus Macleod of Torquil Productions twice posted (Imbas-public message 24556 and 7) from his book, "1851 Exiles" - The Story of the Isle of Lewis Settlement in Huron Township, Bruce County, Canada." http://www.torquil.net/ . It was clear from the posts that the book excerpts were both on-topic and something of interest to at least some list members, though also clearly an attempt by the author to introduce and sell his book to the list membership.
Within four hours, the following rule change was emailed to members by DubhTine: Posting commercial solicitations to the list without active participation in the ongoing discussions is not allowed and will result in the offender being placed on moderated status for a minimum of three (3) months for the first offense.
The rule change was clarified by Imbas-public moderator Brenda Daverin who, after admitting the rule change was "something of a fuzzy guideline", implied that the reason for the new rule was to get people involved in discussion and not just post a commercial ad. Referring to Angus as "the offending party", Daverin went on to say that he had posted twice before, "then disappeared" only to post an ad for his book again (Imbas-public message 24568). Later, after some misstatements about the author's list membership status, it was clarified that he was indeed still a member and hadn't disappeared anywhere.
On Sunday morning, a former office holder of Imbas and an independent author himself, requested that Imbas moderators "cut the author some slack" when it is obvious that the book might be of interest to list members.
At this point, a sound, honest (and simple) request had been made by a respected member on-list to amend the rule change so as to not punish an author who posts an ad about an on-topic book without discussing it with three months moderation. Cut some slack means give the guy a break and actually exercise one's moderation abilities and probe the post; not apply a blanket rule and cut the poster off at the knees for three months. Yes it takes some time and effort; it requires some people skills, and it requires an open mind. Why is this important?
Foremost, it has to do with hospitality. A requirement of Celtic tradition, hospitality is extended first and openly to strangers who visit. That doesn't mean, in this day and age of spam bots, that everyone who joins a Celtic discussion list like Imbas should have carte blanche to bombard the list with spam. But that is a straw man in this case. Why? Protection against spammers is already there; new members are automatically moderated so as to control spam and, as can be seen, the moderators take a pro-active interest in every post. When a list member of a year posts an ad for his Celtic book (when there was no rule against it) and is then called "an offending member" and compared to Viagra spammers, by moderators no less, it is hardly hospitable. Celtic hospitality would require that, if the moderators had a problem, they could have easily sent either an off list or on list request to the poster, thanking them for information regarding his obvious on-topic book, then requesting the desire for the poster to discuss the book, finally stating, hospitably, that, in the future, we encourage these types of posts and posters to get more involved in discussion on list topics. This didn't happen. Hospitality wasn't shown.
In fact, the opposite took place. Moderators ignored the simple request to amend the rules by digging in. Dubhtine replied to the request by saying "to come in and only promote yourself without also participating in the forum, is not acceptable" (Imbas-public message 24571). Vanya declares "Folks, I don't care whether you approve of the action taken or not. Our action isn't up for discussion- it was decided that non-participants aren't welcome to use the list for advertisements" (Imbas-public message 24577). So hospitality begins to take a back seat to the need for discussion. Also, importantly, it starts to become clear that the moderators don't care much about input from its list members who disagree with them honestly and openly.
Of course, anyone who spends anytime on Imbas-public knows that over 600 members on the list NEVER post, ever. There is no penalty for lurking, unless one post an ad about one's Celtic book without being an "active" poster, the word active never being adequately explained. Then one gets moderated for 3 months.
Also, as was pointed out in the ensuing debate, many members participate on Imbas-public through the Yahoo web interface by posting to other members about topics in which they have interest. Many people aren't comfortable posting on-list because they are shy, intimidated, or feel inadequate. So just because one doesn't see a member "active" in on-list discussions doesn't necessarily mean they aren't active with discussions with other members.
There is also the case of misleading information from the Imbas website itself. The Imbas home page ( http://www.imbas.org/imbas/index.html ) clearly has a link entitled "Imbas Mailing List", which when clicked upon, takes one directly to the Imbas-public Yahoo discussion group page to sign up. So it is easy to see that someone who wants to email their Celtic ads could come to Imbas after a Google search, find the Imbas Mailing List link, end up on the Yahoo group page (which, by the way as of today, has no posting restrictions listed whatsoever) and join up to post their ad to the "mailing list". In fact, nowhere on the Imbas web page is the Yahoo group referred to as a discussion list.
Finally, a group of Imbas-public members, vocalized by myself, didn't like the possible chilling effect this new rule could bring with regard to our ability to be exposed to materials of Celtic interest that moderators might not view as pertinent due to differences of opinion, such as the type that been seen on-list in the past between CR's and CT's. It was very interesting for us to note that the same ads had been posted on several Celtic lists, including the much respected Celtic Path. Celtic Path, a more traditional Celtic interest list than some of the others that carried the post, and has a strong history of moderating off-topic posts and their posters, accepted the posts without a single negative post from either moderators or members ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CelticPath/ ).
From this point, the whole issue denigrates into a tit-for-tat 20-30 post arguing match, agenda accusations, etc., with your truly sharing proportionate blame along with head strong moderators and three or four of their vocal supporters, neither side backing down until my apology post (which got me moderated for furthering discussion on the topic). Of course, there was an attempt to try and spin things differently once the uproar began ("we are author friendly, look at our authors who post", etc.) but how simple it would have been for Vanya or Dubhtine back at the original Sunday morning request from a former fellow officer of Imbas and respected independent author to take heed and make the simple amendment to "cut some slack", instead of bowing up the back and arguing from a weak position?
In the end, the "fuzzy" rule WAS amended to give ads posted by Celtic authors a break. This morning, Wednesday, June 15th, three days, many posts, and at least one moderated member after the original simple request for some relief, Imbas-public moderators backed down, with Daverin announcing the requested rule change:"On-topic ads will be permitted on a case-by-case basis. Contact the mods for assistance. Participating in list discussions improves your chances. Using us as a billboard will not."
Hardly dripping with hospitality (yes, this is part of the official Imbas-public welcome message to all new members that still had the old Onelist ad in it from 5 years ago), one can sense the difficult feelings related to the rule change in the language. The important thing is the rule WAS changed, even if begrudgingly. How much easier it would have been had the moderators done what they ended up having to do anyway when first asked.
The lesson to be learned, as moderators entrusted in caring for a public list, is to err on the side of hospitality, compassion and reason, instead of employing knee jerk reactions to imagined problems that end up coming off as inflexible and possibly even rude to fellow members. And when one does knee jerk, don't compound the error by inserting one's foot in one's mouth. It not only tastes bad, but it only makes matters worse when one has to go back and correct the original error.
On a related note, in the previous blog entry, Vanya corrected my unclear reference to which Imbas I was referring with a comment alluding to the fact I wasn't a member of Imbas proper. This is true. I never meant to infer I was; I was referring to Imbas-public.
In November last year, several of my former Celtic Nation list members asked about membership in Imbas after their web-site came back on line. In an email from Tucherov, I was told, after asking the status of Imbas organizationally and whether it was accepting membership, "Functioning on an organizational level? No less than it has for the last four years. ;-) Interestingly enough, it's almost exactly as the amount of time during which it hasn't been accepting new members- those of us on the council didn't think that we could in good conscience continue to take money for membership while we weren't in a position to provide the quarterly periodical- which is still in abeyance. There is a proposal currently to open up membership again, but at a reduced rate and with a revised understanding that at present we weren't going to publish anything."
Imbas doesn't appear to be accepting membership, or doing much at all for that matter outwardly...the web site is still reflecting the November 2004 position, the constitution is defunct, along with its publication, the mission statement needs updating, and, with the possible exclusion of the leadership page, it doesn't look like its been updated in years. There is still some great reading there, though, and I recommend it heartily (http://www.imbas.org/), if only for that. If and when it begins to offer a membership value again, I am sure new members will come to support Imbas.
Tearlach Roibeard Luder
June 15, 2005
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