Re: Some further comments about the list

Dear Daniel,
I appreciate your thoughful comments. I agree with you wholeheartedly that
this list suffers considerably from lack of moderation. I have come within
a hair's breadth of unsubscribing on a number of occasions, as was the
case with you.
I supported the one-post-a-day solution, but your suggestion of a
moderator (a *strong* moderator) sounds much better. Some examples of
where a moderator might have intervened on this particular listserver:
1) Just for "fun," I kept track of the demography of the posts over a
3-day period - over 75% of the WSN posts were from only 3 individuals.
As much as we value their contributions, these folks might be reminded to
curb the number of posts per day.
2) The individual who sent the post in upper-case profanity yesterday
could be removed from the list.
3) Conversants engaged in lengthy private debates could be reminded to
take them off the listserver.
Problem: who would be willing to take the responsibility, and how would
this individual be selected? Chris Chase-Dunn, as I understand it, still
maintains the list. Perhaps he could offer some suggestions.
Best,
Judi Kessler
UC San Diego

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Daniel Pinéu wrote:

> Dear fellow members,
> 
> Apparently there was some problem with my unsubscribe email, so i am still 
> on the list. And this, i now think, has proved fortunate indeed.
> 
> I was very glad to see how many people responded to my first comments on 
> this list`s (poor) functioning. So, at least that objective - having people 
> thinking and discussing about the shortcomings of this list - was achieved.
> 
> I was also pleasently surprised at the considerable ammount of people who, 
> in some way, shared my views on some of the problems that afflict the 
> community.
> 
> This fact, coupled with a couple of privately sent emails from a few
> colleagues urging me to stay, made me realize that unsubscribing would be 
> the easiest but also the wrong option.
> 
> I hope that everybody bears with me in this effort to increase the quality 
> (if not the quantity) of the postings by fellow members, and their academic 
> pertinence.
> 
> So, to those people who wrote to me and the list sharing my intention of 
> unsubscribing (and this goes especially to A.G. Frank), i can only ask not 
> to do it,and instead try to provide some active solution to the problem. 
> Which is what i will also try to do, as soon as i get some free time from 
> some rather pressing academic business.
> 
> I would like to thank our colleague Arno Tausch for the profile of our list 
> he recently posted. It is a document who should give everybody pause for 
> thought, as it shows how some core (world-systems related) issues are so 
> scarcely treated, and how so many other marginalia are so abundantly 
> considered in the list.
> 
> And, if your patience still allows me, i would like to present some further 
> suggestions/thoughts for the future functioning of our list. Personally, i 
> do not agree with the "one day, one posting" system, as i think it is far 
> too restrictive. I rather believe that each member of this community should 
> have the intellectual discernment of judging what is truly important to 
> post.
> 
> However, I do think that introducing moderators to the list would produce 
> some good results in improving its contents and working.
> 
> Finally, i would like to state very clearly that it was not (and still
> isn`t) my intention to inhibit anybody from posting what they thing is
> important to share with all the fellow members. Neither do i feel that
> RELEVANT and UNBIASED information on such issues as human rights or ecology 
> are out of place or purpose. Nonetheless, these shouldn`t exceed or stifle 
> the academic and intellectual contributions dealing with sustantive issues 
> of Worl-Systems theory. After all,that is -i guess - the whole purpose of 
> this list. I know that hitting the delete button is not very difficult, but 
> i expect people to share with me the opinion that when you are deleting much 
> more than you are reading/keeping, something is wrong with the general 
> contents of the list.
> 
> Well, I will be waiting for the reaction of my peers in the list. All
> comments, either publicly or privately posted are more than welcome,
> especially if they contribute actively for the (needed) reform of the list 
> functioning. Once again,thank you for your attention.
> 
> Yours
> 
> Daniel Pinéu
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