[DML] ADMIN NOTE - or - What's going on with this list, anyway??

["Dave Swingle" <dswingle@xxxx>]

NOTE LONG POSTING ? Please read it through! - -

Now that James Espey has explained what is going on with the list and his
personal job, it?s time to introduce the new moderating panel and explain
what we?re doing going forward. The moderating panel is made up of six
long-time DML members ? Mike Substelny, Bruce Benson, Marty Maier, Dick
?raddad? Ryan, Knut Grimsrud, and me, Dave Swingle. I will be acting as the
?Moderator of Moderators?, aka MOM. This is a required administrative
function because eGroups requires the list to have a single ?owner? who gets
the complaint mail and pays the bill to turn off the advertising. The group
will attempt to behave as a unified panel, and not one ?manager?.
Consistency will be the hard part.

For the past 6 weeks or so, we have been undergoing ?moderation training? by
taking turns and asking James and each other for advice. If the list has
seemed a little inconsistent in the recent past this may be why. Believe me,
it?s not as easy as it looks, and it?s more amazing to me each day to
realize that James has been doing this essentially nonstop for 4 years. We
all owe James a huge debt of gratitude for his efforts through some trying
times.

Our intent and philosophies:
----The list will remain free of charge. It will be supported by continued
sales of DMC paraphernalia as James has been doing. Depending on how well
that does, it may also be supported by me. It will not be supported by or
tied to any particular Delorean parts or other vendor. The new mailing
address for ordering material will be posted to the website as soon as I
figure out how (see below).
----The mission will stay the same, a MODERATED discussion of Delorean ? the
man and the machine. No politics, weather, get-rich-quick schemes,
Trans-Ams, or virus warnings!
----We are still feeling out the moderation style. We?ve been experimenting
with adjusting the behavior of the list by encouraging posters to reply
privately where appropriate, clip out long quotes, and by discouraging
low-content posting. Please don?t take these rejections as a personal
affront. It is in the interest of keeping the list interesting to more
people, without clutter, and creating a valuable archive of information that
doesn?t read like a chat room.
----We will be moderating on a rotating cycle, changing moderators generally
once a week. This means that each of us only has to moderate for a week at a
time every six weeks.
----We are experimenting with different moderation timetables, balancing the
desire for real-time posting with the chat-room effect and the impact on our
personal time and our real jobs.

The DMCNEWS website will continue to be maintained by several list members.
I will, after some further education, begin updating the main pages. Knut
Grimsrud will continue to maintain the FAQ section, Scott Mueller will be
maintaining the owners directory, and Dave Price will continue to maintain
the classified ads. We?re not sure what to do with the archives. Issues
#1-500 will continue to be held on the main DMCNEWS web site indefinitely.
More recent postings are on the eGroups site. I think it would be desirable
to continue to archive on the DMCNEWS page as well, we?re looking into that
with the assistance of Greg Guilliot.

No huge changes to the web page are planned for a while, since none of us
(except maybe Knut) is an expert webpage designer and have to rely on the
graces of others for assistance. Keep an eye on this ? it may take a short
while
to get it updated. I?ll post a notice here to the DML when something
changes. The site is more of a billboard for the list than a dynamic
ever-changing page, we?ll probably keep it that way.

Comments are welcome. For now the best thing would be to send them to me
directly and I?ll forward to the Moderation Panel.

Looking forward to this adventure;
Dave Swingle (dswingle@xxxx) for
Knut, Mike, Bruce, Dick, and Marty





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