On Fri, 29 Aug 1997, Spiffy wrote:

Anyhow, since Tybalt is gone for the next few weeks, this is the ideal 
time to insult, er, I mean explain how you feel about him and his 
moderation. Do you think he needs to improve, or do you think he's doing 
just fine the way it is? And, while you are at it, come up with some, er, 
creative names for Tybalt. Of course, this does all boil down to who's 
the better moderator: White Wolf or Tybalt. (Gosh, I wonder who is going 
to win...) 

The problem, if I recall correctly, was that White Wolf was feeling
overloaded.  He felt the list needed more moderation, but was at the same
time feeling that he couldn't even maintain the level of moderation he was
participating in at the time.

If I'm not misremembered (WW or someone, correct me if I'm wrong), it
basicall came down to the list was either going to go away or get a new
moderator other than WW.  (Leaving it unmoderated is not realistically an
option - this was right after a time period where the FFML was getting
multiple hundreds of messages a day.  In addition to killing people's
mailboxes, I believe this was when fanfic.com still ran off two 28.8k PPP
links - the FFML was barely able to -deliver- all the mail.)  I believe an
existing subscriber offered to take over and got the 'Tybalt' account and
identity.

So it does NOT boil down to 'who's the better moderator, White Wolf or
Tybalt', since WW was overloaded and would not moderate anymore.  It boils
down to 'which is better, having Tybalt moderate this list or having the
list shut down.'

Personally, I can live with Tybalt.  I've even occasionally exchanged
good-humored e-mails with him - anyone who can give a cheerful response
when you poke idle fun at a random typo that makes an unintentional pun
can't be all that bad, right?

I've been (and am, on a different list) a moderator before - on a list
this size, it'd be a horrendous job, and I think Tybalt should be
applauded for dealing with it for this long; many people would've given
up by now.

----[Loki]-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy Blackman / Anime fan/fanfic author, Game Designer/Engineer
loki@maison-otaku.net (personal mail) / Maison Otaku Productions founder
loki@thekeep.org      (mailing lists) / Fanfic author / anime
jeremy@lith.com       (work)          / Monolith Productions