Lute Mail list technical information (original) (raw)

There are two issues here.... First, the lute list is unmoderated. That means that I don't read and approve mail before it gets sent out to people, rather, the messages get sent out as soon as they get to the mail list robot. If I had to approve each message it could take a week for the message to go out, and this would spoil the immediacy of the conversations. Also, I am not a lute scholar, and if I moderated the mail people would expect me to confirm the validity of the opinions expressed in messages, and I am not qualified to do that.

The second issue is that I believe in an open exchange of ideas, and I rely on you, the reader, to ignore any messages posted by people that bother you. You don't have to read each message, and you may soon find that you don't want to read certain people's messages. However (AOL users!) if you decide to tell your mail reader to reject certain messages, be sure that the reader doesn't send a rejection notice back to the lute mail robot. Otherwise we might think that mail to you is bouncing and remove your name from the list!

I do have the ability to completely ban someone from the list but I do this very rarely. I did remove Matanya. My suggestion is one your mother might have made...if you ignore them they will go away. I think flame wars are driven by everyone's desire to get the last word.

_Update 2005_I have in fact now banned Matanya and two other people from the lute mail list because their presence causes an unpleasant level of hostility on the list, and because they have used the lute list as a vehicle for personal attacks.