power? or fulfilment of a promise?

this weekend I was placed in a difficult position regarding an announcement list that i co-moderate. when my neighbor (and good friend) and I started a new pine lake yahoogroup, we created it with a mission. this mission statement has been clear form the start and is listed on the page for the group.

though there were already lists in pine lake, we understood and felt there was a lack of an “announcements” list. many groups that i have been involved in have multiple email lists. a list for announcements, a list for networking, a list for discussion, etc. This partition of lists makes it possible for people with more involvement to participate more and people with less time can get the most important information without having to wade through lots of email that may be off-topic or irrelevant to them.

in creating the new list, we were clear on the “announcements only” mission and hoped that with the promise of a low volume, high information list, we would be able to keep a wide-reaching audience.

as the years have passed, despite requests for emails to stay within the mission, the list has started to degrade into yet another discussion list. This past week, I sent out a plea to the list to reign in the “non-announcement” type mail. This plea was ignored by quite a few people, so I made the decision to switch the list to be moderated.

This decision was met by both protest and praise. One protester claimed that I was being a third grade hall monitor and power hungry. I have to say that i don’t at all believe myself to be power hungry. I have NO desire to spen the time and effort deciding whether each and every email falls within the mission. Some are obviously in, some are obviously outside, but some are not so easy to place.

Instead, I feel that I am trying to fulfill the promise I made when adding 200+ people to yet another email list. I promised that the new list would be different from the others. It wouldn’t clutter their email boxes with discussion. It would only bring them announcements on a regular basis. I feel that I have a responsibility to keep my promise. if i ignore that promise, the list will lose members and be useless. it will not be any different than the other lists. it has no purpose for existing.

All in all, a neighborhood email list is trivial in the grand scheme of things; I know that. But I also believe in keeping promises.