Michael,
I'd like to echo your comments (and Mike Denny's) about the extraordinary harmony we've enjoyed in our forums. Considering the amount of traffic, and the range of contentious issues we discuss, it really does seem rather unusual.
There are a few things that distinguish the LPSF forums from many of the other email lists to which I belong. Unlike some groups, the person registered with Yahoo as the owner of the lists has rarely if ever spoken out in a moderator capacity -- I'm sure many people on the lists probably do not even know it's Chris Maden. The high-traffic list, lpsf-discuss, has no posted rules whatsoever. I suppose the latter might be a point in favor of anarchy. But I suspect that the most crucial difference between this and most Internet groups is that we had a group of people who knew each other and were meeting physically before we had an email list, and that this group, which comprises most of the main participants on the email list, continues to meet regularly in person.
Even that might not be the main reason for the harmony, however. I think the most important factor might be that none of us seem to be trying to control or dominate the proceedings, and that we sort of recognize this in each other. There is a great respect for valuing everyone's opinion, and deciding things democratically as much as possible -- so much so that it sometimes makes us inefficient at getting things done. But although this is frustrating, and there is probably some room for improvement, I would rather have some inefficiency than have the group run by an individual or several people who seemed to like wielding power too much.
Yours in liberty,
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On Wednesday, April 26, 2006, at 10:01 AM, Acree, Michael wrote (in part):