[Coral-List] Regarding a Coral-List Metamorphosis

[Charles Delbeek]

I echo Jim's concerns on the type of discourse that can take place on 
a forum ... I also have a strong aversion to the common Internet 
forum practice of using aliases, which only seems to fuel the type of 
negative behaviour Jim points out below. In addition, the cost of 
running and moderating such a forum in man hours alone may be 
prohibitive, not to mention the costs to host such a forum on a 
server. Many of these forums rely on advertising to keep themselves 
going, and some have taken to charging a monthly fee to access 
certain forum functions such as searches, or even the forum itself.

The recent debate on the Bahamas development would be better served 
on a forum, and those involved want to use such a venue, then why not 
start it on one of the forums Jim mentions are already out there? The 
CoralList served its purpose, it alerted those who might be 
interested in the issue.

For those not interested in a topic ... the delete key is quite a 
handy one. :-)


>     * This is a U.S. Government resource, so we would have to moderate
>       the content; as you know, there are certain things we can't allow,
>       which might creep into a Web-based free comment forum:
>       commercialism, lobbying Congress, profanity, flaming, anti-racist
>       or sexist remarks, etc.  This actually helps to maintain decorum
>       in an age where email seems to have encouraged a new kind of
>       discourse, namely, the occasional tendency to be nasty to someone
>       you wouldn't be nasty to in their presence.

Aloha!


J. Charles Delbeek M.Sc.

Aquarium Biologist III
Waikiki Aquarium,
University of Hawaii
2777 Kalakaua Ave.
Honolulu, HI, USA 96815
www.waquarium.org

808-923-9741 ext. 0 VOICE
808-923-1771 FAX