Moderation Rules & Postings Standards

[Shashi Shekhar <yossarin@prodigy.net>]

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[Topics under debate]: GOOD GOVERNANCE
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I agree. We need to enforce strict standards on what gets posted on IPI
Debate. I had invited a couple of Phd students in Engineering Policy Research
to join in hoping they would give the debate a strong policy orientation. But
unfortunately we have been allowing far too many postings on
        - Debating current Issues.
        - Attacking or demeaning someone's position
        - Any article to do with anything related to India.

I agree that there are a lot of things which need to be highlighted in public
and opinions mobilised. But IPI is not the place to do all that. If we have to
succeed in these policy debates we have to limit the scope of what gets
debated on IPI. The reason for this is not that other topics ought not to be
debated.

The reason is that we dont want to overwhelm ourselves by debating everything
under the sun and loose focus periodically.

Hence informally the Moderators shall impose strict rules
        - To reject to any posting which is not Policy.
        - Every posting must state what Policy matter it relates to, and also
state to whose posting this posting
           is in response to.
        - All personal remarks shall be summarily edited out without getting
back to the member who has
           posted them. This is to avoid delays and also bring in an element
of personal discipline so that
           members resist the TEMPTATION to score a DEBATING POINT over a peer
and instead
           focus on the larger cause of coming up with best policies.

As a moderator I seek approval of all members & fellow moderators to enforce
these rules so that we make these debates effective.

So I once again urge members to resist the TEMPTATION:
        - To post messages calling for collective action like - lobbying,
donations, chain mail etc etc. IPI is
           not the place for this. You can either mail it directly to
individual members or use the USENET
            Newsgroups for this purpose. The DEBATE Mailing list shall be used
exclusivley for Policy
            Debate.
        - To score trivial DEBATING POINTS over other members by commenting on
their inconsistencies
          or lack of awareness or mistakes. We are not here on a DEBATING
COMPETITION we are here
          on a larger cause of coming up with best practises. So all such
comments shall be summarily edited
          out.
        - To send 1 line or 1 sentence postings where you just say I agree
with "so & so". We need to
            conserve Bandwidth and also minimise the number of mails members
have to read daily.
            Hence from now on please post detailed comments on Policy else
resist the temptation to
            just say you agree. Periodically we shall try to summarise a
Policy Topic in which you can
            all give your agreement & disagreement which shall go on record.

If we all adhere to these standards we would be able to retain the TALENT we
have and also attract better talent in the future.

regards
shashi

Dr. Subroto Roy wrote:

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> [Topics under debate]: GOOD GOVERNANCE
> ___Help make this manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!___
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> What is the relevance of Mr. Hremi's comments below to anything at IPI?
> Please enlighten us.
>
> Subroto Roy.
>
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> This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
> Rules, Procedures, Archives:            http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/
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This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/
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