I’ve mentioned the rather braindead way in which the Enterprise Ireland mailing lists are maintained in the past.
The subject has reared its head again and the moderators have done a “wonderful” job.
The fact that there are “moderators” annoys me enough already. It’s damn annoying.
Their response is maddening:
*Moderator Note — this topic has been discussed previously. The policy of
allowing anonymous posting is unlikely to change. However, should anyone on
this discussion list wish to raise this with the eBusiness Unit, Enterprise
Ireland, they can be contacted at ebusiness@enterprise-ireland.com. No
further posts on this specific subject will be released to the discussion.
(my emphasis)
This editing and censoring of posting bugs the hell out of me.
Name the moderators. They deserve the spotlight of public discussion outside of the realm they moderate.
Well Ralph is probably one of them as is Sylvia Leatham. Then there must be at least another ENN employee unless Ralph had to set up a number of e-mail addresses for himself. Eoin O’Siochru of EI is also there but according to the stats, he has no involvement in the running of the list. The “edited” post count for each moderator are also visible.
The details aren’t that hard to find because they are posted on the EI website:
http://news.enterprise-ireland.com/read/about/?forum=ebusiness_discussion
The evolution of the EI list is quite interesting because it has never been moderated by people who could be considered industry experts. It is not a meritocracy and the moderatorship is based on providing the best bid in a public tender process. ENN (the current moderator) is really just a PR firm. Perhaps that veneer of relevance without the danger of legal threats is what EI wants.
Likewise! I posted this:
“And the anonymity of this moderator is weird too! In fact, the very
existence of an all-powerful moderator on this list is strange.”
And received this response:
“Eoghan
Unfortunately we will not be releasing your recent posting below.
This topic has been raised before on the Enterprise Ireland Discussion Forum. This is a forum primarily aimed at providing assistance to SMEs, many of whom are clients of the organisation. It was deemed necessary at its inception that, on asking for advice on this Enterprise Ireland controlled discussion, some companies required anonymity, though it was and remains something Enterprise Ireland advises against unless absolutely necessary. This policy is unlikely to change. However, if you wish to take the matter further you can contact the eBusiness Unit directly at ebusiness@enterprise-ireland.com cc’ing your comment to the moderator email owner-ebusiness_discussion@news.enterprise-ireland.com
We would add that moderation is a requirement of material coming out under the auspices of the Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Unit. Moderation has been handled by various organisations on behalf of the eBusiness Unit with this work going out to competitive tender on a regular basis. Further information can be found in the comments section of an entry about this same topic on Michele Neylon’s Blog:
http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2006/09/26/anonymous-mailing-lists-arent-good/
The Moderation Team”
How frustrating. There’s no better way to de-value this medium than by tampering with it like this. Censorship sucks!
I never knew it was was outsourced… oh well.
Would you believe that I also sent in a message or two complaining about the anonymous posting and got more or less the same.
I suppose people are cute enough to give less weight to the mystery posts there, I certainly do.
They did give me the email address to send my concerns to, so maybe I’ll do that.
Pity because it is quite obvious that the EI name gives the board much credibility it would be bereft of otherwise.
Eoghan – exactly
Richard – I’d be of the opinion that any list that is that heavily moderated and allows people to post so anonymously offers far less than other mailing lists.
Do you think there’s space for a competing list? 🙂
The Open list (http://www.webnet.ie/open ) are the competing lists. The Open one is far more respected than the EI one and it completely replaced the old IIA’s Webmaster Shoptalk List.