by Aldus Marius on Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:23 am
Salve iterum, amice Curator!
> From what I had heard of Nova Roma, I expected you'd have to be a CITIZEN first before you could join...
This was actually proposed during my time as NR ListMod. I fought like hell against it, and prevailed for the time being...here's an excerpt from my statement, in response to one member's concern:
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> I do have a question regarding this list being totally open and available to anyone who stumbles across it on Onelist. [Ed. note: precursor to Yahoo Groups]
> Isn't it possible for someone to sign up on this list using a Roman name, posting very controversial emails and
> wreaking havoc amongst the citizens? Has this ever happened?
That sort of thing has indeed happened; we get one of those every four to six months or so, and it's happened once-and-a-half on my watch...[snip]
More recent occurances were when a discussion of East Timor flared up into a hurling of racial and religious epithets (I was Curator by then); and the odd half-flap, when an ill-behaved 'outside observer' accused me of manipulating the List-traffic to secure a particular candidate's election. (That did not flare up precisely because, for anyone that knows me [which is most of the List regulars], the accusation was so patently unbelievable.)
Which brings me to another issue that gets kicked around from time to time... We have often asked ourselves whether the NovaRoma E-List ought to be restricted to Citizens only. Generally the question comes up right after a hit-and-run situation such as Diana asks about and I have described. In every case, we have decided against banning non-Cives from subscribing. The reasons? --Chiefly, that we wish prospective members to have a chance to check out Nova Roma by being able to lurk on the List for a time; but also, sometimes our non-Cives contibute a sorely-needed third-party perspective to our discussions and general goings-on! The same 'observer' cited above had also said, in an earlier post:
> We are seeing a living, breathing Rome slowly coming into existence against all the odds...Sometimes you just
> need an outsider's opinion to get you to realize what a wonderful thing you are attempting to do here.
I think it was worth a minor 'texturing' of my dignitas on the election thing to be able to be reminded of this. Ita Est!
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The List Archives were closed to non-subscribers some time after I left, I think within the first year, by Priscilla Vedia Serena. The justification for keeping them that way now is that magistrates have to give their legal, as well as their Roman, name when they take their oaths of office, and therefore there are some privacy concerns. However, the Wiki team has been kicking the issue around recently; no startling revelations yet, but we're trying to find a good compromise between said privacy concerns and the needs of researchers.
I'm glad one now only has to subscribe to the List, not join the organisation! There *is* progress.
In fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.