BEE-L is a decades-old mailing list and has gone through a many phases and changes over the years.  I've been involved in the management either directly or in the background since Ed Southwick passed on and I convinced Aaron to take ownership when the list was about to die, an ownership he eventually passed on to me.

We have always had strong personalities on BEE-L and conflicts have arisen periodically when one person or another came to think that the list should accept only messages that suit that person's tastes or, alternately,  moderators should accept anything that is sent to the list including their sly or not so sly digs at others, abusive words,  or strawman arguments -- or irrelevant material.  

Originally, back in the days when most folks were polite and considerate, the list was wide open, but eventually, due to abuse, domination, and flooding, we chose moderation -- but only to filter the most egregious submissions and to keep the archives searchable and readable.  

Bullying, flooding, and grandstanding still appear in the moderators' inbox and are perennial problems that require judgement calls.

Over the years in addition to moderation, we have tried everything including a summary list (Best of Bee) and topical splits when we were on the University server with full LISTSERV, not the lite LISTSERV version we now run under.

To cut to the chase, I am asked fairly often to remind folks that our mandate is informed discussion of bees and beekeeping, nothing more, and asked to reject posts that veer off topic.  (See the complaint note at the end).

That is easier said than done, and, besides, we are not and will not be censors. If you want the list censored, you are free to do that with your delete button.  Since we strictly restrict quoting and attribution, if you choose not to read any particular member's annoying posts, you will not come across content by the writers you ignored when reading posts by those you find wise and worthy.

As for content, moderators try to be moderate and tolerant (in the true historical sense of the word), and give some leeway for personal expression.   We are a community as well as a bulletin board, but we generally suppress "me too" or :Hurrah" posts as just noise.  On slack days, we tolerate a bit more noise, just so folks know the list still lives.  

We also let some tangential topics work themselves out to see where they lead.  The AI thread was one that was on the margin but kept getting back to bees and science.  We try to stick to topics where people have not formed hard positions and we mostly avoid religion and politics, and we have avoided covid discussions, as these topics tend to be emotional and divisive.  

*We remind members periodically that BEE-L is for the readers as much or more than the egos of the writers, although that message sometimes seems to get lost.*

Mostly people seem content with the list as it is but we do get complaints and consider them for what they are worth.   We also see a few people leaving after some threads, but we also see people joining.

Anyhow, here is a comment and suggestion from one annoyed reader that reminded me to post this reminder. 

> Bee-L is not a chat group, and a number of participants have complained about posts bloated with personal information and off-topic wordage.  All posts, and everything in a post must be directly related to Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology. Posts that include unnecessary personal information, [redacted], or other things unrelated to the beekeeping subject of a thread will not be accepted for posting.

*We don't intend to be that draconian since we are a community and we each have a personality even if it annoys others and a viewpoint to contribute but this is a valid POV.*

A word to the wise is sufficient.

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