OT: Moderator Vacancy Investigation: comp.arch.hobbyist
Theo Markettos
The newsgroup comp.arch.hobbyist was created some years ago for the
discussion of recreational hardware design. The activity when it was
created was (for example) people wirewrapping their own microprocessor
boards at home, but the scope in the charter (below) is a bit broader than
that.
It was created as a moderated group because the community previously
inhabited alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt which was filled with off-topic posts
like 'How do I plug in SIMMs to my PC?'. That was probably a mistake, as
I'm not sure moderation was needed in comp.arch.*
Anyway, for some years the moderator has been AWOL and as a result the group
was been dead. So the Big 8 Management Board are currently seeing if
there's any interest in replacing the moderator, or whether the group should
be deleted.
Is there any interest in a newsgroup for non-commercial electronics/hardware
design? That might have a slightly different feel from, say,
comp.arch.embedded where the emphasis is on commercial development.
Hardware, software, FPGAs (and more) would be covered. It might not be a
particularly high-traffic group, as long as there are some people interested
in reading and posting.
If there's interest, the group is already carried by many news servers so
moderation just needs to be arranged - either on a simple automatic approval
system or, if manpower is available, with human moderators. I'm willing to
set this up if people think it's worthwhile. But I'm also happy for the
group to be deleted if no-one is interested.
So please followup to this posting (followup will go to news.groups not
comp.arch.* or sci.electronics.*) if you have an opinion.
Theo
(original proponent of comp.arch.hobbyist 1997-8)
Here's the official Moderator Vacancy Investigation posting (from
news.groups.proposals):
In news.announce.newgroups Alexander Bartolich <alexander...@gmx.at> wrote:
> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
> moderated group comp.arch.hobbyist
>
> This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
> moderated newsgroup comp.arch.hobbyist is not functioning, and may have
> been abandoned by its moderator(s).
>
> This investigation will attempt to verify the reasons for non-function,
> and may result in the removal of the group or the selection and instal-
> lation of a new moderator. In practice, the Big-8 Management Board
> considers the third alternative--changing the status of the group from
> moderated to unmoderated--as likely to cause more harm than good.
>
> NEWSGROUPS LINE:
>
> comp.arch.hobbyist Homebrew digital electronics design. (Moderated)
>
> DISTRIBUTION:
>
> news.announce.newgroups
> news.groups.proposals
> comp.arch.hobbyist
>
> PROPONENT:
>
> Alexander Bartolich <alexander...@gmx.at>
>
> CHARTER OF COMP.ARCH.HOBBYIST
>
> A moderated forum to exchange ideas, techniques, problems, solutions,
> and other information concerning the hobby of electronics design and
> construction, specifically related to digital machines and their
> peripherals.
>
> Commercial advertisements (except when non-repetitive and directly
> relevant to the topic of the group) are expressly forbidden; it is up
> to the moderation group to make individual exceptions.
>
> Binary postings in this group are unwelcome. No postings containing
> 10K or more of binary content will be accepted. Postings containing
> less than 10K of binary content should only be used where no other
> reasonable method is available to convey the information they contain.
> All postings containing binary content of more than 10 lines or 300
> bytes, whichever is the smaller, shall be forwarded to the daily
> moderators for inspection in the same manner as articles from unknown
> authors.
>
> Posters wishing to post binaries that do not fit the above criteria
> should upload this data to an FTP or WWW site and instead post a
> pointer to that site. The binary regulations do not apply to the
> posting of ASCII schematics.
>
> A 'bot moderator will be used, which will reject articles by authors
> who have not read the posting guidelines. Articles rejected by the
> 'bot will be forwarded to a group of three daily moderators for
> review. These daily moderators will be appointed by a moderation group
> of at least eight and at most twelve members who will decide on
> moderation policy in general and the workings of the 'bot in
> particular. Moderation will follow the scheme outlined below:
>
> The 'bot:
>
> - auto-approves articles that match all of these:
> - known author
> OR keyword/phrase in article
> OR reply to approved article to the same set of newsgroups
> - article with less than 300 bytes or 10 lines of binary
> content, whichever is the smaller
> - plain text, without markup encoding
> - mails notification of non-approval to original authors,
> without an attempt to circumvent spamblocks
> - notification message explains moderation system,
> and points poster to relevant posting guidelines
> - sends non-approved articles to the daily moderators
> - uploads non-approved articles to a WWW site, and
> regularly posts a pointer to them
> - scans for forged approvals and cancels
>
>
> The daily moderators:
> - individually check articles the 'bot rejected;
> - if at least one of the daily moderators think the
> article is on-topic, it gets posted
> - if it is reposted, the original author is notified
>
> The moderation group:
> - appoints the daily moderators
> - deals with group abuse that's not caught by the 'bot
> - it has the power to bar persistent abusers by
> unanimous decision for a period of up to
> 30 days at a time
> - deals with long-term moderation policy
> - is obliged to post details of all moderation group
> decisions to the newsgroup
> - if a moderation group member does not express an opinion
> on a matter, then their silence shall not be taken as
> supporting either side of a decision
>
> Moderators of news.announce.newgroups and successor groups are
> allowed blanket crossposting at their discretion.
>
> RATIONALE:
>
> Probe posts to this group resulted in bounces.
>
> <comp-arch...@moderators.isc.org>: host
> moderators.switch.ch[130.59.10.10] said: 550 Unrouteable address
> (in reply to RCPT TO command)
>
> HISTORY OF THE GROUP:
>
> comp.arch.hobbyist is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation
> by 199:15 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 30 Jun 1998.
>
> PROCEDURE:
>
> Those who wish to comment on this moderator vacancy investigation should
> subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant
> threads in that newsgroup.
>
> To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
> news.groups.proposals.
>
> For more information on the MVI process, please see
>
> http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:mvi
>
> CHANGE HISTORY:
>
> 2009-10-29 Probe post bounced
> 2009-11-01 Moderator Vacancy Investigation
>
Peter Van Epp
>[Please note, followups set to news.groups]
<snip>
>If there's interest, the group is already carried by many news servers so
>moderation just needs to be arranged - either on a simple automatic approval
>system or, if manpower is available, with human moderators. I'm willing to
>set this up if people think it's worthwhile. But I'm also happy for the
>group to be deleted if no-one is interested.
>So please followup to this posting (followup will go to news.groups not
>comp.arch.* or sci.electronics.*) if you have an opinion.
>Theo
>(original proponent of comp.arch.hobbyist 1997-8)
Sure, I just subscribed to comp.arch.hobbyist since thats essentially
what I'm doing and we will see what happens.
Peter Van Epp
Theo Markettos
> Sure, I just subscribed to comp.arch.hobbyist since thats
> essentially what I'm doing and we will see what happens.
You won't see any traffic until the moderation is fixed, which might take a
little while assuming people think it's worthwhile. But good to know some
people are reading it :-)
Theo
Leon
wrote:
>
> > MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
> > moderated group comp.arch.hobbyist
>
> > This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
> > moderated newsgroup comp.arch.hobbyist is not functioning, and may have
> > been abandoned by its moderator(s).
>
> > This investigation will attempt to verify the reasons for non-function,
> > and may result in the removal of the group or the selection and instal-
> > lation of a new moderator. In practice, the Big-8 Management Board
> > considers the third alternative--changing the status of the group from
> > moderated to unmoderated--as likely to cause more harm than good.
>
> > NEWSGROUPS LINE:
>
> > comp.arch.hobbyist Homebrew digital electronics design. (Moderated)
>
> > DISTRIBUTION:
>
> > news.announce.newgroups
> > news.groups.proposals
> > comp.arch.hobbyist
>
> > PROPONENT:
>
> > moderators.switch.ch[130.59.10.10] said: 550 Unrouteable address
> > (in reply to RCPT TO command)
>
> > HISTORY OF THE GROUP:
>
> > comp.arch.hobbyist is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation
> > by 199:15 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 30 Jun 1998.
>
> > PROCEDURE:
>
> > Those who wish to comment on this moderator vacancy investigation should
> > subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant
> > threads in that newsgroup.
>
> > To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
> > news.groups.proposals.
>
> > For more information on the MVI process, please see
>
> >http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:mvi
>
> > CHANGE HISTORY:
>
> > 2009-10-29 Probe post bounced
> > 2009-11-01 Moderator Vacancy Investigation
I was an active member of the group, you probably remember me and my
responses to the many off-topic posters. What became of Steve Walsh?
Leon
Jurgen Defurne
Very interested since I am on comp.arch.fpga for the sake of designing
my own architecture and building it using an FPGA. And if there is any
interest, I am willing to share a previous design of a 12-bit CPU,
which can be implemented using traditional logic IC's.
Regards,
Jurgen
Adam H. Kerman
You were troll feeding?
Theo Markettos
> I was an active member of the group, you probably remember me and my
> responses to the many off-topic posters. What became of Steve Walsh?
Are you Leon H? I don't remember much spam on c.a.h (but then I don't
remember much traffic either). Or do you mean the fun we had on
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt:
"How do I accelerate my 486 to Pentium speeds?"
"Well, chips go faster if you increase the voltage. So take a cable from
your wall socket and wire it into the 5 volt rail on your computer. 240
volts is 48 times 5 volts, so your computer will go* 48 times faster."
*up in flames
It did get rather intolerable, which was why we went for the new group. But
the traffic rather tailed off.
Theo
Theo Markettos
> Very interested since I am on comp.arch.fpga for the sake of designing
> my own architecture and building it using an FPGA. And if there is any
> interest, I am willing to share a previous design of a 12-bit CPU,
> which can be implemented using traditional logic IC's.
That sounds like just the sort of thing we used to discuss on
comp.arch.hobbyist :)
If the group is to be resurrected what we really need are some regular
posters. Personally I'm not sure I have that much to contribute these days,
hence the solicitation of interest.
Theo
Ian Clifton
I'd support the revival of this group. I've recently "got back into"
hobby electronics, with the arrival of the male menopause, and it
strikes me that 1) microcontrollers are great for the hobbyist - for
less than the price of a beer you get more peripherals on-chip than you
can think up uses for but 2) the concerns of the hobbyist have diverged
from those of the pro, for instance, simply the question of devices
available in DIP. A 40 pin .6" DIP just looks more impressive than some
tiny thing you can hardly hold . . .
--
Ian Clifton Phone: +44 1865 275677
Chemistry Research Laboratory Fax: +44 1865 285002
Oxford University ian.c...@chem.ox.ac.uk
Mansfield Road Oxford OX1 3TA UK
Theo Markettos
> I'd support the revival of this group. I've recently "got back into"
> hobby electronics, with the arrival of the male menopause, and it
> strikes me that 1) microcontrollers are great for the hobbyist - for
> less than the price of a beer you get more peripherals on-chip than you
> can think up uses for but 2) the concerns of the hobbyist have diverged
> from those of the pro, for instance, simply the question of devices
> available in DIP. A 40 pin .6" DIP just looks more impressive than some
> tiny thing you can hardly hold . . .
Thanks.
I'm crossposting this thread to news.groups.proposals where the 'official'
discussion is taking place (didn't do that originally since the propagation
of n.g.p can be a little flaky). Followups set to n.g.p - if you can't see
them, do say so in news.groups.
It looks like we have about 4 people expressed an interest in news.groups,
and about two more (including me) in n.g.p.
So what do we want to do? In particular, do people think that such a group
would be of wider interest if more people were aware of it? Would anybody
be interested in doing a bit of promotion? I'm not convinced that a group
of 6 is viable, unless any of you are prolific posters. Or is it worth just
setting up some basic moderation and giving it a try?
Theo