I volunteer to moderate news.groups. Here is my statement of policy.
Jean Ogrinz
I volunteer to be the moderator of news.groups. I will be
on the net for a long time to come and I have the time that
such a task would require.
It's been suggested that none of the opinionated, highly
visible people in news.groups would be a good moderator, and
I agree. It seems to me that a lot of them have old grudges
against each other. Pretty much nobody knows who I am and I
have never been involved in any of the flamewars in
news.groups in the last few years.
I have only been reading news.groups for about three years,
but I think I can decide what is germane and what is not. I
think that there is way too much junk in news.groups and
that a careful moderator could improve the quality of
discussion without denying anyone a chance to express their
opinion. This would be a lot of work but would be a
worthwhile endeavor.
Here's my policy:
Discussions of content, names, and need for proposed
groups, and questions about those things, are appropriate
for news.groups. Discussions of this kind about proposed
alt groups are not appropriate for news.groups.
Crossposts of material from news.announce.newgroups
are also appropriate.
Metadiscussions of what is appropriate for
news.groups should be addressed to me or to news.misc.
Flames (meaning ad hominem attacks, not just
disagreements) are not appropriate. If a submitted article
has some flame content and some discussion content, I will
return it to the submitter and suggest excisions.
I may reject long articles if I think they should be
shorter.
I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
post two articles that say the same thing. If a submitted
article says some old things and some new things, I will
return it to the submitter for revisions.
If the submitter requests it, I will edit a
submitted article myself and post it.
I will try to fix Followup-To: lines appropriately. I will
try to put useful keywords in the Keywords: line as well.
I think that it is better to post a few inappropriate
articles than to let people who really think they have
something to say go unheard, so I will make every effort to
post at least an edited version of each article I receive
that says something new, or even something old from a new
point of view. In all cases, I will try to interpret
'appropriate for news.groups' with widest possible latitude.
I will supply a reason for rejection for any articles I
return. For example:
"Dave Sill said essentially the same thing in
<1...@foo.bar>. Perhaps you would submit instead an article
describing how your views diffeer from his?"
"I will post this article if you let me change the
phrase 'The FICC tag-team.' to something less judgemental."
"Statements to the effect that you will not carry
sci.spam at your site are not appropriate for news.groups.
I will consider posting an article that contains an
explanation of why the USEnet as a whole should not carry
sci.spam."
"Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
I would be willing to share responsibility for news.groups
with other people.
It seems clear to me that with this policy, a moderated
news.groups would still be substantially different from
news.announce.newgroups, and would still fulfill its
original purpose: discussion.
Please send me your suggestions.
Followups to news.misc, because this article is not really
appropriate traffic for news.groups.
--
Jean Marie Ogrinz
jea...@pawl.rpi.EDU
Steven L. Baur
+ Here's my policy:
+
+ Discussions of content, names, and need for proposed
+ groups, and questions about those things, are appropriate
+ for news.groups. Discussions of this kind about proposed
+ alt groups are not appropriate for news.groups.
+
+ Crossposts of material from news.announce.newgroups
+ are also appropriate.
+
+ Metadiscussions of what is appropriate for
+ news.groups should be addressed to me or to news.misc.
+
+ Flames (meaning ad hominem attacks, not just
+ disagreements) are not appropriate. If a submitted article
+ has some flame content and some discussion content, I will
+ return it to the submitter and suggest excisions.
+
+ I may reject long articles if I think they should be
+ shorter.
I agree with all of this except the long articles rejection.
Paul J. Mech
>
> I may reject long articles if I think they should be
> shorter.
I don't think that long articals are inappropriate for news.groups. I am
also concerned that this may constitute editing for style.
> I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
> post two articles that say the same thing.
Part of the consensus process here includes short "me too" type postings
that indicate a base level of support.
> "Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
I beg to differ. Puns are always appropriate.
> Please send me your suggestions.
The need for a form of moderation is not to limit the flow of articals
with some content. This is not sci.military, where one looks for content.
News.groups is a place where one attempts to build a consensus; so if
articals are somewhat (or even totally repetitious) it is a valid and
useful indication. If one is uninterested in a particular thread there
are normal and handy means to comfortably avoid such articals.
The need for moderation is to limit the gross amount of flamage, be it
by outright personal attack, cross-posting to alt.flames or other such
flame oriented groups, or the vast volume generated by saying such words
as aquaria or sci in the wrong company. Even if all such postings bore
the keyword "flame", I'ld be satisfied. The problem is that within the
same thread there is a mixture of annoying flammage and useful discussion
and sifting through the slag is often more expensive than the ore that
I manage to find.
Speaking as a news/site administrator (of admittadly a small leaf site),
I feel it somewhat important to keep up with news.groups. Unfortunately,
when I do, I loose too much time sifting through flames. What we need
as a moderator is someone who will merely act as a flame-filter, not
affecting content, style, or redundancy.
> Followups to news.misc, because this article is not really
> appropriate traffic for news.groups.
Followups restored to news.groups, as this is most certainly the place
where this should be discussed. If my understanding of the purposes
of this group is correct, it _should_ have discussion of both new
groups to be added, old groups to be deleted, and changes to be made
to existing groups. I'm sorry, Jean, but at this time, I have some
rather strong reservations about having you as a moderator. { Personally,
I'ld perfer getting someone who didn't want to be moderator to moderate
it. But the likelyhood of that happening is rather low. }
Paul J. Mech deadpup.UUCP!paul
oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU!deadpup!paul uiucuxc!oucs!oucsace!deadpup!paul
Jean Ogrinz
In article <JEANNIE.90...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu>, jea...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu (Jean Ogrinz) writes:
>> I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
>> post two articles that say the same thing.
>
> Part of the consensus process here includes short "me
> too" type postings that indicate a base level of support.
Here's a difference in philosophy. I will try to explain
why I put this in.
If you are news admin, you will try to do 'the right thing',
whatever that means. You can be swayed by various rational
arguments, like "Fred should try discussing spelunking in
rec.backcountry, and see if there is enough interest to
support rec.caving," or "Traffic about whipped cream has
been threatening to overwhelm rec.cooking for several weeks
now; we would like to split it off into
rec.cooking.whipped-cream before it is too late."
But (with one exception; see below) you should not be swayed
by what others have decided to do; it simply isn't relevant.
Maybe it is kinda interesting to know that the admin of
uunet!foo!away!faraway!distant!leaf agrees with so-and-so's
point, but the only thing that should matter to you is
whether YOU agreed with his point.
If 'leaf' agrees for this and that reason, then maybe that
is interesting to other people and should appear. But if
'leaf' agrees, period, then that is only interesting to
people at site 'leaf'.
The exception to this argument, I think, is when lots of
people say that they will refuse to carry
rec.food.whipped-cream for whatever reason. Then it affects
propagation, and you have to worry about whether you will be
able to get the group at all. You have to worry about
whether or not a very badly-propagated group should exist at
all, and those are murky philosophical waters. Some people
have written to me asking about this point. I am not
completely sure what to do about it. I have some ideas, but
they should go into another article.
The need for a form of moderation is not to limit the flow of articals
with some content. This is not sci.military, where one looks for content.
This, I think, is where we disagree. I think that you have
lived in a cave so long that you have forgotten that there
can be a light. I think that yes, news.groups can be a
place where one looks for content, and the way to acieve
that is to filter for content. Not for one particlar kind
of content, and not too carefully maybe.
> News.groups is a place where one attempts to build a
> consensus; so if articals are somewhat (or even totally
> repetitious) it is a valid and useful indication.
Indication of what? Surely you don't decide whose points
are most reasonable by watching how many people agree with
them?
In any case, that is all I have to say right now on this
matter. I am not married to this point of view, by the way,
and I invite attempts (by email, preferably) to convince me
otherwise.
Jean Ogrinz
In article <JEANNIE.90...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu>, jea...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu (Jean Ogrinz) writes:
>>
>> I may reject long articles if I think they should be
>> shorter.
>
>I don't think that long articals are inappropriate for news.groups. I am
>also concerned that this may constitute editing for style.
There is something in what you say, and I thought for a long
time about that point before I put it into the policy.
If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
possible while still reducing content as little as possible,
and I receive an article which says in 180 lines what could
be said in 30 (this was the kind of example I had in mind),
then yes, I will reject it with suggestions about what to
cut. "Paragraphs 2 and 6 seem to be saying essentially the
same thing. Why not cut one of them?"
If the author insists that she really does need the whole
article to get her point across ("No, no, paragraphs two and
six are really about different things: ...") then I'd run
the article anyway. That's the default, since I don't
pretend to be an infallible judge of what's worth reading
and what's not.
I'd only reject for length in extreme cases anyway.
Peter da Silva
> If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
Now here's the problem: you don't understand the job. Your job as moderator
would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. If you want to do more than that,
you're a poor candidate for the job.
--
_--_|\ `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <pe...@ficc.uu.net>.
/ \ 'U`
\_.--._/
v
Lori + 8/9
>[...] Your job as moderator
>would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. [...]
I believe the moderator's job in the case of news.groups.thebestof would
be to facilitate productive discussion, rather than prevent anything. But
I don't believe moderation should include weeding out long-winded articles
or me-too articles or anything else that doesn't interfere with the open
exchange of ideas and opinions. The less personal judgement a moderator
has to use, the quicker the turn-around time and the fewer the problems.
I would like to see a moderator who is willing to just weed out the
warm/hot stuff. Flame wars here usually start out with one or two grouchy
posts before they erupt into full-fledged bandwidth-wasters. If
someone would please just nip those discussions in the bud, I think most
of us could deal with the regular ebb and flow of productivity that
occurs in unmoderated groups.
I can only post from work, so I'm not around on the weekends....I am also
news.ignorant....But I'll help moderate if the job is too large for one
person, and the moderation follows guidelines I can live with.
...lori
Brad Templeton
>that indicate a base level of support.
This may sum up the whole problem with news.groups. If there's a correlation
between posted opinions and real broad based support, then it's a small one,
and hard to find.
(I don't mean it's negative. One often sees the flow of posted opinion
match widespread opinion. But one sees a mismatch quite frequently too.)
People seem to think that if a dozen people post "me, too" on something,
that it's a groundswell of opinion. It isn't.
(In fact, in the case of a strict "me, too" posting with no other content,
you're measuring the opinion of netters inexperienced enough to not know
that this sort of posting isn't welcome.)
You can only *really* measure opinion when the selection process is not
related to the opinion or some correlated factor. Every statistician
knows this.
It is pointless to strive for concensus in news.groups. It means little.
(How do I know that the correlation is low? Several times I have seen
debates where E-mail response runs way opposite posted opinion. Other
people have reported the same thing. Does this mean that posted opinion
is wrong and the e-mail is right? No -- but it proves that neither one
can be considered accurate.)
--
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
Frank Korzeniewski
>> If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
>> possible while still reducing content as little as possible...
>
>Now here's the problem: you don't understand the job. Your job as moderator
>would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. If you want to do more than that,
>you're a poor candidate for the job.
This is the kind of response to expect from a person who considers news.groups
to be his personal discussion group. You are just wrong peter. You must not
have read the news.groups charter. Personal conversations between you and jeff
are just the thing that the moderator should suppress. Content free postings
from anyone (not just yours) should also be suppressed. If you post to news.
groups on a topic, ONE post should suffice. If everyone on the 6000 or so
systems made multiple postings what do you think the effect would be?
Absolute chaos! The more redundant postings from a single person or site,
the more incentive for others to not post, so that they do not bring the
system to its knees. I really wish you would understand this point.
Other groups are for a single person or site to have multi-posting discussions,
news.groups because of its wide audience is NOT.
From the policy stated by jeanie, I think she would make as near perfect a
moderator as we could hope to expect. I am very gratefull that she has
volunteered.
Frank Korzeniewski (f...@mtxinu.com)
David C Lawrence
> "Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
I beg to differ. Puns are always appropriate.
Oh, please beg some more. Puns are okay as part of an article that
really has something to say about the topic at hand, but when they are
the only content of the article (save for a signature and some comment
for the liberty of Texas or a quote from Ayn Rand) (oh yeah, and lots
of "free" blank lines) then they are not desired by a very large
population of the readership of news.groups. I believe that is the
sort of thing that was being referred to.
The need for a form of moderation is not to limit the flow of articals
with some content. This is not sci.military, where one looks for content.
News.groups is a place where one attempts to build a consensus; so if
articals are somewhat (or even totally repetitious) it is a valid and
useful indication. If one is uninterested in a particular thread there
are normal and handy means to comfortably avoid such articals.
Well I personally would like content and not the "me too"s that you
think are fine. Those sorts of things are fine in email; I have no
problem with the supporter of a group reporting that several people
sent him encouraging mail, especially when he back it up with any more
than three yes votes, which isn't hard to do. The number of people
who say "me too" for any particular group, except for soc.culture.*
for some reason, tends to be fairly low; all combines though there
really isn't any reason that the general populace should have to waste
even a second with them.
The need for moderation is to limit the gross amount of flamage, be it
by outright personal attack, cross-posting to alt.flames or other such
flame oriented groups, or the vast volume generated by saying such words
as aquaria or sci in the wrong company.
Overlooking the people using antiquated readers which don't allow them
selective reading ability, the cross-posting to alt.flame is far from
a problem. In fact, it is a kindness by many people. So many people
jump all over Blair or Tom for posting a flame, but often times they
do have something relevant to say, even if they do say it bruskly.
Cross-posting to alt.flame is not some sort of ego-stroking mechanism
they do (I think) to be on showcase, but as an asset to people who
need only enter something in their readers to kill any articles cross=
posted to alt.flame. While limiting the gross amount of flamage is
desirable, the "cross-posting to alt.flames or other such flame
oriented groups" is a stab in the wrong direction. They're not
_coming_ from alt.flame. They're going there.
Even if all such postings bore the keyword "flame", I'ld be satisfied.
Well, see. You've just condoned the cross-posting.
Speaking as a news/site administrator (of admittadly a small leaf site),
I feel it somewhat important to keep up with news.groups. Unfortunately,
when I do, I loose too much time sifting through flames.
Me too. <- And them too. We're not a leaf site but as I suspect is
true of many other news admins there are far better things to be
working on, no matter the size of the site. I don't even get paid for
this; it's free overtime.
{ Personally, I'ld perfer getting someone who didn't want to be
moderator to moderate it. But the likelyhood of that happening is
rather low. }
Sort of like the way the USA elects Presidents.
--
(setq mail '("ta...@cs.rpi.edu" "ta...@ai.mit.edu" "ta...@rpitsmts.bitnet"))
Wm E Davidsen Jr
| >Now here's the problem: you don't understand the job. Your job as moderator
| >would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. If you want to do more than that,
| >you're a poor candidate for the job.
|
| This is the kind of response to expect from a person who considers news.groups
| to be his personal discussion group. You are just wrong peter. You must not
| have read the news.groups charter. Personal conversations between you and jeff
| are just the thing that the moderator should suppress. Content free postings
| from anyone (not just yours) should also be suppressed.
I think you're taking Peter's reply out of context, in that he was
stating that the moderator should be rejecting flames, not editing the
content. I doubt that anyone who is not a professional editor can
legitimately criticize the presentation of the material, and I don't
believe that posting is a privilege which should be reserved for those
who write to please the moderator. If a posting is on topic rather than
a flame, it should not be rejected for length, grammar, spelling, or
other failures of style.
This is why I believe the moderated group would be a failure; if a
flame is rejected the poster will clearly be able to correct the
problem. If the style of the presentation of a legitimate technical
point is grounds for rejection the poster then is likely to feel (justly
or not) that the moderator just didn't want the point made.
What the moderator might reject as repetitive, I might approve as
presentation of the point in several ways. Wearing my teacher hat I
realize that sometimes the first effeort to make a point, no matter how
well considered, may not produce the "now I get it" reaction in
everyone.
Finally, if correction of minor spelling and typing errors is
considered poor form, why should rejection for style be considered
proper. Isn't rejection of the "you make a non-flame technical point but
I don't like your style" the ultimate flame? To ignore the content
because you don't like the wrapping?
I believe that Peter is correct on this particular issue. The
moderator should keep out flames and no more. To reject a personal reply
*if it is on topic* is not going to result in better evaluation of news
group issues, it's going to result in a tiny group of people being very
polite and say next to nothing about the technical issues because they
might offend someone by disagreeing.
--
bill davidsen (davi...@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
Mike Harrison
>
>
>I volunteer to be the moderator of news.groups. I will be
>on the net for a long time to come and I have the time that
>such a task would require.
>
>
>... Discussions of this kind about proposed
>alt groups are not appropriate for news.groups.
about an 'alt' group.
> Metadiscussions of what is appropriate for
>news.groups should be addressed to me or to news.misc.
Sorry, I disagree.
> Flames (meaning ad hominem attacks, not just
>disagreements) are not appropriate.
I entirely agree, flames are the *ONLY* justification for moderating this
group.
> I may reject long articles if I think they should be
>shorter.
Why? You volunteer to be Moderator not editor, anyway it takes no longer to
skip a long article than it does a short one.
> I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
>post two articles that say the same thing. If a submitted
>article says some old things and some new things, I will
>return it to the submitter for revisions.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO !!!!!
Repetition is often vital to argument and while I wouldn't want to see too many
articles which *simply* repeat another's arguments, if you chop bits out you
(or request the submitter to chop bits out), you distort the balance of views.
>I think that it is better to post a few inappropriate
>articles than ...
Agreed.
> "Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
WHY NOT ??? It depends (as with everything) how they are used.
Or is the idea perhaps to remove all lightness of touch from postings, to deter
people from reading the group.
Who knows, next you'll be banning irony!
The only reason that a moderated group has been suggested is because of a tiny
minority (have you noticed it's *always* a tiny minority) who spoil things by
posting masses of juvenile trivia.
If these people cannot restrain themselves (or post to sci.content-free) then
sadly a moderated group may be the answer. But it should be a moderated not an
edited group. (Yes I know that in weeding out content free articles an element
of editing is involved).
>Followups to news.misc,
If you must, but see below.
> because this article is not really appropriate traffic for news.groups.
Since it directly affects news.groups then PLEASE continue to post followups
to news.groups.
I do not read news.misc, I read news.groups to find out what groups are being
discussed and to join in. If changes are being proposed then this is the place
for it.
>Jean Marie Ogrinz
I'm sure your motives for volunteering are good, but I have considerable doubts
about the need for a moderated group.
What we do need is moderation!
Mike,
Michael P. Harrison - Software Group - Inmos Ltd. UK.
-----------------------------------------------------------
UK : m...@inmos.co.uk with STANDARD_DISCLAIMERS;
US : m...@inmos.com use STANDARD_DISCLAIMERS;
Wm E Davidsen Jr
Someone wrote that discussion of alt groups is not appropriate here.
While I agree, I do feel that the call for discussion and announcement
should be here to improve the discussion here by allowing a topic to be
derailed with little discussion.
Being able to tell someone that there is an alt group can limit their
desire to push the point further, while a proposal to create a group
has far less discussion if backed by some positive experience as an alt
group in terms of volume and quality.
I would really like to see a general practice of creating any
proposed group as an alt group and waiting for 3-6 months to get a
reading on the utility of the group. It's hard to argue against the
utility of a group which has averaged ten posting a day, or for one
which doesn't get ten per month.
Peter da Silva
> to be his personal discussion group. You are just wrong peter. You must not
> have read the news.groups charter. Personal conversations between you and jeff
> are just the thing that the moderator should suppress.
Personal messages? Hold on a second, Frank. The topic is rejecting extremely
long articles. It's got nothing to do with personal conversations, or other
irrelevant garbage that shows up. That sort of stuff is just what starts flame
wars, or is a by-product of flame wars, and of course should be rejected.
I've already sent you email on this subject, so I don't see why you want to
discuss it in news.groups. Are you trying to *start* a flame war?
My *two* personal messages (two messages, after weeks of face-to-face, email,
and phone discussion with Jeff) were an attempt (temporarily sucessful, but
ultimately failed) to *stop* one.
If there had been a moderator in place they would have (very properly) stopped
both such messages, I agree. They would have stopped a lot of the messages I
posted about a month back. And they'd have stopped a bunch of messages of
yours, too... such as <11...@mtxinu.UUCP>... and a bunch of other people's.
But there wouldn't have been an ongoing flame war to provoke them.
*Long messages*, however (to get back to the point) are not in and of
themselves bad. Some things are complex. They take a lot of time to explain.
If you need 30K of text to do it, go ahead. I'd much rather skip 30K of
stuff in one message than in 10 any day.
Volume, by itself, isn't the problem. Inappropriate messages are. The
moderator's job would be to filter inappropriate messages (flames, puns,
personal comments (yes!), recipes, death threats, language wars, and so
on and on and on and on), not appropriate ones... even if they *are* long,
or poorly spelled, or grammatically dubious. Or by someone you or I don't
like.
j...@simpact.com
> If you post to news.groups on a topic, ONE post should suffice.
I don't think we should go QUITE this far, but I can sympathize with the
sentiment. At least half of the reasonably non-flammatory traffic here, at
least on controversial subjects, seems to be of the form:
"You disagreed with me, therefore you must not have understood what
I said, so I'll say it again, only this time with more feeling."
(Kind of reminds me of the archetypical American tourist abroad who doesn't
speak the language but thinks that SHOUTING in English will allow him to
be understood.)
Such a post is appropriate if the original wasn't clear, or was in fact
misleading. But if the new post is just a rehash of the original, what is
the point? To try to get the last word?
Of course, after a few cycles, "more feeling" escalates to personal attacks
("My position is so obviously right, anyone who disagrees just MUST be a
net.idiot") and all the other stuff that we've come to know and love here
in news.groups.
--- Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Chair, VMSnet [DECUS uucp] and Internals Working Groups, DECUS VAX Systems SIG
Internet: j...@simpact.com, or if that fails, j...@crash.cts.com
Uucp: ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh
Paul J. Mech
>
> If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
> possible while still reducing content as little as possible,
I guess my objection boils down to this particular statement. I do not
hold the a n.g moderator should "reduce traffic as much as possible."
Rather by filtering out a noxious element, flame wars, it would reduce
the traffic in this group to a more manageable size. Any other verbiage
problems can easily be handled with the "n" key or kill files. (For
example, I don't carry talk so I generally don't read or participate
in discussions for talk groups.)
> I'd only reject for length in extreme cases anyway.
I believe that I understand what you're trying to do with these policies,
but I can not support moderation if the policies you describe become
part of the new moderated group's charter. Personally, I see only three
common reasons for rejection:
1) Flames, ad hominem attacks, etc. should be returned to the poster for
editing.
2) Inappropriate cross posts into n.g (soaking chickens in salt water)
should be rejected and a polite "oops" note sent to the poster.
3) Inappropriate cross posts from n.g should (based on consensus in the
process of changing n.g) either be posted to n.g and appropriate cross
posted groups with a note for the poster, or returned to the poster for
clarification.
#1 alone would reduce traffic to make n.g readable. #2 is to clean up a
secondary source of noise. #3 is being a good citizen with regards to
other groups.
If this fails to reduce traffic sufficiently, other restrictions could
be added at a later date or as situations warrent. Anything more than
this, and I fear that it might inhibit forming a consensus in pre-vote
discussions.
Paul J. Mech
>
> In article <JEANNIE.90...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu>, jea...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu (Jean Ogrinz) writes:
> >> I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
> >> post two articles that say the same thing.
> >
> > Part of the consensus process here includes short "me
> > too" type postings that indicate a base level of support.
>
I appologize for being unclear on this point. Given your example:
> "Traffic about whipped cream has
> been threatening to overwhelm rec.cooking for several weeks
> now; we would like to split it off into
> rec.cooking.whipped-cream before it is too late."
Let us assume that r.c.w-c _is_ obviously needed by the denizens of
r.c and the potential r.c.w-c. I do not have time to read rec.cooking,
so I must rely on n.g to form an opinion. If the initial post is made,
and there is no opposition (as we assume the need is obvius), and there
is no further agreement (after all they would all be saying the same
thing), then 30 days later when the vote comes around, it would be
virtually indistinguishable from a group that was proposed and generated
no interest whatsoever. Without some tally of "me too" nods, I would
cast against r.c.w-c.
> but the only thing that should matter to you is
> whether YOU agreed with his point.
In a well discussed case, yes, I agree with you.
> The need for a form of moderation is not to limit the flow of articals
> with some content. This is not sci.military, where one looks for content.
>
> This, I think, is where we disagree. I think that you have
> lived in a cave so long that you have forgotten that there
> can be a light. I think that yes, news.groups can be a
> place where one looks for content, and the way to acieve
> that is to filter for content. Not for one particlar kind
> of content, and not too carefully maybe.
Again I have failed to be explicit enough. My appologies, the "content"
should have been "technical content." In s.m the stock in trade is what
we hope are facts. In n.g we are dealing with some facts and a lot of
opinion.
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I'ld like to propose a set of
related rhetorical questions. Say "A" presents a point and has his/her
artical posted to the group. The next day "B" and "C" post on the exact
same topic as "A" using the same arguments. Let us also assume that B's
artical is eloquently presented and is far more persuasive than A's. Do
you pass B's artical along as well? If you do, how would you respond to
C if he/she cried foul as you posted someone else's redundant artical
but not his/her's.
> In any case, that is all I have to say right now on this
> matter. I am not married to this point of view, by the way,
> and I invite attempts (by email, preferably) to convince me
> otherwise.
I guess what I'm trying to say is let's try a mild cure to the problem
before we go all out. Something like treating with anti-biotics before
one tries surgery.
Bill Oliver
for the job of moderator are that she has never stated an
opinion strongly on the net, that she is unknown, and that she
is inexperienced. Of course, on first reading this may seem like
an overwheming set of credentials, but I suggest that perhaps
even more is needed.
I have already outlined my plans for my administration of the
group, but let me address some of the specific points in Ms.
Ogrinz's platform. First, let me discuss something we agree upon.
Under no circumstances should a moderator allow any open
criticism, or as Ms. Ogrinz puts it "metadiscussion," or
any attempt at recall.
Of course, any moderator worth his or her salt will find it necessary
to reject articles and posters who do not follow the guidelines that
he or she dictates. These people will no doubt object to the fact
that their opinions are not being expressed as they wish them to be
expressed, and may wish to either change the nature of the group
or even its moderation. By selecting me, and apparently Ms. Ogrinz
as well, as moderator, you are sending a clear message that such
undisciplined thinking will never have a place in our group.
I also agree strongly with the idea that a posting should have
a set maximum length. It has been shown over and over that most
netters, like most USA nationals, prefer their ideas short,
sweet, and simple. If an idea is so complex that it takes more
than, say, 100 lines to explain, then it has no business being
presented to this audience. I like to think that I will be
helping to build the MTV of the net.
But this is where our obvious agreement ends. Ms. Ogriz states
that she will not allow any stong dissenting opinions (for, indeed,
any opinion which is strongly worded or even overly literary or
metaphorical can be construed to be a flame -- as demonstrated below), and
at the same time will not allow any simple discussion in agreement
(since this constututes the essence of a so-called "me-too" posting).
Thus, it seems, the only postings that will be allowed will be
mild disagreement and strong or complex statements of agreement.
I think that this is much too lenient. As Ms. Ogriz states, it
is the purpose of the moderator to dictate what can and cannot
be discussed in the group. By this mandate, of course, it is unnecessary
to allow any dissent whatsoever. I am sure that Ms. Ogriz agrees
with me, since she already has discovered the core of my
approach. In her own words:
[The moderator] should not be swayed
by what others have decided to do; it simply isn't relevant.
Maybe it is kinda interesting to know that the admin of
uunet!foo!away!faraway!distant!leaf agrees with so-and-so's
point, but the only thing that should matter to you is
whether YOU agreed with his point.
Indeed. Certainly I agree with Ms. Ogriz that the opinions of the
net at large about group structure is largely irrelevant, but this does
not go far enough. As the moderator of news.groups, it will be my job
to make sure that only the appropriate discussions are maintained, and
only the appropriate opinions are aired. Thus, there is no need for
even the emasculated disagreements and conversations which Ms. Ogriz
would allow.
Ms. Orgriz objects to the use of value judgements in posting.
For instance, she gives the example:
"I will post this article if you let me change the
phrase 'The FICC tag-team.' to something less
judgemental,"
while at the same time stating that a person with whom
she disagrees is a troglodyte, living in a cave so long that
he cannot distinguish light. Now, this may, on the surface,
seem hypocritical and paradoxical. It only seems so if one
forgets that the purpose of a moderator is to impose his or her
idea of what constitutes a "judgmental" statement. Unlike Ms.
Orgriz, who will only allow judgemental statements with which
she agrees, I promise to go one step better -- albeit a small
step. I will not allow the use of critical judgement outside
of my own at all.
Ms. Orgriz will not allow puns. I will not allow humor.
Anyone attempting to post an article which is not short,
dry, emotionless and humorless will find himself or herself
a candidate for my not-allowed list.
Both Ms. Ogrinz and Mr. Templeton state that repeated notes
supporting a position serve no purpose. Indeed, the idea
of consensus in deciding what goes on in news.groups is
ludicrous. I promise to be as vigilant as Ms. Ogriz in
directing opinion.
This is not some soc.* group, where moderation merely squashes
lively debate and exchange of ideas. This is a group where
decisions about policies and the structure of the net are discussed
and voted upon. I certainly agree with all of you who state
that there is no room in this group for the undisciplined and
uncontrolled.
Sure, I will agree that Ms. Ogriz may be bland, invisible, and
naive, as she claims to be. And if she could also claim to be
inept it would be an unbeatable combination. But seriously,
while I am slghtly more colorful, and a bit more experienced,
I can promise to rule the group with the discipline and direction
that it really needs, and that only I can provide.
You can trust my judgement. You can trust me. You can rely on
my ability to judge the worth your ideas and postings with the
same confidence that you should award any moderator.
Bill Oliver
Bill Oliver
>But this is where our obvious agreement ends. Ms. Ogriz states .....
^^^^^
Ogrinz
(and at other places)
Sorry, poor search-and-replace skills on my part. I thought I got them
all, but apparently just went halfway through the file.
Bill Oliver
Gil Pilz@Eng@Banyan
>In article <JEANNIE.90...@pawl7.pawl.rpi.edu> (Jean Ogrinz) writes:
>> If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
>> possible while still reducing content as little as possible...
>Now here's the problem: you don't understand the job. Your job as moderator
>would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. If you want to do more than that,
>you're a poor candidate for the job.
Considering the extremely subjective nature of what is or isn't a
"flame" it should be pretty obvious then that _everyone_ is a poor
candidate for the job. If this is how you define the moderators role,
there can be no acceptable moderators. QED, ipso facto, and 'cause I
said so.
"I ain't greedy baby
all I want is all you got
'cause I said so !"
- the godfathers
Gilbert Pilz Jr. "Galactic Overlord" g...@banyan.com
Mark Gellis
>
>New groups appear to be created by the score these days.
>And if I look at figures like those given above and to
>the "reach" of USENET, I can only conclude that it really
>is time to review the voting procedure.
>
>
>In view of the latter figure the minimum requirements for
>a new group to pass a voting are ridiculously low. Given
>the estimates above, in this particular voting one out of
>10,000 users was enough to make the vote pass! I'd say the
>minimum has to be increased tenfold.
>
Why? The argument here seems to be based on the idea that it
is a bad thing to have too many newsgroups. On the contrary, it
seems to me that having specialized newsgroups allows people to
pick and choose certain subjects that they want to read about
without having to search through dozens or hundreds of postings
each day on a more general group (although that option is preferred
by some people). If you start to limit newsgroups, you must,
whether you want it or not, start to limit what can be said on the
net. Sure, a lot of what is said will be mindless tripe, but
you will have that whether you have one newsgroup or ten thousand
of them.
If technology is supposed to serve people, I can see few better
ways to allow technology to fulfill its purpose than to have it
provide, for the broadest range of people, an easy means for them
to voice their opinion to a global community of readers and writers.
What possible objection can there be to this? Cost? The cost
(in money, in energy, etc.) is ridiculously low when compared to
what this technology offers people in terms of information and
the opportunity for dialogue. Often, these newsgroups allow people
who would have never met otherwise to become colleagues, friends,
and so on.
Making it harder to start a newsgroup would be a terrible mistake.
I can see no advantage to it (perhaps some corporation would save a
few dollars on its electric bill...gee whiz, that sure gets my pulse
going) and I can imagine how it could hurt a lot of people by
depriving them of the chance to speak their minds and to get in
touch with others who share their interests and concerns.
Mark Gellis
f...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Frank Korzeniewski
#In article <11...@mtxinu.UUCP> f...@mtxinu.UUCP (Frank Korzeniewski) writes:
#> This is the kind of response to expect from a person who considers news.groups
#> to be his personal discussion group. You are just wrong peter. You must not
#> have read the news.groups charter. Personal conversations between you and jeff
#> are just the thing that the moderator should suppress.
#
#Personal messages? Hold on a second, Frank. The topic is rejecting extremely
#long articles. It's got nothing to do with personal conversations, or other
#irrelevant garbage that shows up. That sort of stuff is just what starts flame
#wars, or is a by-product of flame wars, and of course should be rejected.
#
Well lets go see just what the topic is.
#In article <JEANNIE.90...@pawl7.pawl.rpi.edu> jea...@pawl7.pawl.rpi.edu (Jean Ogrinz) writes:
#> If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
#> possible while still reducing content as little as possible...
#
#Now here's the problem: you don't understand the job. Your job as moderator
#would be to prevent flame wars. That's it. If you want to do more than that,
#you're a poor candidate for the job.
Please re-read your posting. You do not address the issue of long articles.
#I've already sent you email on this subject, so I don't see why you want to
#discuss it in news.groups. Are you trying to *start* a flame war?
I have not received any mail whatsoever from you on this topic.
#My *two* personal messages (two messages, after weeks of face-to-face, email,
#and phone discussion with Jeff) were an attempt (temporarily sucessful, but
#ultimately failed) to *stop* one.
#
#If there had been a moderator in place they would have (very properly) stopped
#both such messages, I agree. They would have stopped a lot of the messages I
#posted about a month back. And they'd have stopped a bunch of messages of
#yours, too... such as <11...@mtxinu.UUCP>... and a bunch of other people's.
#
#But there wouldn't have been an ongoing flame war to provoke them.
I find it interesting how your postings seem to be the start of these flame
wars.
#
#*Long messages*, however (to get back to the point) are not in and of
#themselves bad. Some things are complex. They take a lot of time to explain.
#If you need 30K of text to do it, go ahead. I'd much rather skip 30K of
#stuff in one message than in 10 any day.
#
#Volume, by itself, isn't the problem. Inappropriate messages are. The
#moderator's job would be to filter inappropriate messages (flames, puns,
#personal comments (yes!), recipes, death threats, language wars, and so
#on and on and on and on), not appropriate ones... even if they *are* long,
#or poorly spelled, or grammatically dubious. Or by someone you or I don't
#like.
Volume IS the problem. If there were only 2 postings a day to news.groups
noone would care wheather they were flames or not. Speaking of language
wars didn't you just recently start one in news.groups by one of your inane
postings? You do not seem to realize just how often you trigger things
like this by your volume of postings.
Frank Korzeniewski (f...@mtxinu.com)
Frank Korzeniewski
#In article <1990Apr3.0...@cs.rochester.edu> yama...@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
#>How about making it _easier_ to create newsgroups instead?
#
#How about getting rid of the current discussion/voting process
#altogether and trying out Brad's temporary.newsgroup.creation
#idea instead? Then we wouldn't have to deal with the problem
#of censoring news.groups at all.
#
#
# yours for nets and mods,
# .
# trisha o tuama
An absolutely fantastic idea, but also highly dangerous.
Just imagine all the heart attacks among the control-freaks.
Frank Korzeniewski (f...@mtxinu.com)
Brian Yamauchi
>References: <15...@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <10...@sering.cwi.nl>
>
>>New groups appear to be created by the score these days.
>>And if I look at figures like those given above and to
>>the "reach" of USENET, I can only conclude that it really
>>is time to review the voting procedure.
>>In view of the latter figure the minimum requirements for
>>a new group to pass a voting are ridiculously low. Given
>>the estimates above, in this particular voting one out of
>>10,000 users was enough to make the vote pass! I'd say the
>>minimum has to be increased tenfold.
>>
>Why? The argument here seems to be based on the idea that it
>is a bad thing to have too many newsgroups. On the contrary, it
>seems to me that having specialized newsgroups allows people to
>pick and choose certain subjects that they want to read about
>without having to search through dozens or hundreds of postings
>each day on a more general group (although that option is preferred
>by some people).
>If technology is supposed to serve people, I can see few better
>ways to allow technology to fulfill its purpose than to have it
>provide, for the broadest range of people, an easy means for them
>to voice their opinion to a global community of readers and writers.
>Making it harder to start a newsgroup would be a terrible mistake.
>Mark Gellis
>f...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
I agree completely. I'm getting very tired of people who seem to
believe that the purpose of Usenet is to have the minimum number of
groups possible.
How about making it _easier_ to create newsgroups instead?
_______________________________________________________________________________
Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester
yama...@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jean Ogrinz
>In article <7...@deadpup.UUCP> pa...@deadpup.UUCP (Paul J. Mech) writes:
> > "Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
> I beg to differ. Puns are always appropriate.
>Oh, please beg some more. Puns are okay as part of an article that
>really has something to say about the topic at hand, but when they are
>the only content of the article (save for a signature and some comment
>for the liberty of Texas or a quote from Ayn Rand) (oh yeah, and lots
>of "free" blank lines) then they are not desired by a very large
>population of the readership of news.groups. I believe that is the
>sort of thing that was being referred to.
I am sorry that some people misinterpreted my views on puns. Dave
Lawrence has the right idea.
When I said I would reject an article posted to news groups
because "puns are not appropriate", I didn't mean I'd reject
any article that had a pun in it.
What I had in mind was a time a few months ago when people
posted long strings of one-line followup articles that had
nothing in them but one pun each. For a few weeks
news.groups looked a lot like rec.humor. Maybe you remember
that.
In any case, I have nothing against puns per se, and I
wouldn't reject an article just because it had puns in it.
(What a silly thing to have to discuss. Oh, well.)
Wm E Davidsen Jr
| How about getting rid of the current discussion/voting process
| altogether and trying out Brad's temporary.newsgroup.creation
| idea instead? Then we wouldn't have to deal with the problem
| of censoring news.groups at all.
Whatever. My suggestion was to require testing as an alt group, but
the concept of letting a group demonstrate long term interest and valid
content is the same however implemented.
Patricia O Tuama
How about getting rid of the current discussion/voting process
altogether and trying out Brad's temporary.newsgroup.creation
idea instead? Then we wouldn't have to deal with the problem
of censoring news.groups at all.
yours for nets and mods,
.
trisha o tuama
Tom Maddox
Peter da Silva, who had proposed one criterion for a news.groups moderator]:
>Personal conversations between you and jeff
>are just the thing that the moderator should suppress. Content free postings
>from anyone (not just yours) should also be suppressed. If you post to news.
>groups on a topic, ONE post should suffice.
This Miss Manners routine is driving me nuts. Suppress flames and
content-free postings; suppress those that are overly personal; suppress those
that are redundant. Can't you understand that every one of these criteria
demands a judgment that is open to question? Can't you further understand
that those of you who want moderation can't even agree among yourselves on
what basis?
Christ, imagine the Bill of Rights had been left to people like you--
Oh, dear me, I'm flaming someone instead of responding in emotionless
expository prose; I guess I'd better take the chance while I've got it, eh?
Peter da Silva
> proposed group as an alt group and waiting for 3-6 months to get a
> reading on the utility of the group. It's hard to argue against the
> utility of a group which has averaged ten posting a day, or for one
> which doesn't get ten per month.
That's a fine idea for some groups, such as those for new products or
topics. But what about groups for topics that are being discussed in
an inappropriate group, or cases where some group has enough volume
that it's appropriate to split it up? I don't think that *all* new
subjects need to be tested in alt (or an equivalent hierarchy), just
those that don't have ongoing discussion already...
Raymond Dunn
>In any case, I have nothing against puns per se, and I
>wouldn't reject an article just because it had puns in it.
>
>(What a silly thing to have to discuss. Oh, well.)
No, its not silly, its a direct consequence of the fact that your
moderation proposals stated extremely subjective reasons for rejection,
reasons that you *must* expect to be closely examined and have to defend.
> I may reject long articles if I think they should be
>shorter.
Frankly, most people probably don't care whether you think they should be
shorter or not. This is a style issue, and one which moderators should not
get themselves involved in.
> If the submitter requests it, I will edit a
>submitted article myself and post it.
>
>I will try to fix Followup-To: lines appropriately. I will
>try to put useful keywords in the Keywords: line as well.
These are the actions of an editor, not of a moderator.
>Followups to news.misc, because this article is not really
>appropriate traffic for news.groups.
This statement I can't understand, if a discussion about moderating a group
is not appropriate for news.groups, then I don't know what is! If this is
an example of the proposed moderation in effect, then I cannot support it.
I very much like the idea (sorry I don't remember whose) that we have a
moderator who would merely route traffic between news.groups and a noisier
news.groups.d or talk.groups.
--
Ray Dunn. | UUCP: r...@philmtl.philips.ca
Philips Electronics Ltd. | ..!{uunet|philapd|philabs}!philmtl!ray
600 Dr Frederik Philips Blvd | TEL : (514) 744-8200 Ext : 2347 (Phonemail)
St Laurent. Quebec. H4M 2S9 | FAX : (514) 744-6455 TLX : 05-824090
The Cat in the Hat
It took an infinite number of pa...@deadpup.UUCP (Paul J. Mech)'s an infinite amount of time to say:
-
-The need for a form of moderation is not to limit the flow of articals
-with some content. This is not sci.military, where one looks for content.
The hell it isn't. You seem to be considering "fact" and "opinion" as
part of content. It's not necessarily so. You need to look at the context.
-News.groups is a place where one attempts to build a consensus; so if
-articals are somewhat (or even totally repetitious) it is a valid and
-useful indication. If one is uninterested in a particular thread there
-are normal and handy means to comfortably avoid such articals.
I would not mind that, if moderation were to come to be, that the moderator
said something like "And I recieved 40 articles all saying ``Me too.''
concerning alt.sex.bestiality.psuvm."
But, other than that, I'm still generally opposed to moderation of n.g.
And "article" only has 1 "a".
--
David Bedno aka da...@sco.COM: Speaking from but not for SCO.
"Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it's just that I remind you of someone you used
to care about." - Tom Waits, "I Never Talk To Strangers"
The Cat in the Hat
It took an infinite number of f...@mtxinu.UUCP (Frank Korzeniewski)'s an infinite amount of time to say:
-
-Volume IS the problem. If there were only 2 postings a day to news.groups
-noone would care wheather they were flames or not. Speaking of language
-wars didn't you just recently start one in news.groups by one of your inane
-postings? You do not seem to realize just how often you trigger things
-like this by your volume of postings.
If there were only 2 postings a day to news.groups, we'd have rmgroup wars
up the yin-yang (a very painful place to have them, btw). Volume is NOT
the problem. CONTENT is the problem. And you won't be able to eliminate
the first without eliminating the second.
Remember, with a few exceptions, if your posting is not a personal attack,
and yet manages to start a flame-war, this is one helluvan indication that
something is wrong with what you said. And that's a feedback mechanism
(admitedly not the greatest) that would be lost if n.g were moderated.
Raymond Dunn
>(How do I know that the correlation is low? Several times I have seen
>debates where E-mail response runs way opposite posted opinion. Other
>people have reported the same thing. Does this mean that posted opinion
>is wrong and the e-mail is right? No -- but it proves that neither one
>can be considered accurate.)
So, although many people may post in disagreement to a posted position, the
email responses to the poster are usually in favour. That is, people tend
to post their disagreement but email their support.
Yes, that is my experience too, whether I'm posting pro or con a particular
issue, I usually get email mainly supporting my position.
Lets take a close look at what this really means though, if anything indeed
*can* be concluded from it.
*Each* posting generates several private email responses, most of which are
in agreement with the poster. The *postings* thus still correctly reflect
the opinions of the total posters and emailers (which may or may not
reflect the opinions of the readership as a whole).
The Cat in the Hat
It took an infinite number of jea...@pawl16.pawl.rpi.edu (Jean Ogrinz)'s an infinite amount of time to say:
-
-Here's my policy:
-
- Discussions of content, names, and need for proposed
-groups, and questions about those things, are appropriate
-for news.groups. Discussions of this kind about proposed
-alt groups are not appropriate for news.groups.
Except, of course, where a proposed alt group would lead to a mainstream
newsgroup. Such as alt.fractals.
- Metadiscussions of what is appropriate for
-news.groups should be addressed to me or to news.misc.
This I disagree on as for the status quo. Metadiscussions concerning
news.groups' content should always take place in news.groups. Metadiscussions
of what should go in rec.gambling, should take place in rec.gambling. The
readers of a newsgroup should be the ones to decide if what's being discussed
is appropriate for the group.
- I will watch the discussions closely and try not to
-post two articles that say the same thing. If a submitted
-article says some old things and some new things, I will
-return it to the submitter for revisions.
You're going to have a lot of turnaround time here. An article with new
info *should* see the light of day immediately, even if it does restate a
point that had been mentioned.
-I think that it is better to post a few inappropriate
-articles than to let people who really think they have
-something to say go unheard, so I will make every effort to
-post at least an edited version of each article I receive
-that says something new, or even something old from a new
-point of view. In all cases, I will try to interpret
-'appropriate for news.groups' with widest possible latitude.
No. What you're proposing here is editing, and not moderation.
And the last thing I want (and lots of other people) is an editor.
-I will supply a reason for rejection for any articles I
-return. For example:
-
- "Dave Sill said essentially the same thing in
-<1...@foo.bar>. Perhaps you would submit instead an article
-describing how your views diffeer from his?"
What if my views don't differ? And how am I supposed to know if
Dave Sill said such a thing. Are you going to post by time recieved,
or by content? In doing such a thing, you're infringing on someone's
current ability to be heard.
- "Puns are not appropriate material for news.groups."
Hear here.
-Followups to news.misc, because this article is not really
-appropriate traffic for news.groups.
And this is probably what I disagree with most. This article is one
of the most important things for news.groups, because it directly concerns
news.groups.
Brad Templeton
>That's a fine idea for some groups, such as those for new products or
>topics. But what about groups for topics that are being discussed in
>an inappropriate group, or cases where some group has enough volume
>that it's appropriate to split it up? I don't think that *all* new
>subjects need to be tested in alt (or an equivalent hierarchy), just
>those that don't have ongoing discussion already...
A valid point in news.groups! I'm impressed!
By and large I have always wondered why there was a problem with splitting
existing groups. The anti-creationists have argued for hard group creation
because they think it confuses the namespace. Splitting groups does not.
So I will combine two of my old proposals:
a) Trial hierarchy for new groups. Group gets N months. If it reaches
readership criterion X by that time, it is promoted to a full level
group, with name chosen by a single name czar or small cabal of name czars,
who take input from the rest of the net via e-mail. If it does not reach X,
it is rmgrouped.
b) Major groups get a volunteer hiearchy supervisor. This supervisor is in
charge of splitting up the group, if needed. The supervisor can do this by
fiat, or holding surveys, or whatever he or she likes.
No more discussion and voting. The control freaks go bonkers, but too bad.
They have forgotten that anarchy is about doing things, not debating them
endlessly and reaching a pseudo-concensus amongst those who had the stamina
(or idiocy) to stay around to the end of the debate.
--
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
John Pimentel
>If my job as moderator is to reduce traffic as much as
>and I receive an article which says in 180 lines what could
>be said in 30 (this was the kind of example I had in mind),
[...]
>If the author insists that she really does need the whole
>article to get her point across ("No, no, paragraphs two and
;-> (on)
Are you implying that women are...long-winded...or...maybe, they can't
explain themselves in short concise, to the point language.
You mean it's true? Once they start, they just go...and on...and on...
and on...and on...and...
Sort of like the "Energizer"
;-> (off)
--
HAVE A "<put your own words here>" DAY!
STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES.
UUCP: .......!decvax!\
...!harvard!...frog!jp
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Karl Heuer
It's already very easy to create newsgroups. You pick a name beginning with
"alt.", post your intent to alt.config, then post a control message with
distribution "alt". (The posting of intent isn't strictly necessary, but it
tells people that it wasn't just another stray typo that should be rmgroup'd.)
If you can't do this because your site doesn't get alt groups, then arrange a
feed.
If you (or your netnews admin) don't want to get the alt groups because you
perceive that the altnet is a cesspool, then perhaps you should think again
about whether you want to make the mainstream net more like the altnet.
Karl Heuer ka...@haddock.ima.isc.com rutgers!harvard!ima!haddock!karl
Charleen Bunjiovianna
>
>In any case, I have nothing against puns per se, and I
>wouldn't reject an article just because it had puns in it.
>
>(What a silly thing to have to discuss. Oh, well.)
Jeannie, you just lost my vote if you think that it's "silly" to
discuss your criteria for accepting/rejecting an article.
Charleen
--
I wonder if when somebody asked George Washington to show some
identification, he pulled a quarter out of his pocket? -- Steven Wright
Mark Brader
as moderator of news.groups. (Maybe they'd like to do it jointly, even.)
And by the way, I'm a net old-timer -- it's more than 6 years since I
started reading the net. I remember when net.newsgroups was *started*,
to get the new-newsgroups traffic out of, um, I think it was net.admin.
I'd also support the simultaneous creation of talk.news or talk.usenet,
unmoderated, on the "safety valve" principle, but I would not tie the
two changes together. (This means that creating news.groups.mod is *not*
my preference.)
I agree with most of the arguments posted in favor of moderation, and
I suspect that those people who have regretfully unsubscribed to news.groups
will be even more in favor. We'll find out if and when there's a vote.
There's only one specific point that I'd like to talk about here:
> > "Traffic about whipped cream has been
> > threatening to overwhelm rec.cooking for several weeks now..."
>
> Let us assume that r.c.w-c _is_ obviously needed by the denizens of
> r.c and the potential r.c.w-c. I do not have time to read rec.cooking,
> so I must rely on n.g to form an opinion.
No. If you don't have time to read rec.cooking, you don't *need* to
form an opinion. Usenet does not have compulsory suffrage; you should
vote only on those topics where you care about the outcome. (Of course,
you may care about the outcome for reasons other than the ones that
I feel should be important; that's your right. See the signature quote
-- which is of course intended humorously!)
> If the initial post is made,
> and there is no opposition (as we assume the need is obvius), and there
> is no further agreement (after all they would all be saying the same
> thing), then 30 days later when the vote comes around,
Well, it wouldn't be 30 days if there wasn't much need for discussion.
The minimum discussion time is 14 days these days, as I recall?
> it would be
> virtually indistinguishable from a group that was proposed and generated
> no interest whatsoever.
That's the *idea*. Then you can vote based on your *own* reasoning,
without any bias from bandwagon effects. A group that needs a continuous
stream of articles about it to achieve 200 votes and a 2/3 majority
is not worth creating.
To take a recent example, comp.text.tex was essentially noncontroversial;
while there were a few articles posted in news.groups, they were mostly
about the use of capital letters in the group name initially proposed.
The discussion resulted in a change of proposed name, the vote was called,
and the group passed with many hundreds of votes in favor and just a few
against. (Exactly the sort of case I had in mind when I supported the
"mercy rule" proposal, by the way.)
Would it have made a difference if there had been even fewer articles,
with the redundancy eliminated? I think not. Count me for moderation.
--
Mark Brader "'A matter of opinion'[?] I have to say you are
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto right. There['s] your opinion, which is wrong,
utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com and mine, which is right." -- Gene Ward Smith
This article is in the public domain.
Tim Maroney
>I would like to see a moderator who is willing to just weed out the
>warm/hot stuff.
"Because you are neither hot nor cold, I spew you from my mouth." -- YHWH
>I can only post from work, so I'm not around on the weekends....I am also
>news.ignorant.
Hey, you got your own newsgroup! Congratulations, it's well-deserved.
--
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, t...@toad.com
"Genuinely skillful use of obscenities is uniformly absent on the Internet."
-- Karl Kleinpaste on gnu.gcc
Ned Foboe
>In case anyone cares, I'd support either Jean Ogrinz or Stephen Baur
>as moderator of news.groups. (Maybe they'd like to do it jointly, even.)
>And by the way, I'm a net old-timer -- it's more than 6 years since I
>started reading the net. I remember when net.newsgroups was *started*,
>to get the new-newsgroups traffic out of, um, I think it was net.admin.
Six years ? Big deal; we're coming up on four years for Portal :-)
>I'd also support the simultaneous creation of talk.news or talk.usenet,
>unmoderated, on the "safety valve" principle, but I would not tie the
>two changes together. (This means that creating news.groups.mod is *not*
>my preference.)
Won't work. First, people tend to want to respond to articles in the
groups they were originally posted. Second, (most) everybody gets
news.*, but a lot of sites will treat talk.usenet the same as alt.
flame, and not carry it. Essentially all the problems being attacked
here could have been solved if people had used alt.flame; but
they won't, or can't. What makes you think they'll use talk.usenet ?
Now, granted, moderating news.groups would eliminate the first condition,
but for those whose articles was rejected by the moderator, and who
don't get talk.usenet, they will just post to news.admin about what
a shit the moderator of news.groups is, 8 people will post: "no, no
the moderator is wonderful" and it will turn into the flame of the
month (It seems to be axiomatic that every group on USENET has to
have a flame of the month. Some of them last longer than a month
though.) in news.some.other.group.besides.groups.
Sigh.
This is another one of those silly arguments that everybody will
talk about, nothing will change and then we'll go on to the next
silly argument.
Me ? I'm ready to drop this right now and get started on the next
silly argument.
--
Ned, silly.
John Sparks
[ A Whole LOT deleted to keep this message short :-) JS]
>Volume IS the problem. If there were only 2 postings a day to news.groups
>noone would care wheather they were flames or not. Speaking of language
>wars didn't you just recently start one in news.groups by one of your inane
>postings? You do not seem to realize just how often you trigger things
>like this by your volume of postings.
>Frank Korzeniewski (f...@mtxinu.com)
Speaking of VOLUME, your last posting on the subject of LONG articles has
got to be the LONGEST I have seen in a long time. SHEEESH!!!!
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 2400bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
spa...@corpane.UUCP | | PH: (502) 968-DISK
Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself.