Big Eight hierarchy management transition
Russ Allbery
Hash: SHA1
Big Eight Hierarchy Management Transition
September 30, 2006
Introduction
As most of the reading audience is probably aware, as of tomorrow,
Todd and I are stepping down as moderators of news.announce.newgroups
and ending our involvement in Big Eight newsgroup creation. Since May
of 2006, newsgroup creation in the Big Eight hierarchies has been done
under the aegis of a new Big-8 Management Board as a preliminary trial
period that Todd and I would evaluate before deciding how to handle
our resignations. This is my final report on that evaluation.
This will be a very long message. I don't want to leave anything
unsaid that may help someone understand my personal reasoning or that
might help those involved with Big eight newsgroup creation going
forward. It will be longer than many people will want to read; for
those who don't want to wade through the whole thing, please see the
next section for a summary.
Due to the increased worries that this sort of message might be
forged, in addition to the PGPMoose signature that all posts to
news.announce.newgroups receive, I have also signed it with my
personal GnuPG key. That key is in the Debian archive keyring and
part of the well-connected portion of the PGP web of trust and is
available from any major PGP keyserver as well as from my personal web
page.
Some additional personal thoughts about the time I've spent involved
in news.groups will be posted separately.
Summary of Decision
Based on the work in the past five months and the discussions
preceding that work, I believe that the Big-8 Management Board has
demonstrated their ability to handle new proposals in a prompt and
reasonable fashion and make defensible and reasoned decisions
concerning management of the Big Eight newsgroup list. I have some
concerns about their ability to maintain the Board, encourage useful
input, recruit new volunteers, and prevent burnout, but I believe that
the system they have designed is at least clearly superior in that
regard to the system that preceded it and has a reasonable chance of
success.
I am therefore handing over management of the news.announce.newgroups
control message signing key to the Big Eight board, namely Brian
Edmonds, Marty Moleski, Tim Skirvin, Joe Bernstein, Thomas Lee, Dave
Sill, James Farrar, and Jonathan Kamens, following the procedures
described at <http://www.big-8.org/>.
The control key for news.announce.newgroups used to issue control
messages in the Big Eight hierarchies (comp.*, humanities.*, misc.*,
news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*) will not change as part of
this transition. The tradition has been for the key to be entrusted
to the best judgement of each news.announce.newgroups moderator or
moderator team to pass on to their successors, and my best judgement
is that this team of people will act in the best interests of the
users of these hierarchies and the sites carrying them.
I encourage any news administrator or Usenet user who is concerned
with the operation of these hierarchies to review the rest of this
message and the web site referenced above and to contact the Board
with any concerns that they have.
Analysis by Criteria
Output of New System
My primary criteria in evaluating the actions of this new management
structure is to look at the work they've done in maintaining the list
of newsgroups over the past five months. This is, in the end, what
matters. The purpose of this system is to make good decisions about
what newsgroups we recommend Usenet sites carry.
This criteria requires some clarification since the quantity of
proposals has declined sharply over the past few years, as has the
success rate of new newsgroups. My interest is neither in creation of
a large number of new groups nor in success of every newsgroup
created. Rather, what I wanted to see was prompt and reasonable
handling of new newsgroup proposals, a working system that was clearly
taking new proposals as input and making affirmative decisions on
them. Secondarily, I wanted to see a system capable of handling the
proposals and changes that were structurally difficult under the
previous voting system, namely group removals and handling of inactive
moderated groups and absent moderators.
Finally, I wanted to see that the new system was capable of handling
controversial groups and hard decisions as well as simple creations.
One part of that evaluation is incomplete since no group reorgs were
proposed during this five month period. However, I think enough
information is nonetheless available to arrive at a conclusion.
First, I think it is clearly demonstrated that the system is handling
new proposals and reaching conclusions on those proposals. The new
Board has taken over handling of incoming messages to newgroups,
group-advice, and news.announce.newgroups and is responding in a
timely fashion to proponents. Proposals are following a clear
sequence and decisions are posted publicly. The new process is also
already handling significantly more simultaneous proposals than the
process it replaced and resolving them more efficiently.
Over the last five months, the Board has created the following groups:
soc.religion.asatru
comp.soft-sys.octave
soc.support.vision-impaired
soc.men.moderated
(talk.current-events was also created a few days ago, but is too
recent to be part of this analysis.)
Of these groups, soc.religion.asatru has been a clear success, with
sustained on-topic traffic (222 messages in a recent 21-day period).
Furthermore, this was a controversial proposal with a lot of noise in
the discussion, and to date the concerns raised during the discussion
have not manifested on the group. This is exactly the sort of
successful decision that the old system would have had more difficulty
reaching.
comp.soft-sys.octave has been a clear failure so far, with no messages
in the 21-day sample period. Opinions on whether it was worth trying
will vary; I tend to lean towards not being too concerned if groups
are created and turn out not to be used if the creation itself won't
cause other problems.
The other two groups are more recent. soc.men.moderated is a special
case with several possible success criteria. It is a moderated
companion group to a long-standing high-flame group and may prove
useful even if it only provides an occasional outlet for the other
group (as has happened in several other similar cases in the past).
However, it is dormant at this point, apparently, to the selected
moderators no longer moderating. It's probably too early to say for
sure whether this is a success or failure; driven by the deadline for
this post, I would call it a possibly recoverable failure.
Finally, soc.support.vision-impaired has been a moderate success to
date with 63 messages over a recent 21 day period, although it's still
too early to tell whether this trend will continue.
From the creations done so far, then, the new system appears to have a
50% success rate, which as good as the last few years of the prior
system. More importantly, the Board has demonstrated an ability to
deal with two very controversial moderated group proposals, with mixed
success but with a process that was able to terminate. This is a
substantial improvement.
However, the bulk of the work done so far by the new Board is in other
areas. Newsgroup removal has been stymied for years by the previous
infrastructure and the Board has dealt with a backlog of over 45 group
removals. Most of these were long-dead INET groups promoted
previously so that we could issue checkgroups control messages. These
removals had very little controversy, and in the few cases where there
was some controversy, the Board acted with care and in some cases
helped revive the group.
Included in these removals is the removal of comp.binaries.apple2, the
only unmoderated binaries group in the Big Eight and a chronic thorn
in the side of Big Eight news admins due to its excessive share of the
total bandwidth required for a Big Eight feed. The Board was able to
deal with an ongoing problem that the previous system had been unable
to do anything about for years.
The Board has also dealt with several other cases of inactive
moderators, changing moderators of sci.physics.plasma, unmoderating
soc.culture.galiza, and robo-moderating soc.religion.hindu. In these
cases, the groups have often been inactive for so long that it will be
months, if not years, before we see if they find a new audience. More
importantly from my perspective, the Board is taking reasonable action
with these groups and has a procedure in place to deal with such
cases.
In summary, while there will not be unanimous agreement on all the
decisions taken, I believe that they are all reasonable and that most
other observers looking at the corpus of decisions will arrive at the
same conclusion. The results are, in my opinion, clearly superior to
the results that were being produced by the previous system,
particularly in the ability of the Board to deal with proposals like
removals and dead moderated groups that have no obvious voting base.
And, most tellingly, the Board has been able to deal with backlog of
known work that the old system had been accumulating for some time,
accomplishing more concrete improvement in the group list than we've
seen in years.
Management Structure
The second major criteria I had for success of the new system was a
sustainable structure. I think there are more significant risks in
this area, as I detail below. However, the Board has spread the work
across considerably more people and established a replacement
procedure and a sufficiently large active group that members have a
hope of being able to step down before they have burned out.
There is a structure in place that can absorb additional volunteers
down the road and let them make progress on their own concerns, not
just as members of the Board but as outside contributors to problems
such as inactive groups. One significant problem the previous system
had was accepting systemic contribution from people not directly
involved in the management of the hierarchy. The Board's handling of
the long-pending inactive moderator and inactive group removal
problems shows that they are doing a significantly better job at this.
Sustainability of the system and acceptance of input from new
volunteers is the hardest problem by far for ongoing management of the
hierarchy. The new system does not fully resolve all of the problems
I see in this area, but I don't believe any system could. It has,
more importantly, demonstrated far more flexibility than the old
system could muster, which gives me hope that it can continue to
adjust to this challenge going forward.
Documentation of System
Finally, part of setting up a new newsgroup creation system is to
document the new procedure. I believe that the Board has clearly met
this evaluation criteria and gone beyond it by providing a clearer and
more comprehensive information resource for Big Eight newsgroup
creation than we have ever previously had. <http://www.big-8.org/>
has not only the new policies and procedures but an easily readable
archive of decisions and more information about the format of a
proposal and about the overall process than we had under the previous
system.
Rejected Criteria
The above criteria are the three that I consider the most significant
in evaluating the new system. Many other criteria are possible, and
for the most part I won't comment on other possible choices. However,
there are several significant criteria that I did not apply, and which
I feel deserve some explanation.
Voting System
The original mandate for the new Board called for the creation of a
voting system to elect board members. This has not happened, which
has some possible negative consequences as detailed below. However,
after consideration of the arguments put forward by Board members
and the discussion of this point in news.groups earlier this year, I
decided not to require this in my evaluation.
Election theory says that any voting system requires a defined
electorate as well as several other security guarantees to provide an
election that can be considered fair. I have been convinced that,
while not impossible, establishing those conditions in the Big Eight
is at least exceedingly difficult. Elections are being used in some
other hierarchies, most notably uk.*, so it is clearly possible to
manage a hierarchy this way. However, even with newsgroup creation
polls (for which the stakes are lower than a Board election), the old
system was having significant problems running reasonable votes and
found clear evidence of people successfully manipulating the CFV
system and achieving results that were probably not representative of
the intended voting base. In the uk.*, with a small hierarchy and a
fairly limited set of participants, it's possible to apply more web of
trust metrics to evaluating votes that one can use in a general Big
Eight election.
If we tried hard to come up with vote vetting processes to work around
this problem, we would run into another problem, namely frustration
with strange rules and hoop-jumping necessary to vote. We were
already seeing this with the CFV process; it was one of the largest
problems with the previous group voting system. The resulting
exasperation doesn't contribute to one of the primary goals of a
voting system, namely a perception of fairness, and seems likely to
create more energy-wasting arguments.
Additionally, even if a fair vote could be held (meaning in this case
a vote in which each Usenet participant had one and only one vote),
I'm dubious that we could get a representative vote. In this respect,
votes for Board members face a problem similar to small city
elections, with the same likelihood that the results will be mostly
dictated by a small set of people directly involved in the process and
will otherwise face general indifference. If we had the sort of
healthy, broadly-representative, and extensive participation in
news.groups that we had back in, say, 1999, this wouldn't necessarily
be a problem. As matters stand right now, I think the expected voting
base is so small that the results would be dominated by specific
concerns unrelated to the general health of the Big Eight or, even
more likely, would be essentially random from election to election.
Finally, it's extremely important, given how thinly volunteers are
spread, that all of the members of the Board be willing to work
constructively with each other, back each other up on various internal
responsibilities, and work together to keep the system working. It's
possible to maintain this with generally elected members, but it's
certainly more difficult and would introduce a significant risk.
I would like to see a successful voting system created because it
provides a natural way to cycle new blood into the process and because
when done well it creates a strong perception of fairness that is
extremely difficult to achieve via any other process. However, after
long consideration, I believe the challenges are too difficult to have
this be a fair evaluation criteria.
Popularity
There are two aspects to this possible criteria. The first is the
number of news administrators who honor control messages from the new
Board. One possible criteria by which to judge the new system is by
whether it results in an increase in the number of sites honoring the
Big Eight newsgroup list.
On the surface, this seems like a criteria that drives straight to the
heart of the credibility of this process. However, efforts for the
past decade in getting news administrators more involved in the
process have mostly been a failure. I can say from personal
experience that most news administrators simply don't want to get
involved, either because they don't care or because they're too busy
or because they'd rather have independent management. While I would
be thrilled if it happened, I don't expect to see any significant
movement in the number of sites honoring control messages. Some will
stop; any major change of any sort will lose some people at least in
the short term. If we're lucky, some will start in the longer term.
Expecting any more than that is, in my opinion, unrealistic.
The second type of popularity that one could judge the Board on is
popularity in news.groups, either in the form of general approval of
the Board's actions or in the form of building consensus and
attracting new volunteers. Again, and in this case more sadly, I
think this is unrealistic.
There has been a steady erosion in the usefulness of news.groups for
holding meaningful discussion for several years, predating the Board
or any effort to create a new system. With the combination of two
highly controversial proposals and the arguments surrounding the
creation of the Board, that trend has drastically accelerated, but
not, I believe, fundamentally changed.
The Board is clearly unpopular with many news.groups posters. Anyone
evaluating this trial period should be aware of that; as spelled out
below, this creates clear problems. That unpopularity seems mostly
based on three areas of disagreement: the lack of voting and
accompanying loss of a concrete way to change newsgroup creation
results, the Board's willingness to create groups without proven
interest and see if they succeed, and the choice of moderators in
controversial moderated groups. However, the objections underlying
that unpopularity are mostly not expressed in a way that the Board can
respond to constructively, making it difficult to determine whether
they contain ideas that could lead to a better system.
Furthermore, in most cases I personally don't agree with the direction
expressed by those objections. I addressed voting above, and I
believe a more liberal newsgroup creation policy with a working group
removal system is reasonable way to proceed (and is well-supported by
many previous discussions in news.groups). As for the choice of
moderators, this has always been difficult and controversial and any
newsgroup creation system will have difficulties in this area. The
Board has, in my estimation, done at least as well as the previous
system did with controversial moderator selection. The success of
soc.religion.asatru to date, with none of the anticipated problems, is
significant evidence of that. Since I disagree with the primary
justifications of the unpopularity, I don't find the unpopularity
itself convincing.
Another possible evaluation criteria would be the ability of the Board
to foster as positive of an atmosphere as possible for discussion of
group proposals. This, however, is exceedingly difficult to measure
and largely not under the Board's control. Much of the debate has
been heated and personal, and while it's always possible to improve
how one handled such a situation, my evaluation is that the Board has
handled the situation better than I could and I'm dubious whether it's
possible to handle it significantly better. Given that, I think
successful output of the process over time is a superior evaluation
criteria and expecting the Board to simultaneously be popular in the
current atmosphere is too high of a bar to set.
Stability
Finally, one possible way of choosing a successor would be to look for
someone who would run the Big Eight largely the same way that Todd and
I have. This is roughly the criteria that has been applied in the
past.
I explicitly rejected this criteria at the beginning of this process.
I believed, and still do believe, that the prior system was
irrecoverably broken and that it was time for a much-deferred complete
overhaul. I was interested in seeing the system transition into the
hands of people who would not run things the same way that I have
since I believe the path I was on was heading for general failure of
the system. I wanted a group of people who would try more, risk more,
and experiment more. I believe what's needed at this point is the
opposite of this criteria.
Risks
news.groups
The biggest risk facing the Big Eight newsgroup creation system going
forward is the lack of a congenial and constructive place for
discussion of changes to the group list. This applies to any possible
system, including the previous system which also suffered greatly due
to this lack. However, the discussion of the creation of the Board
and subsequent reaction to Board discussions has clearly exacerbated
the problem.
At this point, most news.groups threads quickly acquire flamewars and
rehashing of previous disagreements that have to be ignored by the
thread participants. It is difficult for a proponent to discuss a
proposal in this atmosphere, and it's also difficult to extract
objections to and constructive criticism of proposals. Participation
in this emotionally charged of an environment frequently leads to
burnout, thus raising the risk that the available number of volunteers
will drop below what's needed to keep this system running.
Additionally, news.groups has traditionally served as the training
ground for new volunteers, but an angry and confrontational atmosphere
is more likely to drive potential volunteers away, making it difficult
to find new volunteers when the current ones inevitably move on.
This atmosphere also has a more subtle negative effect. It selects
for people who can work in an environment of frequent public attacks
and further cultivates the necessary attitude. This leads to a
concentration of participants who expect harsh discussions, frequent
flames, and personal attacks and who therefore have aggressive
personal filters, an instinctive defensive emotional response, and a
willingness to quickly stop listening to people who are perceived as
abusive. Not only does this create a self-perpetuating emotional
intensification of the posts (one natural response to this sort of
atmosphere is to try to be even harsher and even more dramatic in
order to be heard over the background noise), it makes it difficult to
de-escalate discussions and find legitimate disagreement under the
emotional presentation.
This effect hits everyone to some degree, no matter how experienced
with Usenet, and affects those who feel obliged to participate more
than others. It poses a direct risk to the Board's continued ability
to evaluate proposals, both through difficulty in obtaining
high-quality input to that decision-making process and through
difficulty in completely separating decision-making from negative
emotion and reaction to the discussion atmosphere.
I don't know what can be done about this risk. I am deeply concerned
that unless it can be corrected for somehow, no newsgroup creation
system that uses public input will survive. I don't believe that the
Board can single-handedly fix it, but they will have to address it
somehow going forward. Unfortunately, most of the possible solutions
that have been discussed over the years either decentralize the
conversation (with a resulting loss of ability to recruit general
volunteers and a lack of an overall view of the Big Eight) or are
directly confrontational in trying to exclude posts that contribute to
a toxic atomsphere, with all the resulting problems of impartiality,
personal animosity, and continued necessity of confrontation.
No Voting System
This new system contains no inherent public voting system, either for
groups or for Board members.
The lack of a voting system for groups poses challenges for the type
of proposal that the Board has not yet handled, namely a group reorg.
For creations, the negative effects of a newsgroup creation on other
groups are generally negligible or at the least possible to overcome.
For removals and inactive moderators, the correct choice of action is
normally obvious and one can afford to be conservative. Reorgs,
however, are one of the few places where a yes/no vote has clear
advantages and measures input that is quite valuable and useful.
Furthermore, it's hard to justify group renamings or removal of groups
that are currently used without a clear public mandate to point to.
Right now, the Board does not have a system in place to take such
votes, which may pose problems should such a proposal be presented.
The lack of public voting for Board members creates other problems.
First, without a public election, the Board lacks a clear public
mandate. It may drift away from the goals of the general user
population of the hierarchies due to the lack of clear and unignorable
public feedback. Votes provide a valuable and unambiguous evaluation
point that is difficult to arrive at any other way. A working voting
system often produces outcomes that are quite surprising to someone
who had reviewed only the public discussion.
Second, since the original introduction of votes on Usenet proposals,
votes have had the valuable effect of clearly concluding an argument.
Most people have an inherent respect for the popular vote and will
accept that they're in the minority if they lose a vote. This effect
had been undermined by the successful manipulation and gaming of the
voting system, but it was still present to a degree. Without a voting
system, the Board loses the aid of a valuable system for terminating
debate and getting people to move on to other questions.
Finally, public elections would cycle new volunteers into the Board.
This has both positive and negative effects and can cause serious
issues if new volunteers aren't willing to compromise and form
consensus with existing members, but without some system to do this,
it is very difficult to replace volunteers faster than the burnout
rate or to bring enough volunteers up to speed to create a
self-sustaining organization.
Little News Administrator Involvement
Lack of direct feedback from news administrators has been a problem
for the Big Eight newsgroup creation system for many years and
continues to be an issue under this new system. News administrators
are in some respects the primary consumers of the output of the
newsgroup creation system. If they do not act on control messages or
group changes, there's little point in making them. However, as
mentioned above, most news administrators appear to simply not be
interested in participating. As a result, any group creation system
has a significant risk of going off in directions that news
administrators do not actually approve of, thereby hurting the
usefulness of the system for its primary audience.
Next Steps
This is not the opening of an argument; rather, it is the conclusion
of one that began about a year ago. It is my position paper on all
that has been discussed since then. It is not, at this point,
something that I intend to discuss further, beyond any necessarily
clarifications in areas that are significantly unclear (if any).
Implementation of this decision is effective tomorrow. I am
completely leaving a decision-making role in Big Eight newsgroup
creation as of then, and will be unsubscribing from news.groups
shortly. I do plan on continuing to provide purely technical
assistance to the Board, both as part of the ongoing transition of
technical capabilities and as the ongoing maintainer of the
ftp.isc.org archive and backup maintainer of the moderation forwarding
database. However, whatever involvement I have in newsgroup creation
going forward will be limited strictly to my professional role as a
news administrator for one university site, and even that I plan on
limiting sharply for the foreeable future.
How to Object
If, after reviewing the current procedure, you have concerns or
objections, I strongly encourage you to talk to the Board about them.
I believe that every person on the Board is a reasonable, approachable
person who will discuss concerns in a productive fashion. I have
known many of the people on the Board for years and have had the
chance to observe their interactions in many different environments,
and if I didn't hold this opinion, I wouldn't be handing the system
over to them. I believe that if you extend to them the presumption of
good will and recognize that the system they came up with came from
months of difficult discussion and is supported by reasons they
believe in (and therefore is unlikely at this point to change
quickly), they will return that presumption and will try as best they
are able to find workable compromises.
As with all such discussions on Usenet, firm facts are thin on the
ground. If you can provide concrete information, measurements, data,
or the means for acquiring them, your concerns and objections will be
much easier to respond to and far more persuasive.
If for whatever reason the above is untenable or you cannot reach an
agreement you can live with, the last resort is to start publishing a
separate newsgroup list and issue separate control messages. I don't
consider this sort of further fragmentation of the Big Eight newsgroup
list to be a good option, but if I'm completely wrong and the Board
acts in some way seriously detrimental to Usenet, it's the recourse of
last resort. In such a situation, I do believe this last resort could
be exercised effectively. In some ways, it would be easier now than
it was in the past, given that the Usenet readership is increasingly
concentrated at a few large sites.
I don't recommend that anyone take this approach, but since it exists
to some extent as a check on our evaluation abilities, I believe it's
appropriate to make it possible. Therefore, if you want to start your
own system or your own ftp.isc.org-style archive, my long-term
intention is to make the software that I have used publicly available
on my web site. Until such time as I have a chance to do this, feel
free to send me e-mail directly and ask for it. I cannot provide help
with customizing it for your purposes, and it will require
customization, but I can provide a starting point.
How to Help
If you want to make this new newsgroup creation system a success,
again, I encourage you to contact the Board and volunteer. There is
always more work than there are people, and there is work for a wide
variety of different skill sets. If you are a news administrator, I
am quite certain that any input you can provide on what sort of
newsgroup creation system is the most helpful to you would be greatly
appreciated.
Finally, everyone can help ameliorate the greatest risk for any Big
Eight newsgroup creation system by being patient and constructive in
news.groups. Try to extend a presumption of good will. Try to make
any reply less of a flame than the message to which you were
responding. Try to understand the other person's perspective, or
failing that, at least accept it. If it doesn't feel right to support
someone in public (sometimes it escalates matters), send private
e-mail to people who say things well, or who do a good job at the
above, and let them know that it was noticed, at least to those people
who welcome private mail.
It's difficult but not impossible. And if enough people are working
at this, it creates a positive reinforcement cycle and starts to build
a community. The reconstruction of such a community would be a
wonderful step for Usenet as a whole.
-- Russ Allbery
September 30, 2006
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Jayne Kulikauskas
[...]
> The other two groups are more recent. soc.men.moderated is a special
> case with several possible success criteria. It is a moderated
> companion group to a long-standing high-flame group and may prove
> useful even if it only provides an occasional outlet for the other
> group (as has happened in several other similar cases in the past).
> However, it is dormant at this point, apparently, to the selected
> moderators no longer moderating. It's probably too early to say for
> sure whether this is a success or failure; driven by the deadline for
> this post, I would call it a possibly recoverable failure.
The reason that soc.men.moderated has appeared dormant over the last few
days is due to a technical problem that is causing posts to be lost. The
technical moderator is aware of the problem and it should be resolved
shortly. There is an active moderator at this time and more will be
selected soon. There have been a total of 238 posts since the creation of
smm on Aug 30.
--
Jayne Check out soc.men.moderated. If your news provider
doesn't carry it, ask. While you're waiting for it use
the web interface:
http://news.killfile.org/?group=soc.men.moderated
Russ Allbery
arising from flaws in how I wrote this paper.
stanley <sta...@shell.peak.org> writes:
> Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> created. Rather, what I wanted to see was prompt and reasonable
>> handling of new newsgroup proposals, a working system that was
>> clearly taking new proposals as input and making affirmative
>> decisions on them.
> I will give you an opportunity to pick a better word than "affirmative",
Yes, I'm sorry, that was indeed not at all the word that I intended. The
word that I was trying for there was "explicit" or "decisive." I think I
arrived at "affirmative" through some weird derivation of "firm" and
neglected to re-check that. Apologies for the confusion.
>> Included in these removals is the removal of comp.binaries.apple2,
>> the only unmoderated binaries group in the Big Eight and a chronic
>> thorn in the side of Big Eight news admins due to its excessive
>> share of the total bandwidth required for a Big Eight feed.
> Ok. Confusion appears. It was a dead group but it was thorn in the side
> of those watching bandwidth numbers.
Apologies for any implication by structure that comp.binaries.apple2 was a
dead group. It wasn't; it was actively used for purposes other than its
chartered purpose. Otherwise, of course, it wouldn't have been a problem.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Brian Mailman
> In article <11596610...@isc.org>, Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> and constructive criticism of proposals.
>
> It is especially hard to have a constructive debate of issues when the
> leader of the Founders not only maintains a strict killfile but is proud
> of that fact.
....which causes anyone wanting to engage in "constructive" criticism to
make an argument on terms pre-defined by said Founder. This is
unacceptable for any attempt at honest discussion.
B/
James Farrar
It's also rather difficult to have constructive discussions with
people who insist on throwing insults around.
--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com
Doug Freyburger
> sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
> > Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> >> and constructive criticism of proposals.
>
> > It is especially hard to have a constructive debate of issues when the
> > leader of the Founders not only maintains a strict killfile but is proud
> > of that fact.
Then the objector trolls should start being constructive in order to
have their views heard. Just how difficult is it to stay out of most
people's killfiles? Yet the one on killfile.org is far more forgiving
than the one I use at home. All it takes is a level of rationality, a
small amount of respect (or just politeness), and some amount of
constructiveness in the first place.
What a shock, the only way to have a constructive debate is to
be constructive. It's amazing isn't it. Yet it's completely beyond
the kenn of most trolls.
> ....which causes anyone wanting to engage in "constructive" criticism to
> make an argument on terms pre-defined by said Founder.
This is something you manage to do so that generally disqualifies
you as a troll in my view. You do constructive criticism. Rather
than just saying everyone is wrong, wrong, wrong, lying, lying,
lying, you actually make suggestions and give advice.
> This is unacceptable for any attempt at honest discussion.
Is there evidence that trolls have the slightest interest in honesty?
Doug Freyburger
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> >Then the objector trolls should start being constructive in order to
> >have their views heard.
>
> with someone who insists on tossing insults around?
Recognizing irrationality is not tossing insults around. Thus
calling trolls trolls is not an insult.
> >It's amazing isn't it. Yet it's completely beyond
> >the kenn of most trolls.
>
> Ah, yes, another example of people who insist on tossing insults.
Touchee. That was tossing insults on my part. I figure most trolls
are quite able to drop that role with a choice. The number who are
mentally ill is unlikely to be anywhere near as high as appearances
would suggest. It's not beyond their kenn but beyond their current
history of choices. New choices can be made.
Adam H. Kerman
Do you care to back up that inuendo with actual evidence, or was your intent
to contribute to the general discord?
Aratzio
got double secret probation because:
Fuck off, bowtie wearing freak of nature.
Brian Mailman
Which has nothing to do with what I said.
B/
Brian Mailman
> Brian Mailman wrote:
>> sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
>>> Russ Allbery wrote:
>>
>>>> and constructive criticism of proposals.
>>
>>> It is especially hard to have a constructive debate of issues
>>> when the leader of the Founders not only maintains a strict
>>> killfile but is proud of that fact.
>
> Then the objector trolls should start being constructive in order to
> have their views heard.
Define "constructive."
See? What then happens is someone needs to argue on someone else's
terms. This is unacceptable, because just from the start it's an uneven
playing field.
>> ....which causes anyone wanting to engage in "constructive"
>> criticism to make an argument on terms pre-defined by said Founder.
>>
>
> This is something you manage to do so that generally disqualifies you
> as a troll in my view.
As pleasureable as being complimented is (and it is), it's not about me,
per se.
> You do constructive criticism. Rather than just saying everyone is
> wrong, wrong, wrong, lying, lying, lying, you actually make
> suggestions and give advice.
That I do.
And what I have to say on occasion is not what someone wants to hear,
but what I feel they might need to hear. Or what I feel I have to say.
I'm not always comfortable with that, either.
>> This is unacceptable for any attempt at honest discussion.
>
> Is there evidence that trolls have the slightest interest in honesty?
I believe they do, but unfortunately, they dilute their message in
various ways. But that has nothing to do with what I said. It's a
matter of intellectual honesty to not force someone to discuss on your
terms.
It may be a good debating technique and one that's taught to embryonic
lawyers or politicians in Forensics 101, but it's not an honest
discussion technique.
B/
James Farrar
See my recent attempt at a discussion with Bob Officer, for one.
Geoff Berrow
Farrar contained the following:
>>>It's also rather difficult to have constructive discussions with
>>>people who insist on throwing insults around.
>>
>>Do you care to back up that inuendo with actual evidence,
>
>See my recent attempt at a discussion with Bob Officer, for one.
Yebbut James I have to tell you - you come across as aloof.
Well I guess it's easy to be aloof on a committee of loofs but you'd
have a hard time if you were on another committee I could mention.
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the (uk.*) commitee's, mine.
Adam H. Kerman
You were accusing Brian Mailman, one of the people in Tim's kill file, not
Bob Officer here. Perhaps rather than adding to discord, you could simply
withdraw your nonsense and apologize.
James Farrar
wrote:
>At 3:06pm +0100, 10/04/06, James Farrar <james.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:23:49 -0500, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>At 6:45pm +0100, 10/03/06, James Farrar <james.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>Brian Mailman <bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
>>>>>>Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>>>>>>>and constructive criticism of proposals.
>
>>>>>>It is especially hard to have a constructive debate of issues when the
>>>>>>leader of the Founders not only maintains a strict killfile but is proud
>>>>>>of that fact.
>
>>>>>....which causes anyone wanting to engage in "constructive" criticism to
>>>>>make an argument on terms pre-defined by said Founder. This is
>>>>>unacceptable for any attempt at honest discussion.
>
>>>>It's also rather difficult to have constructive discussions with
>>>>people who insist on throwing insults around.
>
>>>Do you care to back up that inuendo with actual evidence,
>
>>See my recent attempt at a discussion with Bob Officer, for one.
>
>You were accusing Brian Mailman,
I did not accuse him. It was a general comment.
Doug Freyburger
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> >Recognizing irrationality is not tossing insults around. Thus
> >calling trolls trolls is not an insult.
>
Saying that it's about disagreement is an irrational stance.
But it isn't enough on its own to qualify as a troll.
Peter J Ross
wrote in news.groups:
Why are you still here? Isn't there enough ignorant rubbish in your
SRA clubhouse to keep you busy?
PJR :-)
--
_ _(o)_(o)_ _ | The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no Cabal."
._\`:_ F S M _:' \_, | FSM: <http://www.venganza.org/>
/ (`---'\ `-. | AUK: <http://www.netcabal.com/auk/>
,-` _) (_, F_P | PJR: <http://insurgent.org/~pjr/>
Adam H. Kerman
That's why I noted the innuendo earlier. It's a useful flaming technique,
for one can always deny that it was directed at the person being addressed.
The Big-8 Management Board
> As most of the reading audience is probably aware, as of tomorrow, Todd
> and I are stepping down as moderators of news.announce.newgroups and
> ending our involvement in Big Eight newsgroup creation. Since May of
> 2006, newsgroup creation in the Big Eight hierarchies has been done
> under the aegis of a new Big-8 Management Board as a preliminary trial
> period that Todd and I would evaluate before deciding how to handle our
> resignations. This is my final report on that evaluation.
Two introductory points:
First, the Board would like to encourage anybody that has not read
the above-referenced article (<11596610...@isc.org>) to do so.
Second, and more importantly, the Board would like to thank
the outgoing NAN Team for all of the hard work that they have put into
managing Usenet, and the Big-8 hierarchies in particular. Yes, individual
Board members have already done so before, both publicly and privately,
but once more seems appropriate. Russ and Todd - you will be missed, both
in your official "maintainer" roles, and in your role as voices of reason
and compromise. You have left us with a strong legacy, and we hope that
we are up to the challenge of maintaining it.
With those two points out of the way, we would like to address a
few of the points in Russ' document, and explain what our plans are for
the immediate future.
"Draft" Policies Are Now Official
=================================
As of 08 Oct 2006, the "draft" policy documents regarding newsgroup
creation, as listed http://www.big-8.org/, are official policy. These
policies have served us well through nearly 50 proposals; they are still
subject to change as necessary, but in practice, we believe that they are
complete.
The documentation will be updated over the next several days. We would
encourage volunteers to begin working to convert the documentation into
formalized FAQs and similar documentation; please contact the Board
(bo...@big-8.org) if you would like to help with this.
Board Membership
================
Now that we have been officially appointed and our policies have moved
from "draft" to "official", the Board is ready to consider adding
additional members to the Board, both to help spread the workload around
and to introduce new, fresh blood into the system. If you are
interested in joining the Board, we would like to hear from you (at
bo...@big-8.org).
news.groups
===========
As noted by Russ in his transition document, "[t]he biggest risk facing
the Big Eight newsgroup creation system going forward is the lack of a
congenial and constructive place for discussion of changes to the group
list." We are very aware of the problems of news.groups, and we believe
strongly that something must be done. However, it has been very difficult
to figure out what, exactly, that "something" is, especially in the
absence of a viable location to discuss it publicly.
One suggested idea is to create a moderated counterpart to news.groups, in
which to discuss proposals in a healthier environment. Such a group would
be hand-moderated to filter out personal attacks and flames, but otherwise
dissenting opinions would be encouraged. The Board is considering this,
and a full RFD is forthcoming.
To be clear, any such moderated newsgroup would be in addition to the
unmoderated news.groups, which would continue to exist in its current
form.
Public Voting
=============
Many people have raised objections regarding the lack of public voting
in our current policies. The Board's stance is that, while we would
consider the introduction of a secure, meaningful public voting system
for the Big-8, we consider that the probability of such a system being
developed is negligible. Thus, we have not determined exactly how we
would use such a system, and we are unlikely to do so until we are
convinced that such a system was truly viable.
On the other hand, we do have a strong interest in developing and
supporting a viable polling system, to support reorganizations, help
choose newsgroup names, and overall offer a standard and well-used
channel for regular users to offer their input to the creation system.
Unfortunately, our resources are limited, and nothing is going to happen
without additional volunteers. Anyone who supports a more formal
form of outside input should step up and contribute to the development
of a system through which such input can be measured. We have begun by
creating the Usenet Volunteer Pollsters, but this has group not gone very
far, largely due to a lack of volunteers. If you would care to help -
even if you have nothing to offer except moral support! - please subscribe
to the UVP mailing list at http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvp/ .
News Administrator Involvement
==============================
The Board acknowledges the potential problems resulting from the lack
of news administrator involvement in the Big-8 creation system. This
ongoing problem was an issue under the old system as well, and no
reasonable solutions have been discovered. We would love to have more
news administrator involvement with and support for the Big-8 Management
system, and we will take all the help we can get.
How To Help
===========
We don't believe that we can improve upon what Russ wrote in his transition
post that prompted this response, so we will just quote his words:
> If you want to make this new newsgroup creation system a success,
> again, I encourage you to contact the Board and volunteer. There is
> always more work than there are people, and there is work for a wide
> variety of different skill sets. If you are a news administrator, I
> am quite certain that any input you can provide on what sort of
> newsgroup creation system is the most helpful to you would be greatly
> appreciated.
> Finally, everyone can help ameliorate the greatest risk for any Big
> Eight newsgroup creation system by being patient and constructive in
> news.groups. Try to extend a presumption of good will. Try to make
> any reply less of a flame than the message to which you were
> responding. Try to understand the other person's perspective, or
> failing that, at least accept it. If it doesn't feel right to support
> someone in public (sometimes it escalates matters), send private
> e-mail to people who say things well, or who do a good job at the
> above, and let them know that it was noticed, at least to those people
> who welcome private mail.
> It's difficult but not impossible. And if enough people are working
> at this, it creates a positive reinforcement cycle and starts to build
> a community. The reconstruction of such a community would be a
> wonderful step for Usenet as a whole.
- Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
Speaking for the Big-8 Management Board
--
http://www.big-8.org/ Big-8 Management Board
http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvp/ Usenet Volunteer Pollsters
http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvm/ Usenet Volunteer Moderators
http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/group-mentors/ Group Mentors
http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/deadwood/ Deadwood Removal
Brian Mailman
Ah.
Another one who tacks "general comments" onto my messages and then
claims they don't read the way they were apparently intended.
Why can't you (plural) simply post a separate message if you have a
"general comment?"
B/
Peter J Ross
<bo...@big-8.org> wrote in news.announce.newgroups:
<...>
I didn't reply to the self-admiring spew posted by Russ Allbery and
Todd McComb, because I felt that it would be appropriate on such an
occasion to say something nice about them, but I couldn't find
anything nice to say that wouldn't involve untruthfulness on my part
to match the lies that the two of them have been telling for the past
year - starting with the lies they told about their reasons for
resigning, and continuing with the fraudulent ballot in which Todd and
Russ chose you and your colleagues without, ISTM, even looking at the
ballot papers.
Fact #1:
They resigned because, for the first time, one of their decisions was
seriously questioned. They resigned on impulse, because they're
impulsive people who are guided by emotion rather than by reason. They
later claimed that they had been planning to resign: that was a
transparent lie. Their confusion and self-contradiction was evident to
everybody reading news.groups.
Fact #2:
The current board was appointed by Todd, after he'd thrown all the
ballot papers away and picked the names of candidates he liked. I'll
give him some credit for excluding Vito Kuhn and a couple of other
net.kooks, and I'm sorry to see that such kooks haven't been excluded
from poweer by our new alien overlords.
Have fun with your increasingly irrelevant list of "approved" groups,
B8MB.
Have fun with a news.groups that is increasingly devoid of anything
but trollery, and in which any semi-tolerable proposal can be assured
of your rubber stamp, partly because any criticism is dismissed as
"unconstructive".
Have fun accusing me, and the many posters who agree with at least
some of what I've just written, of being "unhelpful" and
"unconstructive", or of making "personal attacks". In this post, I
haven't criticised any member of the B8MB personally, and I've been
more "helpful" and "constructive" with new proposals recently than
anybody else in news.groups. But don't let such tedious facts get in
your way. Russ and Todd didn't let facts get in their way: if in
doubt, lie, the way they do.
Hey, just HAVE FUN: this is Usenet, after all.
I first came here to enjoy an amusing troll, but I stayed to try to
help people who propose new newsgroups. But I won't express admiration
for people or systems I despise, so the sooner I'm re-added to the
Official Killfile List the better. Meanwhile, I'll still be posting
here; but I'll be posting more in alt.config and us.config, because
those groups are frequented by some grown-ups who can tolerate
criticism.
> - Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
> Speaking for the Big-8 Management Board
Fix yer damn .sig.
Peter J Ross
<sta...@shell.peak.org> wrote in news.groups:
> In article <1159999831.0...@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>,
> Doug Freyburger <dfre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
>>> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>>>
>>> >Recognizing irrationality is not tossing insults around. Thus
>>> >calling trolls trolls is not an insult.
>>>
>>> Calling people you disagree with trolls is.
>>
>>Saying that it's about disagreement is an irrational stance.
>
> Hardly. The fact that someone doesn't agree with you is not an example
> of them being irrational. Believing that they are trolls because they do
> not agree with you and are thus irrational is, itself, the irrational act.
Mr Stanley, you're discussing irrationality with somebody who chooses
to post through Google Groups because he prefers it to using a
newsreader. Is there not something slightly absurd about that?
Peter J Ross
<bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote in news.groups:
Thanks for this thread, Brian. I was recently trying to remember which
member of the Board was even more twitchy, even more pompous, and even
more out of touch with Usenet reality than Jonathan Kamens, but James
Farrar wasn't well known enough for his name to come to mind. Did he
have any claim to fame *before* the rubber-stamp "election"?
PJ "yes, this is a personal attack, but how else can a fool be
discussed?" R :-)
Jed
wrote:
I thought about asking you, Officer, Mailman, and the miscellaneous
other b8mb nay-sayers to describe in some detail how you would have
set up the post Alberry/McComb Big 8 so that it would be something
other than a mirror of alt.*.
Or would that have been considered pompous and out of touch with
Usenet reality?
Oh, what the hell.
Let's say, hypothetically, that the current b8mb is killed in an
unfortunate accident between their VW bug and a 18-wheel Peterbilt and
the mantle of the Big 8 falls for whatever reason to you and the
anti-b8mb cabal.
What kind of Big 8 could we as users expect from the new junta?
Give us something concrete to sink our teeth into.
Brian Mailman
> I thought about asking you, Officer, Mailman, and the miscellaneous
> other b8mb nay-sayers
I find it rather fascist to insist on identifying the personnel of the
bamby with the concept. I'm almost OK with the concept.
B/
Brian Mailman
> Have fun with a news.groups that is increasingly devoid of anything
> but trollery, and in which any semi-tolerable proposal can be assured
> of your rubber stamp, partly because any criticism is dismissed as
> "unconstructive".
and the solution is to build an insulated clubhouse.
B/
Wayne Brown
>
> I thought about asking you, Officer, Mailman, and the miscellaneous
> other b8mb nay-sayers to describe in some detail how you would have
> set up the post Alberry/McComb Big 8 so that it would be something
> other than a mirror of alt.*.
It's very simple. Just return to the pre-Alberry/McComb Big 8 because
there was nothing wrong with it until Alberry/McComb screwed it up.
--
Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net> (HPCC #1104)
Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg. ("That passed away, this also can.")
"Deor," from the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)
Aratzio
<bmai...@sfo.invalid> transparently proposed:
They can move into soc.men.moderated.
--
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
James Farrar
The reply was to your comment about constructive criticism and honest
discussion. Although, it must be said, you're another one using common
words, used once in an official policy for a specific one-off purpose,
and that no longer appear in an official policy, in an attempt to
insult.
James Farrar
>In article <11600039...@isc.org>,
>The Big-8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:
>>and to introduce new, fresh blood into the system. If you are
>>interested in joining the Board, we would like to hear from you (at
>>bo...@big-8.org).
>
>I would remind the board that there is a standing list already in
>existance.
>
>>strongly that something must be done. However, it has been very difficult
>>to figure out what, exactly, that "something" is, especially in the
>>absence of a viable location to discuss it publicly.
>
>Someone who has a strong killfile can easily operate in this group, if
>his only goal is to exclude his own opportunity to read an alternative
>viewpoint. I agree the unmoderated group is useless if the true goal
>of the potential moderation, and self-imposed moderation of a killfile,
>is to keep others from seeing an alternative viewpoint. Killfiles cannot
>do the latter; only hand-moderation can.
The aim should be to have a place where discussions can take place
without being subjected to all the shit (mostly cross-posted) that
characterises news.groups at the moment.
>>On the other hand, we do have a strong interest in developing and
>>supporting a viable polling system,
>
>If the former is impossible, then so is the latter.
Untrue, at least in the sense used. "Voting" makes decisions,
"polling" gagues opinions.
saur
> sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
>>If the former is impossible, then so is the latter.
> Untrue, at least in the sense used. "Voting" makes decisions,
> "polling" gagues opinions.
If the underlying data is invalid, the "decision" and the "opinion" are
equally suspect. Inferences drawn from such data are unjustifiable.
Brian Mailman
I see.
So it's not a "general comment" as you first claimed.
b/
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>And right now B*MBy seems to be discussing moderation of this group
>to silence people's voices.
That's not accurate.
We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
on the discussion of RFDs.
news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
Marty
--
Member of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB), such as it is.
The B8MB is a work in progress.
See http://www.big-8.org for more information.
Adam H. Kerman
>On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:45:35 -0700, Bob Officer <bobof...@127.0.0.7> wrote:
>>Brian Mailman <bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>>>Peter J Ross wrote:
>>>>Have fun with a news.groups that is increasingly devoid of anything but
>>>>trollery, and in which any semi-tolerable proposal can be assured of
>>>>your rubber stamp, partly because any criticism is dismissed as
>>>>"unconstructive".
>>>and the solution is to build an insulated clubhouse.
>>And right now B*MBy seems to be discussing moderation of this group
>>to silence people's voices.
>That's not accurate.
>We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
>on the discussion of RFDs.
No, Brian Mailman has it correct. You'd continue to ignore discussion in
news.groups, now with an official reason. Postings allowed in the moderated
group would affirm your pre-conceived notions.
>news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
news.groups would be marginalized further. The Thread That Will Not Die,
recently in the guise of the s.m.m troll, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Giving That Thread new life was B8MB's contribution to the noise in
news.groups.
nukleus
This is just their usual totalitarian trick of pure blooded
Aryan race, superior to others.
If anyone posts to their "moderated" version of news.groups,
then they have FULL control of what is "officially allowed"
and what not. So, that thing will be humming like a smoothly
ran totalitarian dictatorship propaganda machine.
The news.groups, on the other hand, is for "the rest of us",
just like alt.*. So, no matter what are you going to say there,
these power hungry fascists wouldn't even have to bother to
come to "mere mortals" and discuss the issues.
This stuff is the corruptest possible version
of a blatant nazi style.
That is all there is to it.
nukleus
able to see what is going on with all this mess.
Yes, the news admins better COMPLETELY ignore
any and all controls by this so called big-8 management board.
Why do we need some fascist clique as a middleman?
For what?
What do they decide?
They have done SO much damage, prevented SO many valid
groups from being created, that it is simply mind boggling.
Yes, it was the previous dictators, who ran away in shame,
but they are made out of the same template.
Tellya what, people need to know that they can send their
own control messages that will be presented directly to
news admins, because THEY are the ones who really decides
which groups are being carried, and not this clique of
conmen, calling themselves big-8 "management board".
How did they come to power on the first place?
Well, by APPOINTMENT, just like in any totalitarian
or fascist system.
They have never been elected by ANYONE.
Period.
They are just a bunch of self-appointed dictators
and of the LOWEST grade at that, looking for new ways
to screw the "mortals", creating ALL sorts of domains,
web pages and other propaganda to make it look like
THEY truly represent big-8.
In article <Pine.LNX.4.63.06...@qbbshf.puvarg.pbz>, "Adam H.
Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
This is just their usual totalitarian trick of pure blooded
nukleus
As i suspected all along, the INN server will drop any control
messages unless they come from "authorized" accounts and are
PGP signed.
Hail Russ Allbery, the fuehrer, who ran away in shame.
It is HIS work as he is the maintainer of INN server code.
In my New World Order Guidelines for Newsgroup Creation
i asked this question:
"what kind of 'features' could be wired into the INN software,
if it is maintained by ISC?
Basically, these are some important lines of code from
control.ctl file in INN.
# If it *doesn't* come from group...@isc.org, forget it.
#newgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:log
#rmgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:log
So, in order for your control to even appear on news admin's screen,
you'd have to forge From: header to group...@isc.org,
in which case, these fascist are going to raise hell and
would not hesitate to netcop you.
Notice that code for non PGP processing is commented out,
which means you MUST have PGP to verify the control.
Furthermore, these controls MUST come from news.announce.newgroups
as shows the code line below.
newgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
Hey, what a creative dude this herr fuehrer Russ is.
He thought of just about anything imaginable,
just to make sure that the grip on power
firmly remains in HIS hand.
What a public servant!
Interestingly enough, on alt.* hierarchy, the controls
are simply processed without any fuss and groups are created.
NOT EVEN PGP required!
Why would that be? Anyone wonders?
Well, because our fascist Russ could give a flying dead chicken
about alt.* because that is NOT where he sits.
He only cares about HIS empire of big-sucking-8.
Here is the code:
## ALT
##
## Accept all newgroup's as well as rmgroup's from trusted sources and
## process them silently. Only the rmgroup messages from unknown sources
## will be e-mailed to the administrator. Please note that the people
## listed here are trusted in my opinion only, you opinion my differ.
##
## Other options and comments on alt.* groups can be found on Bill
## Hazelrig's WWW pages at http://www.tezcat.com/~haz1/alt/faqindex.html
##
newgroup:*:alt.*:doit
So, Russ bullet-prooffed the big-8 with a 3 layer armor.
Zig hail!
Hail Russ Allbery, the fuehrer!
Now, the catch is this. News admin CAN modify this script
(control.ctl file) to take out all these cunning tricks
of hidden control and domination,
but how much of a chance they are going to even bother?
Well, we'll see what we can do about it.
It is not the end of the world afterall...
Here is the most important lines of code from INN 2.2
==================== QUOTE BEGIN =========================
# This will weed out forgeries for non-Big 8 hierarchies.
newgroup:group...@isc.org:*:drop
newgroup:tale@*uu.net:*:drop
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:*:drop
rmgroup:tale@*uu.net:*:drop
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
newgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
rmgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
checkgroups:group...@isc.org:*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:rec.*|sci.*|soc.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:rec.*|sci.*|soc.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
# Non-pgp entries, Due to the number of forged messages these are all
# mailed to the NewsAdmin, rmgroups are also not acted upon.
#
# The best idea is to get PGP.
#
# checkgroups:group...@isc.org:*:mail
# newgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*:doit
# newgroup:group...@isc.org:soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:doit
# rmgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*:mail
# rmgroup:group...@isc.org:soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:mail
##
## Other options and comments on alt.* groups can be found on Bill
## Hazelrig's WWW pages at http://www.tezcat.com/~haz1/alt/faqindex.html
##
newgroup:*:alt.*:doit
# Forgeries
newgroup:group...@isc.org:alt.*:drop
newgroup:tale@*uu.net:alt.*:drop
rmgroup:*:alt.*:drop
#rmgroup:haz1@*nwu.edu:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:grobe@*netins.net:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:smj@*.oro.net:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:ne...@gymnet.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:sjk...@crl.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:z...@ampersand.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:da...@home.net.nz:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:*@*:alt.config:drop
==================== QUOTE END =========================
Finally the full source code for control.ctl file.
==================== QUOTE BEGIN =========================
## rone's unified control.ctl
## control.ctl - access control for control messages
## Format:
## <message>:<from>:<newsgroups>:<action>
## The last match found is used.
## <message> Control message or "all" if it applies
## to all control messages.
## <from> Pattern that must match the From line.
## <newsgroups> Pattern that must match the newsgroup being
## newgroup'd or rmgroup'd (ignored for other messages).
## <action> What to do:
## doit Perform action (usually sends mail
too)
## doifarg Do if command has an arg (see sendsys)
## doit=xxx Do action; log to xxx (see below)
## drop Ignore message
## log One line to error log
## log=xxx Log to xxx (see below)
## mail Send mail to admin
## verify-pgp_userid Do PGP verification on user.
## verify-pgp_userid=logfile PGP verify and log.
## xxx=mail to mail; xxx= (empty) to toss; xxx=/full/path
## to log to /full/path; xxx=foo to log to ${LOG}/foo.log
##
## The defaults have changed.
##
## Firstly. Most things that caused mail in the past no longer do. This is
## due to proliferation of forged control messages filling up mailboxes.
##
## Secondly, the assumption now is that you have pgp on your system. If you
## don't, then you should get it to help protect youself against all the
## luser control message forgers. If you can't use pgp, then you'll have
## to fix some sections here. Search for *PGP*. At each "*PGP*" found
## you'll need to comment out the block of lines right after it (that have
## 'verify-' in their 4th field). Then uncomment the block of lines that
## comes right after that. You'll also need to change pgpverify in inn.conf.
##
## For more information on using PGP to verify control messages, upgrade
## to INN-1.5 (or later) or see: ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/
##
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
##
## A number of hierarchies are for local use only but have leaked out into
## the general stream. In this config file the are set so they are easy to
## remove and will not be added by sites. Please delete them if you
## carry them. If you wish to carry them please contact the address given to
## arrange a feed.
##
## If you have permission to carry any of the hierachies listed in this file
## as "local only", "defunct" or "private", you should change the entry
listed.
##
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## DEFAULT
all:*:*:mail
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## CHECKGROUPS MESSAGES
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## Any newsgroup
checkgroups:*:*:mail
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## IHAVE/SENDME MESSAGES
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
ihave:*:*:drop
sendme:*:*:drop
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## SENDSYS
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
sendsys:*:*:log=sendsys
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## SENDUUNAME
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
senduuname:*:*:log=senduuname
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## VERSION
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
version:*:*:log=version
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## NEWGROUP/RMGROUP MESSAGES
## --------------------------------------------------------------------------
## Default (for any group)
newgroup:*:*:mail
rmgroup:*:*:mail
## The Big 8.
## COMP, HUMANITIES, MISC, NEWS, REC, SCI, SOC, TALK
# If it *doesn't* come from group...@isc.org, forget it.
#newgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:log
#rmgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:log
# This will weed out forgeries for non-Big 8 hierarchies.
newgroup:group...@isc.org:*:drop
newgroup:tale@*uu.net:*:drop
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:*:drop
rmgroup:tale@*uu.net:*:drop
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
newgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
rmgroup:*:comp.*|humanities.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:drop
checkgroups:group...@isc.org:*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:rec.*|sci.*|soc.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
newgroup:group...@isc.org:talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*:verify-news.announce.
newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:rec.*|sci.*|soc.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:group...@isc.org:talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups
# Non-pgp entries, Due to the number of forged messages these are all
# mailed to the NewsAdmin, rmgroups are also not acted upon.
#
# The best idea is to get PGP.
#
# checkgroups:group...@isc.org:*:mail
# newgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*:doit
# newgroup:group...@isc.org:soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:doit
# rmgroup:group...@isc.org:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*:mail
# rmgroup:group...@isc.org:soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:mail
## ACS & OSU (Ohio State University)
# Contact: Albert J. School <scho...@osu.edu>
# secondary contact: Harpal Chohan <cho...@osu.edu>
# For local use only, contact the above addresses for information.
newgroup:*@*:acs.*|osu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:acs.*|osu.*:doit
## AHN (Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, USA)
newgroup:greg@*.ucns.uga.edu:ahn.*:doit
rmgroup:greg@*.ucns.uga.edu:ahn.*:doit
## AIR ( Internal Stanford University, USA )
# Contact: ne...@news.stanford.edu
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:air.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:air.*:doit
## AKR ( Akron, Ohio, USA)
newgroup:r...@redpoll.mrfs.oh.us:akr.*:doit
rmgroup:r...@redpoll.mrfs.oh.us:akr.*:doit
## ALABAMA & HSV (Huntsville, Alabama, USA)
# Contact: ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:alabama.*|hsv.*:drop
newgroup:*:alabama.*|hsv.*:drop
rmgroup:*:alabama.*|hsv.*:drop
checkgroups:ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov:alabama.*|hsv.*:verify-alabama-group-admin
newgroup:ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov:alabama.*|hsv.*:verify-alabama-group-admin
rmgroup:ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov:alabama.*|hsv.*:verify-alabama-group-admin
# newgroup:ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov:alabama.*|hsv.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@news.msfc.nasa.gov:alabama.*|hsv.*:doit
## ALIVE
# Contact: th...@kink.xs4all.nl
# No longer used.
newgroup:*@*:alive.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:alive.*:doit
## ALT
##
## Accept all newgroup's as well as rmgroup's from trusted sources and
## process them silently. Only the rmgroup messages from unknown sources
## will be e-mailed to the administrator. Please note that the people
## listed here are trusted in my opinion only, you opinion my differ.
##
## Other options and comments on alt.* groups can be found on Bill
## Hazelrig's WWW pages at http://www.tezcat.com/~haz1/alt/faqindex.html
##
newgroup:*:alt.*:doit
# Forgeries
newgroup:group...@isc.org:alt.*:drop
newgroup:tale@*uu.net:alt.*:drop
rmgroup:*:alt.*:drop
#rmgroup:haz1@*nwu.edu:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:grobe@*netins.net:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:smj@*.oro.net:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:ne...@gymnet.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:sjk...@crl.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:z...@ampersand.com:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:da...@home.net.nz:alt.*:doit
#rmgroup:*@*:alt.config:drop
## AR (Argentina)
newgroup:jor...@nodens.fisica.unlp.edu.ar:ar.*:doit
rmgroup:jor...@nodens.fisica.unlp.edu.ar:ar.*:doit
## ARC (NASA Ames Research Center)
# Contact: ne...@arc.nasa.gov
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:arc.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:arc.*:doit
## ARKANE (Arkane Systems, UK )
# Contact: newsb...@arkane.demon.co.uk
# URL: http://www.arkane.demon.co.uk/Newsgroups.html
checkgroups:newsb...@arkane.demon.co.uk:arkane.*:mail
newgroup:newsb...@arkane.demon.co.uk:arkane.*:doit
rmgroup:newsb...@arkane.demon.co.uk:arkane.*:doit
## AT (Austrian)
checkgroups:con...@usenet.backbone.at:at.*:mail
newgroup:con...@usenet.backbone.at:at.*:doit
rmgroup:con...@usenet.backbone.at:at.*:doit
## AUS (Australia)
# Contact: ausa...@aus.news-admin.org
# URL: http://aus.news-admin.org/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:aus.*:drop
newgroup:*:aus.*:drop
rmgroup:*:aus.*:drop
checkgroups:ausa...@aus.news-admin.org:aus.*:verify-...@aus.news-admin.
org
newgroup:ausa...@aus.news-admin.org:aus.*:verify-...@aus.news-admin.org
rmgroup:ausa...@aus.news-admin.org:aus.*:verify-...@aus.news-admin.org
## AUSTIN (Texas, USA)
checkgroups:flet...@cs.utexas.edu:austin.*:doit
checkgroups:ch...@unicom.com:austin.*:doit
checkgroups:p...@pug.net:austin.*:doit
newgroup:flet...@cs.utexas.edu:austin.*:doit
newgroup:ch...@unicom.com:austin.*:doit
newgroup:p...@pug.net:austin.*:doit
rmgroup:flet...@cs.utexas.edu:austin.*:doit
rmgroup:ch...@unicom.com:austin.*:doit
rmgroup:p...@pug.net:austin.*:doit
## AZ (Arizona, USA)
newgroup:sys...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu:az.*:doit
rmgroup:sys...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu:az.*:doit
## BA (San Francisco Bay Area, USA)
# Contact: <ba-...@nas.nasa.gov>
# URL: http://ennui.org/ba/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:ba.*:drop
newgroup:*:ba.*:drop
rmgroup:*:ba.*:drop
checkgroups:ba-...@nas.nasa.gov:ba.*:verify-ba.news.config
newgroup:ba-...@nas.nasa.gov:ba.*:verify-ba.news.config
rmgroup:ba-...@nas.nasa.gov:ba.*:verify-ba.news.config
## BACKBONE (ruhr.de/ruhrgebiet.individual.net in Germany)
# Contact: ad...@ruhr.de
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:backbone.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:backbone.*:doit
## BAYNET (Bayerische Buergernetze, Deutschland)
# Contact: ne...@mayn.de
# URL: http://www.mayn.de/users/news/
# Key fingerprint = F7 AD 96 D8 7A 3F 7E 84 02 0C 83 9A DB 8F EB B8
# Syncable server: news.mayn.de (contact ne...@mayn.de if permission denied)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:baynet.*:drop
newgroup:*:baynet.*:drop
rmgroup:*:baynet.*:drop
checkgroups:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:verify-news.mayn.de
newgroup:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:verify-news.mayn.de
rmgroup:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:verify-news.mayn.de
# newgroup:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:mail
# rmgroup:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:mail
# checkgroups:ne...@mayn.de:baynet.*:mail
## BDA (German groups?)
newgroup:news@*netuse.de:bda.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*netuse.de:bda.*:doit
## BE (Belgique/Belgie/Belgien/Belgium )
# Contact: use...@innet.be
# URL: ftp://ftp.innet.be/pub/staff/stef/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:be.*:drop
newgroup:*:be.*:drop
rmgroup:*:be.*:drop
checkgroups:news@*innet.be:be.*:verify-be.announce.newgroups
newgroup:news@*innet.be:be.*:verify-be.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:news@*innet.be:be.*:verify-be.announce.newgroups
# newgroup:ne...@innet.be:be.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@innet.be:be.*:doit
## BERMUDA
newgroup:news@*ibl.bm:bermuda.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*ibl.bm:bermuda.*:doit
## BEST ( Best Internet Communications, Inc. )
# Contact: ne...@best.net
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:best.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:best.*:doit
## BIONET (Biology Network)
checkgroups:kristoff@*.bio.net:bionet.*:mail
checkgroups:news@*.bio.net:bionet.*:mail
newgroup:dmack@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
newgroup:kristoff@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
newgroup:shibumi@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
rmgroup:dmack@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
rmgroup:kristoff@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
rmgroup:shibumi@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit
## BIT (Gatewayed Mailing lists)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:bit.*:drop
newgroup:*:bit.*:drop
rmgroup:*:bit.*:drop
checkgroups:j...@american.edu:bit.*:verify-bit.admin
newgroup:j...@american.edu:bit.*:verify-bit.admin
rmgroup:j...@american.edu:bit.*:verify-bit.admin
# newgroup:jim@*american.edu:bit.*:doit
# rmgroup:jim@*american.edu:bit.*:doit
## BIZ (Business Groups)
newgroup:ed...@xenitec.on.ca:biz.*:doit
rmgroup:ed...@xenitec.on.ca:biz.*:doit
## BLGTN ( Bloomington, In, USA)
newgroup:con...@news.bloomington.in.us:blgtn.*:doit
rmgroup:con...@news.bloomington.in.us:blgtn.*:doit
## BLN (Berlin, Germany)
checkgroups:news@*fu-berlin.de:bln.*:mail
newgroup:news@*fu-berlin.de:bln.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*fu-berlin.de:bln.*:doit
## BOFH ( Bastard Operator From Hell )
# Contact: myn...@myhost.mydomain.com
# For private use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:bofh.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:bofh.*:doit
## CA (California, USA)
# URL: http://www.sbay.org/ca/
# Contact: ikl...@thunder.sbay.org
newgroup:ikl...@thunder.sbay.org:ca.*:doit
rmgroup:ikl...@thunder.sbay.org:ca.*:doit
## CAIS (Capital Area Internet Services)
# Contact: ne...@cais.com
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:cais.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:cais.*:doit
## CALSTATE (California State University)
newgroup:*@*calstate.edu:calstate.*:doit
rmgroup:*@*calstate.edu:calstate.*:doit
## CAPDIST (Albany, The Capital District, New York, USA)
newgroup:dano...@albany.net:capdist.*:doit
rmgroup:dano...@albany.net:capdist.*:doit
## CARLETON (Canadian -- Carleton University)
newgroup:ne...@cunews.carleton.ca:carleton.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@cunews.carleton.ca:carleton*class.*:mail
rmgroup:ne...@cunews.carleton.ca:carleton.*:doit
## CD-ONLINE
# Contact: newsm...@worldonline.nl
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:cd-online.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:cd-online.*:doit
## CENTRAL (The Internet Company of New Zealand, Wellington, NZ )
# Contact: use...@iconz.co.nz
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:central.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:central.*:doit
## CERN (CERN - European Laboratory for Particle Physics)
# Contact: Dietrich Wiegandt <News.S...@cern.ch>
# For private use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:News.S...@cern.ch:cern.*:doit
rmgroup:News.S...@cern.ch:cern.*:doit
## CH ( Switzerland )
# Contact: ch-new...@use-net.ch
# URL: http://www.use-net.ch/Usenet/
# Key URL: http://www.use-net.ch/Usenet/adminkey.html
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint = 71 80 D6 8C A7 DE 2C 70 62 4A 48 6E D9 96 02 DF
checkgroups:*:ch.*:drop
newgroup:*:ch.*:drop
rmgroup:*:ch.*:drop
checkgroups:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:verify-ch-...@use-net.ch
newgroup:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:verify-ch-...@use-net.ch
rmgroup:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:verify-ch-...@use-net.ch
#checkgroups:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:doit
#newgroup:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:doit
#rmgroup:felix...@nice.ch:ch.*:doit
## CHRISTNET newsgroups
checkgroups:ne...@fdma.com:christnet.*:mail
newgroup:ne...@fdma.com:christnet.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@fdma.com:christnet.*:doit
## CHI (Chicago, USA)
newgroup:lisbon@*interaccess.com:chi.*:doit
newgroup:lisbon@*chi.il.us:chi.*:doit
rmgroup:lisbon@*interaccess.com:chi.*:doit
rmgroup:lisbon@*chi.il.us:chi.*:doit
## CHILE (Chile and Chilean affairs)
# Contact: mod...@webhost.cl
# URL: http://www.webhost.cl/~mod-cga
checkgroups:mod-cga@*webhost.cl:chile.*:mail
newgroup:mod-cga@*webhost.cl:chile.*:doit
rmgroup:mod-cga@*webhost.cl:chile.*:doit
## CHINESE (China and Chinese language groups)
newgroup:pin...@stat.berkeley.edu:chinese.*:doit
rmgroup:pin...@stat.berkeley.edu:chinese.*:doit
## CITYSCAPE & DEMON (Cityscape Internet Services & Demon Internet, UK)
# Contact: Dave Williams <newsm...@demon.net>
# URL: ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/news/doc/demon.news.txt
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:cityscp.*:drop
newgroup:*:cityscp.*:drop
rmgroup:*:cityscp.*:drop
checkgroups:newsm...@demon.net:cityscp.*:verify-demon.news
newgroup:newsm...@demon.net:cityscp.*:verify-demon.news
rmgroup:newsm...@demon.net:cityscp.*:verify-demon.news
## CL (CL-Netz, German)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Contact: CL-KOOR...@LINK-GOE.de (CL-Koordination, Link-Goe)
# URL: http://www.zerberus.de/org/cl/index.html
# Syncable server: net2.dinoex.sub.de
# Key fingerprint: 21 ED D6 CB 05 56 6E E8 F6 F1 11 E9 2F 6C D5 BB
checkgroups:*:cl.*:drop
newgroup:*:cl.*:drop
rmgroup:*:cl.*:drop
checkgroups:cl-koor...@dinoex.sub.org:cl.*:verify-cl.koordination.
einstellungen
newgroup:cl-koor...@dinoex.sub.org:cl.*:verify-cl.koordination.
einstellungen
rmgroup:cl-koor...@dinoex.sub.org:cl.*:verify-cl.koordination.
einstellungen
# newgroup:ro...@cl.sub.de:cl.*:doit
# newgroup:root@cl-koordination@dinoex.sub.org:cl.*:doit
# rmgroup:ro...@cl.sub.de:cl.*:doit
# rmgroup:root@cl-koordination@dinoex.sub.org:cl.*:doit
## CLARINET ( Features and News, Available on a commercial basis)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:clari.*:drop
newgroup:*:clari.*:drop
rmgroup:*:clari.*:drop
checkgroups:cl*@clarinet.com:clari.*:verify-ClariNet.Group
newgroup:cl*@clarinet.com:clari.*:verify-ClariNet.Group
rmgroup:cl*@clarinet.com:clari.*:verify-ClariNet.Group
# newgroup:br...@clarinet.com:clari.*:doit
# newgroup:clar...@clarinet.com:clari.*:doit
# newgroup:clar...@clarinet.net:clari.*:doit
# rmgroup:br...@clarinet.com:clari.*:doit
# rmgroup:clar...@clarinet.com:clari.*:doit
# rmgroup:clar...@clarinet.net:clari.*:doit
## COMPUTER42 (Computer 42, Germany)
# Contact: Dirk Schmitt <ne...@computer42.org>
newgroup:ne...@computer42.org:computer42.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@computer42.org:computer42.*:doit
## CONCORDIA (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada)
# URL: General University info at http://www.concordia.ca/
# Contact: newsm...@concordia.ca
newgroup:ne...@newsflash.concordia.ca:concordia.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@newsflash.concordia.ca:concordia.*:doit
## COURTS
# Contact: tr...@ins.cwru.edu
# This Hierarchy is defunct as of mid 1998.
newgroup:*@*:courts.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:courts.*:doit
## CPCU/IIA (American Institute for Chartered Property Casulty
## Underwriter/Insurance Institute of America, USA )
# Contact: mil...@cpcuiia.org
# URL: www.aicpcu.org
checkgroups:mil...@cpcuiia.org:cpcuiia.*:mail
newgroup:mil...@cpcuiia.org:cpcuiia.*:doit
rmgroup:mil...@cpcuiia.org:cpcuiia.*:doit
## CU (University of Colorado)
# Contact: Doreen Petersen <ne...@colorado.edu>
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:cu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:cu.*:doit
## CZ newsgroups (Czech Republic)
# URL: ftp://ftp.vslib.cz/pub/news/config/cz/newsgroups (text)
# URL: http://www.ces.net/cgi-bin/newsgroups.p?cz (HTML)
checkgroups:petr....@vslib.cz:cz.*:mail
newgroup:petr....@vslib.cz:cz.*:doit
rmgroup:petr....@vslib.cz:cz.*:doit
## DC (Washington, D.C. , USA )
checkgroups:ne...@mattress.atww.org:dc.*:mail
newgroup:ne...@mattress.atww.org:dc.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@mattress.atww.org:dc.*:doit
## DE (German language)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:de.*:drop
rmgroup:*:de.*:drop
checkgroups:mode...@dana.de:de.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce
newgroup:mode...@dana.de:de.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce
newgroup:*@*:de.alt.*:doit
rmgroup:mode...@dana.de:de.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce
# checkgroups:*@*dana.de:de.*:mail
# checkgroups:*@*.dana.de:de.*:mail
# newgroup:*@dana.de|*@*.dana.de:de.*:doit
# newgroup:*@*:de.alt.*:doit
# rmgroup:*@dana.de|*@*.dana.de:de.*:doit
## DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, USA)
newgroup:eric@*cirr.com:dfw.*:doit
rmgroup:eric@*cirr.com:dfw.*:doit
## DK (Denmark)
# URL: http://www.DK.net/Usenet/
# Key URL: http://www.DK.net/Usenet/pgp.html
# Key fingerprint = 7C B2 C7 50 F3 7D 5D 73 8C EE 2E 3F 55 80 72 FF
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:dk.*:drop
newgroup:*:dk.*:drop
rmgroup:*:dk.*:drop
newgroup:ne...@news.dknet.dk:dk.*:verif...@news.dknet.dk
rmgroup:ne...@news.dknet.dk:dk.*:verif...@news.dknet.dk
# newgroup:ne...@news.dknet.dk:dk.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@news.dknet.dk:dk.*:doit
## DUKE ( Duke University, USA )
# Contact: ne...@newsgate.duke.edu
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:duke.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:duke.*:doit
## Easynet PLC
# Contact: Christiaan Keet <newsm...@easynet.net>
# URL: ftp://ftp.easynet.net/pub/usenet/easynet.control.txt
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:easynet.*:drop
newgroup:*:easynet.*:drop
rmgroup:*:easynet.*:drop
checkgroups:newsm...@easynet.net:easynet.*:verify-easynet.news
newgroup:newsm...@easynet.net:easynet.*:verify-easynet.news
rmgroup:newsm...@easynet.net:easynet.*:verify-easynet.news
## EFN & EUG (Eugene Free Computer Network, Eugene/Springfield, Oregon, USA)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:eug.*:drop
newgroup:*:eug.*:drop
rmgroup:*:eug.*:drop
checkgroups:news...@efn.org:efn.*|eug.*:verify-eug.config
newgroup:news...@efn.org:efn.*|eug.*:verify-eug.config
rmgroup:news...@efn.org:efn.*|eug.*:verify-eug.config
# newgroup:news...@efn.org:efn.*|eug.*:doit
# rmgroup:news...@efn.org:efn.*|eug.*:doit
## EHIME-U (? University, Japan ?)
newgroup:ne...@cc.nias.ac.jp:ehime-u.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@doc.dpc.ehime-u.ac.jp:ehime-u.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@cc.nias.ac.jp:ehime-u.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@doc.dpc.ehime-u.ac.jp:ehime-u.*:doit
## ES (Spain)
# Contact: Danie...@rediris.es
# See: http://www.rediris.es/netnews/infonews/config.es.html
# See: http://news.rediris.es/~moderador/grupos/newsgroups.es
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint = 3B 63 18 6F 83 EA 89 82 95 1B 7F 8D B6 ED DD 87
checkgroups:*:es.*:drop
newgroup:*:es.*:drop
rmgroup:*:es.*:drop
checkgroups:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:doit
newgroup:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:verify-es.news
rmgroup:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:verify-es.news
# checkgroups:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:mail
# newgroup:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:doit
# rmgroup:mode...@news.rediris.es:es.*:doit
## ESP (Spanish-language newsgroups)
# Contact: <mod...@ennui.org>
# URL: http://ennui.org/esp/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:esp.*:drop
newgroup:*:esp.*:drop
rmgroup:*:esp.*:drop
checkgroups:mod...@ennui.org:esp.*:verify-esp.news.administracion
newgroup:mod...@ennui.org:esp.*:verify-esp.news.administracion
rmgroup:mod...@ennui.org:esp.*:verify-esp.news.administracion
## EUNET ( Europe )
newgroup:ne...@noc.eu.net:eunet.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@noc.eu.net:eunet.*:doit
## EXAMPLE ( Bogus hierarchy reserved for standards documents )
checkgroups:*@*:example.*:mail
newgroup:*@*:example.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:example.*:doit
## FA ( "From ARPA" gatewayed mailing lists)
# Removed in the "Great Renaming" of 1988.
newgroup:*@*:fa.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:fa.*:doit
## FIDO newsgroups (FidoNet)
newgroup:ro...@mbh.org:fido.*:doit
rmgroup:ro...@mbh.org:fido.*:doit
## FIDO.BELG.* newsgroups (FidoNet)
# URL: http://www.z2.fidonet.org/news/fido.belg.news/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:fido.belg.*:drop
newgroup:*:fido.belg.*:drop
rmgroup:*:fido.belg.*:drop
checkgroups:fido...@mail.z2.fidonet.org:fido.belg.*:verify-fido.belg.news
newgroup:fido...@mail.z2.fidonet.org:fido.belg.*:verify-fido.belg.news
rmgroup:fido...@mail.z2.fidonet.org:fido.belg.*:verify-fido.belg.news
## FIDO7
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:fido7.*:drop
newgroup:*:fido7.*:drop
rmgroup:*:fido7.*:drop
checkgroups:newgroup...@fido7.ru:fido7.*:verify-fido7.announce.newgroups
newgroup:newgroup...@fido7.ru:fido7.*:verify-fido7.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:newgroup...@fido7.ru:fido7.*:verify-fido7.announce.newgroups
# newgroup:ne...@wing.matsim.udmurtia.su:fido7.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@wing.matsim.udmurtia.su:fido7.*:doit
## FINET (Finland and Finnish language alternative newsgroups)
newgroup:*@*.hut.fi:finet.*:doit
rmgroup:*@*.hut.fi:finet.*:doit
## FJ (Japan and Japanese language)
# Contact: comm...@fj-news.org
# URL: http://www.is.tsukuba.ac.jp/~yas/fj/
# Key URL: http://www.is.tsukuba.ac.jp/~yas/fj/fj.asc
checkgroups:*:fj.*:drop
newgroup:*:fj.*:drop
rmgroup:*:fj.*:drop
checkgroups:comm...@fj-news.org:fj.*:verify-fj.news.announce
newgroup:comm...@fj-news.org:fj.*:verify-fj.news.announce
rmgroup:comm...@fj-news.org:fj.*:verify-fj.news.announce
## FL (Florida, USA )
newgroup:hgol...@news1.mpcs.com:fl.*:doit
newgroup:sche...@fdma.fdma.com:fl.*:doit
rmgroup:hgol...@news1.mpcs.com:fl.*:doit
rmgroup:sche...@fdma.fdma.com:fl.*:doit
## FLORA (FLORA Community WEB, Canada)
# Contact: rus...@flora.org
# See: http://news.flora.org/ for newsgroup listings and information
# See: http://www.flora.org/russell/ for PGP keys
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:flora.*:drop
newgroup:*:flora.*:drop
rmgroup:*:flora.*:drop
checkgroups:ne...@flora.ottawa.on.ca:flora.*:verify-flora-news
newgroup:ne...@news.rediris.es:flora.*:verify-flora-news
rmgroup:ne...@news.rediris.es:flora.*:verify-flora-news
## FR (French Language)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:fr.*:drop
newgroup:*:fr.*:drop
rmgroup:*:fr.*:drop
checkgroups:con...@usenet-fr.news.eu.org:fr.*:verify-...@usenet-fr.news.
eu.org
newgroup:con...@usenet-fr.news.eu.org:fr.*:verify-...@usenet-fr.news.eu.
org
rmgroup:con...@usenet-fr.news.eu.org:fr.*:verify-...@usenet-fr.news.eu.
org
# newgroup:con...@usenet.fr.net:fr.*:doit
# rmgroup:con...@usenet.fr.net:fr.*:doit
## FREE (Open Hierarchy where anyone can create a group)
newgroup:*:free.*:doit
# Forgeries.
newgroup:group...@isc.org:free.*:drop
newgroup:tale@*uu.net:free.*:drop
rmgroup:*:free.*:drop
## FUDAI (Japanese ?)
newgroup:ne...@picard.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp:fudai.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@picard.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp:fudai.*:doit
## FUR ( furrynet )
# Contact: fur-c...@taronga.com
# Please contact the above address before adding these groups.
## GER & HANNET & HANNOVER & HILDESHEIM & HISS (Hannover, Germany)
newgroup:fi...@hiss.han.de:ger.*|hannover.*|hannet.*|hildesheim.*|hiss.*:doit
rmgroup:fi...@hiss.han.de:ger.*|hannover.*|hannet.*|hildesheim.*|hiss.*:doit
## GIT (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA )
newgroup:ne...@news.gatech.edu:git.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@news.gatech.edu:git*class.*:mail
rmgroup:ne...@news.gatech.edu:git.*:doit
## GNU ( Free Software Foundation )
newgroup:g...@prep.ai.mit.edu:gnu.*:doit
newgroup:news@*ai.mit.edu:gnu.*:doit
rmgroup:g...@prep.ai.mit.edu:gnu.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*ai.mit.edu:gnu.*:doit
## GOV (Government Information)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# URL: http://www.govnews.org/govnews/
# PGPKEY URL: http://www.govnews.org/govnews/site-setup/gov.pgpkeys
checkgroups:*:gov.*:drop
newgroup:*:gov.*:drop
rmgroup:*:gov.*:drop
checkgroups:gov-usenet-ann...@govnews.org:gov.*:verify-gov.usenet.
announce
newgroup:gov-usenet-ann...@govnews.org:gov.*:verify-gov.usenet.
announce
rmgroup:gov-usenet-ann...@govnews.org:gov.*:verify-gov.usenet.
announce
## GWU (George Washington University, Washington, DC)
# Contact: Sweth Chandramouli <ne...@nit.gwu.edu>
newgroup:ne...@nit.gwu.edu:gwu.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@nit.gwu.edu:gwu.*:doit
## HAMILTON (Canadian)
newgroup:news@*dcss.mcmaster.ca:hamilton.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*dcss.mcmaster.ca:hamilton.*:doit
## HAN (Korean Hangul)
# Contact: newgroup...@usenet.or.kr
# PGPKEY URL: ftp://ftp.usenet.or.kr/pub/korea/usenet/pgp/PGPKEY.han
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:han.*:drop
newgroup:*:han.*:drop
rmgroup:*:han.*:drop
checkgroups:newgroup...@usenet.or.kr:han.*:verify-han.news.admin
newgroup:newgroup...@usenet.or.kr:han.*:verify-han.news.admin
rmgroup:newgroup...@usenet.or.kr:han.*:verify-han.news.admin
## HARVARD (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA)
newgroup:*@*.harvard.edu:harvard.*:doit
rmgroup:*@*.harvard.edu:harvard.*:doit
## HAWAII
newgroup:ne...@lava.net:hawaii.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@lava.net:hawaii.*:doit
## HK (Hong Kong)
newgroup:hkn...@comp.hkbu.edu.hk:hk.*:doit
rmgroup:hkn...@comp.hkbu.edu.hk:hk.*:doit
## HOUSTON (Houston, Texas, USA)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:houston.*:drop
newgroup:*:houston.*:drop
rmgroup:*:houston.*:drop
checkgroups:ne...@academ.com:houston.*:verify-houston.usenet.config
newgroup:ne...@academ.com:houston.*:verify-houston.usenet.config
rmgroup:ne...@academ.com:houston.*:verify-houston.usenet.config
# newgroup:ne...@academ.com:houston.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@academ.com:houston.*:doit
## HUN (Hungary)
checkgroups:*:hun.*:drop
newgroup:*:hun.*:drop
rmgroup:*:hun.*:drop
checkgroups:hun...@news.sztaki.hu:hun.*:verify-hun.admin.news
newgroup:hun...@news.sztaki.hu:hun.*:verify-hun.admin.news
rmgroup:hun...@news.sztaki.hu:hun.*:verify-hun.admin.news
## IA (Iowa, USA)
newgroup:sk...@iastate.edu:ia.*:doit
rmgroup:sk...@iastate.edu:ia.*:doit
## IBMNET
# Contact: ne...@ibm.net
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:ibmnet.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:ibmnet.*:doit
## ICONZ (The Internet Company of New Zealand, New Zealand)
# Contact: use...@iconz.co.nz
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:iconz.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:iconz.*:doit
## IE (Ireland)
newgroup:use...@ireland.eu.net:ie.*:doit
rmgroup:use...@ireland.eu.net:ie.*:doit
## IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)
# Contact: <posto...@ieee.org>
# This hierarchy is now defunct.
newgroup:*@*:ieee.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:ieee.*:doit
## INFO newsgroups
newgroup:rjo...@uiuc.edu:info.*:doit
rmgroup:rjo...@uiuc.edu:info.*:doit
## IS (Iceland)
# Contact: Marius Olafsson <ne...@isnet.is>
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:is.*:drop
newgroup:*:is.*:drop
rmgroup:*:is.*:drop
newgroup:ne...@isnet.is:is.*:verify-is.isnet
rmgroup:ne...@isnet.is:is.*:verify-is.isnet
## ISC ( Japanese ?)
newgroup:ne...@sally.isc.chubu.ac.jp:isc.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@sally.isc.chubu.ac.jp:isc.*:doit
## ISRAEL and IL newsgroups (Israel)
newgroup:ne...@news.biu.ac.il:israel.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@news.biu.ac.il:israel.*|il.*:doit
## IT (Italian)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:it.*:drop
newgroup:*:it.*:drop
rmgroup:*:it.*:drop
checkgroups:ste...@unipi.it:it.*:verify-it.announce.newgroups
newgroup:ste...@unipi.it:it.*:verify-it.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:ste...@unipi.it:it.*:verify-it.announce.newgroups
# newgroup:ne...@ghost.sm.dsi.unimi.it:it.*:doit
# newgroup:stefano@*unipi.it:it.*:doit
# rmgroup:ne...@ghost.sm.dsi.unimi.it:it.*:doit
# rmgroup:stefano@*unipi.it:it.*:doit
## IU (Indiana University)
newgroup:ne...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu:iu.*:doit
newgroup:ro...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu:iu.*:doit
newgroup:*@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu:iu*class.*:mail
rmgroup:ne...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu:iu.*:doit
rmgroup:ro...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu:iu.*:doit
## JAPAN (Japan)
# Contact: Tsuneo Tanaka <tt+...@efnet.com>
# URL: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~AE5T-KSN/japan-e.html
# Key fingerprint = 6A FA 19 47 69 1B 10 74 38 53 4B 1B D8 BA 3E 85
# PGP Key: http://grex.cyberspace.org/~tt/japan.admin.announce.asc
# PGP Key: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~AE5T-KSN/japan/japan.admin.announce.asc
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:japan.*:drop
newgroup:*:japan.*:drop
rmgroup:*:japan.*:drop
checkgroups:japan.admi...@news.efnet.com:japan.*:verify-japan.admin.
anno...@news.efnet.com
newgroup:japan.admi...@news.efnet.com:japan.*:verify-japan.admin.
anno...@news.efnet.com
rmgroup:japan.admi...@news.efnet.com:japan.*:verify-japan.admin.
anno...@news.efnet.com
# checkgroups:ne...@marie.iijnet.or.jp:japan.*:log
# newgroup:*@*:japan.*:log
# rmgroup:*@*:japan.*:log
## K12 ( US Educational Network )
newgroup:braultr@*csmanoirs.qc.ca:k12.*:doit
rmgroup:braultr@*csmanoirs.qc.ca:k12.*:doit
## KA (Karlsruhe, Germany)
# Contact: use...@karlsruhe.org
# For private use only, contact the above address for information.
#
# URL: http://www.karlsruhe.org/ (German only)
# URL: http://www.karlsruhe.org/newsgroups (newsgroup list)
#
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint = DE 19 BB 25 76 19 81 17 F0 67 D2 23 E8 C8 7C 90
checkgroups:*:ka.*:drop
newgroup:*:ka.*:drop
rmgroup:*:ka.*:drop
checkgroups:use...@karlsruhe.org:ka.*:verify...@karlsruhe.org
newgroup:use...@karlsruhe.org:ka.*:verify...@karlsruhe.org
rmgroup:use...@karlsruhe.org:ka.*:verify...@karlsruhe.org
## KANTO
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:kanto.*:drop
rmgroup:*:kanto.*:drop
checkgroups:t...@kamoi.imasy.or.jp:kanto.*:verify-kanto.news.network
# NOTE: newgroups aren't verified...
newgroup:*@*.jp:kanto.*:doit
rmgroup:t...@kamoi.imasy.or.jp:kanto.*:verify-kanto.news.network
## KASSEL (Kassel, Germany)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# MAIL: pgp-pub...@keys.de.pgp.net Subject: GET 0xC4D30EE5
checkgroups:*:kassel.*:drop
newgroup:*:kassel.*:drop
rmgroup:*:kassel.*:drop
checkgroups:dirk....@dinoex.sub.org:kassel.*:verify-kassel-admin
newgroup:dirk....@dinoex.sub.org:kassel.*:verify-kassel-admin
rmgroup:dirk....@dinoex.sub.org:kassel.*:verify-kassel-admin
## KC (Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri, USA)
newgroup:d...@sky.net:kc.*:doit
rmgroup:d...@sky.net:kc.*:doit
## KIEL (Kiel, Germany)
checkgroups:kr...@white.schulung.netuse.de:kiel.*:mail
newgroup:kr...@white.schulung.netuse.de:kiel.*:doit
rmgroup:kr...@white.schulung.netuse.de:kiel.*:doit
## KWNET (Kitchener-Waterloo?)
# Contact: Ed Hew <ed...@xenitec.on.ca>
# For private use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:kwnet.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:kwnet.*:doit
## LAW (?)
# Contact: Jim Burke <jbu...@kentlaw.edu>
newgroup:*@*.kentlaw.edu:law.*:doit
newgroup:*@*.law.vill.edu:law.*:doit
rmgroup:*@*.kentlaw.edu:law.*:doit
rmgroup:*@*.law.vill.edu:law.*:doit
## LIU newsgroups (Sweden?)
newgroup:li...@tiny.lysator.liu.se:liu.*:doit
rmgroup:li...@tiny.lysator.liu.se:liu.*:doit
## LINUX (Newsfeed from news.lameter.com)
checkgroups:chri...@lameter.com:linux.*:doit
newgroup:chri...@lameter.com:linux.*:doit
rmgroup:chri...@lameter.com:linux.*:doit
## LOCAL (Local-only groups)
# It is not really a good idea for sites to use these since they
# may occur on many unconnect sites
newgroup:*@*:local.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:local.*:drop
## MALTA ( Nation of Malta )
# Contact: cm...@cis.um.edu.mt
# URL: http://www.cis.um.edu.mt/news-malta/malta-news-new-site-faq.html
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:malta.*:drop
newgroup:*:malta.*:drop
rmgroup:*:malta.*:drop
checkgroups:cm...@cis.um.edu.mt:malta.*:verify-malta.config
newgroup:cm...@cis.um.edu.mt:malta.*:verify-malta.config
rmgroup:cm...@cis.um.edu.mt:malta.*:verify-malta.config
# newgroup:cm...@cis.um.edu.mt:malta.*:doit
# rmgroup:cm...@cis.um.edu.mt:malta.*:doit
## MANAWATU ( Manawatu district, New Zealand)
# Contact: al...@manawatu.gen.nz or ne...@manawatu.gen.nz
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:manawatu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:manawatu.*:doit
## MAUS ( MausNet, German )
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint: 82 52 C7 70 26 B9 72 A1 37 98 55 98 3F 26 62 3E
checkgroups:*:maus.*:drop
newgroup:*:maus.*:drop
rmgroup:*:maus.*:drop
checkgroups:gue...@gst0hb.north.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
checkgroups:gue...@gst0hb.hb.provi.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
newgroup:gue...@gst0hb.north.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
newgroup:gue...@gst0hb.hb.provi.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
rmgroup:gue...@gst0hb.north.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
rmgroup:gue...@gst0hb.hb.provi.de:maus.*:verify-maus-info
# newgroup:gue...@gst0hb.north.de:maus.*:doit
# rmgroup:gue...@gst0hb.north.de:maus.*:doit
## MCMASTER (McMaster University, Ontario)
# Contact: Brian Beckberger <ne...@informer1.cis.mcmaster.ca>
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:mcmaster.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:mcmaster.*:doit
## MCOM ( Netscape Inc, USA)
newgroup:*@*:mcom.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:mcom.*:doit
## ME (Maine, USA)
newgroup:ke...@maine.maine.edu:me.*:doit
rmgroup:ke...@maine.maine.edu:me.*:doit
## MEDLUX ( All-Russia medical teleconferences )
# URL: ftp://ftp.medlux.ru/pub/news/medlux.grp
checkgroups:neil@new*.medlux.ru:medlux.*:mail
newgroup:neil@new*.medlux.ru:medlux.*:doit
rmgroup:neil@new*.medlux.ru:medlux.*:doit
## MELB ( Melbourne, Australia)
newgroup:kre@*mu*au:melb.*:doit
newgroup:revdoc@*uow.edu.au:melb.*:doit
rmgroup:kre@*mu*au:melb.*:doit
rmgroup:revdoc@*uow.edu.au:melb.*:doit
## MENSA (The Mensa Organisation)
# Contact: use...@newsgate.mensa.org
# Key fingerprint: A7 57 24 49 C0 D4 47 33 84 A0 52 6E F1 A4 00 5B
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:mensa.*:drop
newgroup:*:mensa.*:drop
rmgroup:*:mensa.*:drop
checkgroups:use...@newsgate.mensa.org:mensa.*:verify-mensa.config
newgroup:use...@newsgate.mensa.org:mensa.*:verify-mensa.config
rmgroup:use...@newsgate.mensa.org:mensa.*:verify-mensa.config
## METOCEAN (ISP in Japan)
newgroup:fwataru@*.metocean.co.jp:metocean.*:doit
rmgroup:fwataru@*.metocean.co.jp:metocean.*:doit
## METROPOLIS
# Contact: newsm...@worldonline.nl
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:metropolis.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:metropolis.*:doit
## MI (Michigan, USA)
# Contact: Steve Simmons <s...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>
# URL: http://www.inland-sea.com/mi-news.html
# http://www.inland-sea.com/mi-news.html
checkgroups:s...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us:mi.*:mail
newgroup:s...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us:mi.*:doit
rmgroup:s...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us:mi.*:doit
## MOD (Original top level moderated hierarchy)
# Removed in the "Great Renaming" of 1988.
# Possible revival attempt in mid-97, so watch this space..
newgroup:*@*:mod.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:mod.*:doit
## MUC (Munchen (Munich), Germany)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint = 43 C7 0E 7C 45 C7 06 E0 BD 6F 76 CE 07 39 5E 66
checkgroups:*:muc.*:drop
newgroup:*:muc.*:drop
rmgroup:*:muc.*:drop
checkgroups:muc-...@muenchen.pro-bahn.org:muc.*:verify-muc.admin
newgroup:muc-...@muenchen.pro-bahn.org:muc.*:verify-muc.admin
rmgroup:muc-...@muenchen.pro-bahn.org:muc.*:verify-muc.admin
# newgroup:muc-...@muenchen.pro-bahn.org:muc.*:doit
# rmgroup:muc-...@muenchen.pro-bahn.org:muc.*:doit
## NAGASAKI-U ( Nagasaki University, Japan ?)
newgroup:root@*nagasaki-u.ac.jp:nagasaki-u.*:doit
rmgroup:root@*nagasaki-u.ac.jp:nagasaki-u.*:doit
## NAS (Numerican Aerodynamic Simulation Facility @ NASA Ames Research Center)
# Contact: ne...@nas.nasa.gov
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:nas.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:nas.*:doit
## NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA)
# Contact: ne...@nas.nasa.gov
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:nasa.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:nasa.*:doit
## NC (North Carolina, USA)
# Tim Seaver <t...@bellsouth.net> says he hasn't had any dealings with nc.*
# for over two years and the hierarchy is basically "open to anyone who
# wants it."
# newgroup:t...@ncren.net:nc.*:doit
# rmgroup:t...@ncren.net:nc.*:doit
## NCF ( National Capital Freenet, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada )
# Contact: ne...@freenet.carleton.ca
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:ncf.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:ncf.*:doit
## NCTU newsgroups (Taiwan)
newgroup:ch...@cc.nctu.edu.tw:nctu.*:doit
rmgroup:ch...@cc.nctu.edu.tw:nctu.*:doit
## NCU (National Central University, Taiwan)
# Contact: Ying-Hao Chang <aql...@db.csie.ncu.edu.tw>
# Contact: <ru...@news.ncu.edu.tw>
# For local use only, contact the above addresses for information.
newgroup:*@*:ncu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:ncu.*:doit
## NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center)
# Contact: <use...@nersc.gov>
# newgroup:*@*:nersc.*:mail
# rmgroup:*@*:nersc.*:doit
## NET newsgroups ( Usenet 2 )
# URL: http://www.usenet2.org
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint: D7 D3 5C DB 18 6A 29 79 BF 74 D4 58 A3 78 9D 22
checkgroups:*:net.*:drop
newgroup:*:net.*:drop
rmgroup:*:net.*:drop
checkgroups:con...@usenet2.org:net.*:verify-...@usenet2.org
newgroup:con...@usenet2.org:net.*:verify-...@usenet2.org
rmgroup:con...@usenet2.org:net.*:verify-...@usenet2.org
## NETSCAPE (Netscape Communications Corp)
# Contact: ne...@netscape.com
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# URL: http://www.mozilla.org/community.html
# URL: http://www.mozilla.org/newsfeeds.html
# Key fingerprint = B7 80 55 12 1F 9C 17 0B 86 66 AD 3B DB 68 35 EC
checkgroups:*:netscape.*:drop
newgroup:*:netscape.*:drop
rmgroup:*:netscape.*:drop
checkgroups:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:verify-netscape.public.admin
newgroup:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:verify-netscape.public.admin
rmgroup:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:verify-netscape.public.admin
# checkgroups:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:mail
# newgroup:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:doit
# rmgroups:ne...@netscape.com:netscape.*:doit
## NETINS ( netINS, Inc )
# Contact: Kevin Houle <ke...@netins.net>
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:netins.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:netins.*:doit
## NIAGARA (Niagara Peninsula, US/CAN)
newgroup:ne...@niagara.com:niagara.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@niagara.com:niagara.*:doit
## NIAS (Japanese ?)
newgroup:ne...@cc.nias.ac.jp:nias.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@cc.nias.ac.jp:nias.*:doit
## NIGERIA (Nigeria)
newgroup:ne...@easnet.net:nigeria.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@easnet.net:nigeria.*:doit
## NL (Netherlands)
# Contact: nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl
# URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~egavic/NL/ (Dutch)
# URL: http://www.kinkhorst.com/usenet/nladmin.en.html (English)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint: 45 20 0B D5 A1 21 EA 7C EF B2 95 6C 25 75 4D 27
checkgroups:*:nl.*:drop
newgroup:*:nl.*:drop
rmgroup:*:nl.*:drop
checkgroups:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:verify-nl.newsgroups
newgroup:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:verify-nl.newsgroups
rmgroup:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:verify-nl.newsgroups
# checkgroups:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:mail
# newgroup:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:doit
# rmgroup:nl-a...@nic.surfnet.nl:nl.*:doit
## NL-ALT (Alternative Netherlands groups)
# URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~onno/nl-alt/
# Several options are given in the FAQ for creating and removing groups.
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key fingerprint: 6B 62 EB 53 4D 5D 2F 96 35 D9 C8 9C B0 65 0E 4C
checkgroups:*:nl-alt.*:drop
rmgroup:*:nl-alt.*:drop
rmgroup:*:nl-alt.*:drop
checkgroups:nl-alt-...@surfer.xs4all.nl:nl-alt.*:verify-nl-alt.config.
admin
newgroup:*@*:nl-alt.*:doit
rmgroup:nl-alt-...@surfer.xs4all.nl:nl-alt.*:verify-nl-alt.config.admin
rmgroup:ne...@kink.xs4all.nl:nl-alt.*:verify-nl-alt.config.admin
## NLNET newsgroups (Netherlands ISP)
newgroup:beh...@nl.net:nlnet.*:doit
rmgroup:beh...@nl.net:nlnet.*:doit
## NM (New Mexico, USA)
newgroup:ne...@tesuque.cs.sandia.gov:nm.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@tesuque.cs.sandia.gov:nm.*:doit
## NO (Norway)
# See also http://www.usenet.no/
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:no.*:drop
newgroup:*:no.*:drop
rmgroup:*:no.*:drop
checkgroups:con...@usenet.no:no.*:verify-no-hir-control
newgroup:con...@usenet.no:no.*:verify-no-hir-control
rmgroup:con...@usenet.no:no.*:verify-no-hir-control
# checkgroups:con...@usenet.no:no.*:mail
# newgroup:con...@usenet.no:no.*:doit
# newgroup:*@*.no:no.alt.*:doit
# rmgroup:con...@usenet.no:no.*:doit
# sendsys:news@*uninett.no:no.*:doit
# sendsys:con...@usenet.no:no.*:doit
## NORD (Northern Germany)
# th...@own.deceiver.org no longer a valid address
# newgroup:th...@own.deceiver.org:nord.*:doit
# rmgroup:th...@own.deceiver.org:nord.*:doit
## NV (Nevada)
newgroup:doc...@netcom.com:nv.*:doit
newgroup:csha...@netcom.com:nv.*:doit
rmgroup:doc...@netcom.com:nv.*:doit
rmgroup:csha...@netcom.com:nv.*:doit
## NY (New York State, USA)
newgroup:ro...@ny.psca.com:ny.*:mail
rmgroup:ro...@ny.psca.com:ny.*:mail
## NYC (New York City)
# Contact: Perry E. Metzger <pe...@piermont.com>
newgroup:pe...@piermont.com:nyc.*:doit
rmgroup:pe...@piermont.com:nyc.*:doit
## NZ (New Zealand)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Contact ro...@usenet.net.nz
# URL: http://usenet.net.nz
# URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/nz-news-hierarchy
# PGP fingerprint: 07 DF 48 AA D0 ED AA 88 16 70 C5 91 65 3D 1A 28
checkgroups:*:nz.*:drop
newgroup:*:nz.*:drop
rmgroup:*:nz.*:drop
checkgroups:ro...@usenet.net.nz:nz.*:verify-nz-hir-control
newgroup:ro...@usenet.net.nz:nz.*:verify-nz-hir-control
rmgroup:ro...@usenet.net.nz:nz.*:verify-nz-hir-control
# newgroup:ro...@usenet.net.nz:nz.*:doit
# rmgroup:ro...@usenet.net.nz:nz.*:doit
## OC newsgroups (Orange County, California, USA)
newgroup:b...@tsunami.sugarland.unocal.com:oc.*:doit
rmgroup:b...@tsunami.sugarland.unocal.com:oc.*:doit
## OH (Ohio, USA)
newgroup:tr...@ins.cwru.edu:oh.*:doit
rmgroup:tr...@ins.cwru.edu:oh.*:doit
## OK (Oklahoma, USA)
newgroup:quentin@*qns.com:ok.*:doit
rmgroup:quentin@*qns.com:ok.*:doit
## OKINAWA (Okinawa, Japan)
newgroup:ne...@opus.or.jp:okinawa.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@opus.or.jp:okinawa.*:doit
## ONT (Ontario, Canada)
newgroup:pk...@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca:ont.*:doit
rmgroup:pk...@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca:ont.*:doit
## OTT (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
# Contact: on...@pinetree.org
# URL: http://www.pinetree.org/ONAG/
newgroup:ne...@bnr.ca:ott.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@nortel.ca:ott.*:doit
newgroup:cle...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca:ott.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca:ott.*:doit
newgroup:news@*pinetree.org:ott.*:doit
newgroup:gordon@*pinetree.org:ott.*:doit
newgroup:da...@revcan.ca:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@bnr.ca:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@nortel.ca:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:cle...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*pinetree.org:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:gordon@*pinetree.org:ott.*:doit
rmgroup:da...@revcan.ca:ott.*:doit
## PA (Pennsylvania, USA)
# URL: http://www.netcom.com/~rb1000/pa_hierarchy/
newgroup:f...@epix.net:pa.*:doit
rmgroup:f...@epix.net:pa.*:doit
## PGH (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:pgh.*:drop
newgroup:*:pgh.*:drop
rmgroup:*:pgh.*:drop
checkgroups:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:verify-pgh.config
newgroup:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:verify-pgh.config
rmgroup:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:verify-pgh.config
# checkgroups:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:mail
# newgroup:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:doit
# rmgroup:pgh-c...@psc.edu:pgh.*:doit
## PHL (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
newgroup:ne...@vfl.paramax.com:phl.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@vfl.paramax.com:phl.*:doit
## PIN (Personal Internauts' NetNews)
newgroup:pin-...@forus.or.jp:pin.*:doit
rmgroup:pin-...@forus.or.jp:pin.*:doit
## PIPEX (UUNET WorldCom UK)
# Contact: Russell Vincent <news-c...@ops.pipex.net>
newgroup:news-c...@ops.pipex.net:pipex.*:doit
rmgroup:news-c...@ops.pipex.net:pipex.*:doit
## PITT (University of Pittsburgh, PA)
newgroup:ne...@pitt.edu:pitt.*:doit
newgroup:ne...@toads.pgh.pa.us:pitt.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@pitt.edu:pitt.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@toads.pgh.pa.us:pitt.*:doit
## PL (Poland and Polish language)
## For more info, see http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/doc/news-pl-new-site-faq.html
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:pl.*:drop
newgroup:*:pl.*:drop
rmgroup:*:pl.*:drop
checkgroups:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
checkgroups:newg...@usenet.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
newgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
newgroup:newg...@usenet.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
rmgroup:newg...@usenet.pl:pl.*:verify-pl.announce.newgroups
# newgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit
# newgroup:newg...@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit
# rmgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit
# rmgroup:newg...@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit
## PLANET ( PlaNet FreeNZ co-operative, New Zealand)
# Contact: off...@pl.net
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:planet.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:planet.*:doit
## PRIMA (prima.ruhr.de/Prima e.V. in Germany)
# Contact: ad...@prima.ruhr.de
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:prima.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:prima.*:doit
## PSU ( Penn State University, USA )
# Contact: Dave Barr (ba...@math.psu.edu)
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:psu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:psu.*:doit
## PT (Portugal and Portuguese language)
checkgroups:*:pt.*:drop
newgroup:*:pt.*:drop
rmgroup:*:pt.*:drop
checkgroups:pmelo@*.inescc.pt:pt.*:verify-...@usenet-pt.org
newgroup:pmelo@*.inescc.pt:pt.*:verify-...@usenet-pt.org
rmgroup:pmelo@*.inescc.pt:pt.*:verify-...@usenet-pt.org
## PUBNET
# This Hierarchy is now defunct.
# URL: ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/pubnet/pubnet.config.Z
newgroup:*@*:pubnet.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:pubnet.*:doit
## RELCOM ( Commonwealth of Independent States)
# The official list of relcom groups is supposed to be available from
# URL: ftp://ftp.kiae.su/relcom/netinfo/telconfs.txt
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:relcom.*:drop
newgroup:*:relcom.*:drop
rmgroup:*:relcom.*:drop
checkgroups:coord@new*.relcom.ru:relcom.*:verify-relcom.newsgroups
newgroup:coord@new*.relcom.ru:relcom.*:verify-relcom.newsgroups
rmgroup:coord@new*.relcom.ru:relcom.*:verify-relcom.newsgroups
## RPI ( Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA)
# Contact: sof...@rpi.edu
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:rpi.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:rpi.*:doit
## SAAR (Saarbruecke, Germany)
newgroup:ne...@alien.saar.de:saar.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@alien.saar.de:saar.*:doit
## SACHSNET (German)
newgroup:ro...@lusatia.de:sachsnet.*:doit
rmgroup:ro...@lusatia.de:sachsnet.*:doit
## SAT (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Contact: satg...@endicor.com
# URL: http://www.endicor.com/~satgroup/
checkgroups:*:sat.*:drop
newgroup:*:sat.*:drop
rmgroup:*:sat.*:drop
checkgroups:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:verify-...@endicor.com
newgroup:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:verify-...@endicor.com
rmgroup:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:verify-...@endicor.com
#checkgroups:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:doit
#newgroup:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:doit
#rmgroup:satg...@endicor.com:sat.*:doit
## SBAY (South Bay/Silicon Valley, California)
newgroup:ste...@grafex.sbay.org:sbay.*:doit
newgroup:ikl...@thunder.sbay.org:sbay.*:doit
rmgroup:ste...@grafex.sbay.org:sbay.*:mail
rmgroup:ikl...@thunder.sbay.org:sbay.*:mail
## SCHULE
# Contact: schule...@roxel.ms.sub.org
# URL: http://home.pages.de/~schule-admin/
# Key fingerprint = 64 06 F0 AE E1 46 85 0C BD CA 0E 53 8B 1E 73 D2
# Key URL: http://home.pages.de/~schule-admin/schule.asc
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:schule.*:drop
newgroup:*:schule.*:drop
rmgroup:*:schule.*:drop
checkgroups:news...@schule.de:schule.*:verify-schule.konfig
newgroup:news...@schule.de:schule.*:verify-schule.konfig
rmgroup:news...@schule.de:schule.*:verify-schule.konfig
## SDNET (Greater San Diego Area, California, USA)
# URL: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/staff/wk/w/sdnet.html
# URL: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/staff/wk/w/config.html
# URL: ftp://ftp.csu.net/pub/news/active
newgroup:wkro...@sunstroke.sdsu.edu:sdnet.*:doit
rmgroup:wkro...@sunstroke.sdsu.edu:sdnet.*:doit
## SDSU (San Diego State University, CA)
# Contact: Craig R. Sadler <use...@sdsu.edu>
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:sdsu.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:sdsu.*:doit
## SE (Sweden)
# Contact: use...@usenet-se.net
# URL: http://www.usenet-se.net/
# URL: http://www.usenet-se.net/index_eng.html (English version)
# Key URL: http://www.usenet-se.net/pgp-key.txt
# Key fingerprint = 68 03 F0 FD 0C C3 4E 69 6F 0D 0C 60 3C 58 63 96
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:se.*:drop
newgroup:*:se.*:drop
rmgroup:*:se.*:drop
checkgroups:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:verify-usenet-se
newgroup:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:verify-usenet-se
rmgroup:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:verify-usenet-se
#newgroup:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:doit
#rmgroup:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:doit
#checkgroups:use...@usenet-se.net:se.*:doit
## SEATTLE (Seattle, Washington, USA)
newgroup:bil...@akita.com:seattle.*:doit
newgroup:gra...@ee.washington.edu:seattle.*:doit
rmgroup:bil...@akita.com:seattle.*:doit
rmgroup:gra...@ee.washington.edu:seattle.*:doit
## SFNET newsgroups (Finland)
newgroup:sfnet@*.cs.tut.fi:sfnet.*:doit
rmgroup:sfnet@*.cs.tut.fi:sfnet.*:doit
## SHAMASH (Jewish)
newgroup:arch...@israel.nysernet.org:shamash.*:doit
rmgroup:arch...@israel.nysernet.org:shamash.*:doit
## SI (The Republic of Slovenia)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
checkgroups:*:si.*:drop
newgroup:*:si.*:drop
rmgroup:*:si.*:drop
checkgroups:news-...@arnes.si:si.*:verify-si.news.announce.newsgroups
newgroup:news-...@arnes.si:si.*:verify-si.news.announce.newsgroups
rmgroup:news-...@arnes.si:si.*:verify-si.news.announce.newsgroups
# newgroup:news-...@arnes.si:si.*:doit
# rmgroup:news-...@arnes.si:si.*:doit
## SK (Slovakia)
checkgroups:uh...@ccnews.ke.sanet.sk:sk.*:mail
newgroup:uh...@ccnews.ke.sanet.sk:sk.*:doit
rmgroup:uh...@ccnews.ke.sanet.sk:sk.*:doit
## SLAC ( Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, USA )
# Contact: ne...@news.stanford.edu
# Limited distribution hierarchy, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:ne...@news.stanford.edu:slac.*:mail
rmgroup:ne...@news.stanford.edu:slac.*:doit
## SLO (San Luis Obispo, CA)
newgroup:ne...@punk.net:slo.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@punk.net:slo.*:doit
## SOLENT (Solent region, England)
newgroup:ne...@tcp.co.uk:solent.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@tcp.co.uk:solent.*:doit
## STGT (Stuttgart, Germany)
checkgroups:ne...@news.uni-stuttgart.de:stgt.*:mail
newgroup:ne...@news.uni-stuttgart.de:stgt.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@news.uni-stuttgart.de:stgt.*:doit
## STL (Saint Louis, Missouri, USA)
newgroup:ne...@icon-stl.net:stl.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@icon-stl.net:stl.*:doit
## SU ( Stanford University, USA )
# Contact: ne...@news.stanford.edu
# For local use only, contact the above address for information.
newgroup:*@*:su.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:su.*:doit
## SUNET (Swedish University Network)
newgroup:ber@*.sunet.se:sunet.*:doit
rmgroup:ber@*.sunet.se:sunet.*:doit
## SURFNET (Dutch Universities network)
newgroup:ne...@info.nic.surfnet.nl:surfnet.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@info.nic.surfnet.nl:surfnet.*:doit
## SWNET (Sverige, Sweden)
newgroup:b...@sunic.sunet.se:swnet.*:doit
rmgroup:b...@sunic.sunet.se:swnet.*:doit
## TAMU (Texas A&M University)
# Contact: Philip Kizer <ne...@tamu.edu>
newgroup:ne...@tamsun.tamu.edu:tamu.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@tamsun.tamu.edu:tamu.*:doit
## TAOS (Taos, New Mexico, USA)
# Contact: "Chris Gunn" <cg...@laplaza.org>
newgroup:cg...@laplaza.org:taos.*:doit
rmgroup:cg...@laplaza.org:taos.*:doit
## TCFN (Toronto Free Community Network, Canada)
newgroup:ne...@t-fcn.net:tcfn.*:doit
rmgroup:ne...@t-fcn.net:tcfn.*:doit
## T-NETZ (German Email Network)
# Defunct, use z-netz.*
newgroup:*@*:t-netz.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:t-netz.*:doit
## TELE (Tele Danmark Internet)
# Contact: use...@tdk.net
# For internal use only, contact above address for questions
newgroup:*@*:tele.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:tele.*:doit
## TEST (Local test hierarchy)
# It is not really a good idea for sites to use these since they
# may occur on many unconnect sites.
newgroup:*@*:test.*:mail
rmgroup:*@*:test.*:mail
## THUR ( Thuringia, Germany )
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
# Key Fingerprint: 7E 3D 73 13 93 D4 CA 78 39 DE 3C E7 37 EE 22 F1
checkgroups:*:thur.*:drop
newgroup:*:thur.*:drop
rmgroup:*:thur.*:drop
checkgroups:use...@thur.de:thur.*:verify-thur.net.news.groups
newgroup:use...@thur.de:thur.*:verify-thur.net.news.groups
rmgroup:use...@thur.de:thur.*:verify-thur.net.news.groups
## TNN ( The Network News, Japan )
newgroup:t...@iij-mc.co.jp:tnn.*:doit
newgroup:net...@news.iij.ad.jp:tnn.*:doit
rmgroup:t...@iij-mc.co.jp:tnn.*:doit
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==================== QUOTE END =========================
2Rowdy
by the entity known as Martin X. Moleski, SJ, that requests spam to be
sent to <mol...@canisius.edu> and I became inspired,
> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
> on the discussion of RFDs.
>
> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
That wouldn't work. I would mean the death of news.groups and the
moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
more obscure.
I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
If not, make a separate list for that.
My suggestion is,
Tunnel that list (one way) towards news.groups to make the process
transparent. It gives posters an option to participate outside the
list in news.groups.
If there is a proponent you give them temporary access to the
mailinglist so that discussion between Bamby and proponent can be on
one level.
This will build new volunteers, enhance participation and could build
a new userbase for news.groups.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://2rowdy.aacity.net
[18 lines]
[Press ENTER to retrieve this message.]
[Press M to mark this message for later retrieval.]
Jonathan Kamens
>I was reading <news:4525a9af$0$1761$c3e...@news.astraweb.com>, made
>by the entity known as Martin X. Moleski, SJ, that requests spam to be
>sent to <mol...@canisius.edu> and I became inspired,
>
>> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
>> on the discussion of RFDs.
>>
>> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>
>That wouldn't work. I would mean the death of news.groups and the
>moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
>more obscure.
It seems likely to me that traffic in news.groups would continue at a
healthy clip even if a moderated proposals group were created.
If that doesn't happen, then it will be only because there is no need
for discussion in news.groups if it's already taking place in the
proposals group, i.e., that really wouldn't be an issue.
I am not sure why you say that the moderated group wouldn't get any
traffic. There is plenty of traffic about proposals in news.groups,
so if the moderated group becomes the appropriate place for such
traffic, then why wouldn't it move there?
>I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
>If not, make a separate list for that.
>My suggestion is,
>Tunnel that list (one way) towards news.groups to make the process
>transparent. It gives posters an option to participate outside the
>list in news.groups.
The Board both participates in public discussion in news.groups and
engages in private discussion on a closed list. There is a need for
us to be able to hold private discussions, so it would not be
appropriate to open up that list to the public. And there is no need,
since there is already a forum for public discussion, i.e., this
newsgroup (or perhaps later a moderated proposals newsgroup).
In short, I don't see what your proposal would accomplish.
--
Help stop the genocide in Darfur!
http://www.genocideintervention.net/
2Rowdy
the entity known as Jonathan Kamens, that requests spam to be sent to
<j...@kamens.brookline.ma.us> and I became inspired,
> I am not sure why you say that the moderated group wouldn't get any
> traffic. There is plenty of traffic about proposals in news.groups,
> so if the moderated group becomes the appropriate place for such
> traffic, then why wouldn't it move there?
You just gave a rationale not to create the newsgroup. Why move when
discussion is possible here?
This discussion appears to be civil.
>> I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing
>> proposals. If not, make a separate list for that.
>> My suggestion is,
>> Tunnel that list (one way) towards news.groups to make the process
>> transparent. It gives posters an option to participate outside the
>> list in news.groups.
>
> The Board both participates in public discussion in news.groups and
> engages in private discussion on a closed list. There is a need for
> us to be able to hold private discussions, so it would not be
> appropriate to open up that list to the public. And there is no
> need, since there is already a forum for public discussion, i.e.,
> this newsgroup (or perhaps later a moderated proposals newsgroup).
>
> In short, I don't see what your proposal would accomplish.
I don't know the board members and I don't see their thoughts when it
comes to discussing proposals. I don't see their concerns or cheers
and I don't see the vote.
It appears to be a closed process where public participation is
unneeded, unrequested.
That needs to change.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
By replying to this message you agree to the regulations written
on the back of this posting.
nukleus
About what, fer example?
I thought you are doing a great public service,
saving the humanity from all evil,
so what is there to hide?
>so it would not be
>appropriate to open up that list to the public. And there is no need,
>since there is already a forum for public discussion, i.e., this
>newsgroup (or perhaps later a moderated proposals newsgroup).
>In short, I don't see what your proposal would accomplish.
Hey, now you are talking.
Good.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<Pine.LNX.4.63.06...@qbbshf.puvarg.pbz>:
>news.groups would be marginalized further. The Thread That Will Not Die,
>recently in the guise of the s.m.m troll, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So we ought to have, by some unstated magical power, killed the
thread in an unmoderated group?
Or rejected the proposal out of hand, without discussing it
in news.groups?
Or used ESP to decide who was and was not a troll?
>Giving That Thread new life was B8MB's contribution to the noise in
>news.groups.
So the folks who build overpasses and buildings in
high-crime areas are responsible for the graffitti
on them?
(Am I stuck in the question game? Should I
blame someone else for getting me into this mode?)
</game>
I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
If, after sufficient time to get its act in order,
it doesn't thrive, I'd be happy to vote to kill it.
Dave Sill
> You just gave a rationale not to create the newsgroup. Why move when
> discussion is possible here?
> This discussion appears to be civil.
Yeah, there's a lull in the news.groups spew. Unfortunately, that's
the exception these days. Plus, we're all experienced news.groupies,
so we have killfiles, whether real or mental, and can ignore most of
the junk pretty easily. Newbies here don't have that, obviously.
> I don't know the board members and I don't see their thoughts when it
> comes to discussing proposals.
You know us and see our thoughts just like you know and see the
thoughts of other people on Usenet. Board members have actively
participated in discussing every proposal that warranted
discussion. We're not exactly a black box.
> I don't see their concerns or cheers
> and I don't see the vote.
You do if you read what we post.
> It appears to be a closed process where public participation is
> unneeded, unrequested.
> That needs to change.
Yes, it does. The false perception that proposal evaluation is closed
process needs to rooted out and squashed.
-Dave
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
>> on the discussion of RFDs.
>> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>That wouldn't work.
Do you mean that moderation can't diminish noise
in a group?
We'll do what we can to make the moderation system
work. Any problems with the system are true of all
moderated groups, not just the one designed for
proposals.
> I would mean the death of news.groups ...
I'm not convinced that moderated groups kill unmoderated
groups. I haven't seen it myself nor have I heard of
it happening elsewhere (my knowledge base is pretty
severely limited and I'm willing to stand corrected
if someone like Jim Riley provides evidence to the
contrary).
> ... and the
>moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
>more obscure.
You and I disagree on our prophecies of future contingent
events.
>I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
No. We're talking about a moderated newsgroup.
>If not, make a separate list for that.
I don't understand whether you favor or object to the
use of a closed mailing list for discussing proposals.
In any event, that is not what the board is thinking of
doing. Proponents, of course, often set up temporary
mailing lists to make it possible for them to talk
among themselves without too much distraction.
>My suggestion is,
>Tunnel that list (one way) towards news.groups to make the process
>transparent. It gives posters an option to participate outside the
>list in news.groups.
Perhaps you weren't here when people were insisting that
we should use Usenet as much as possible to make Usenet
decisions. I much prefer a moderated newsgroup to
a gated mailing list.
>If there is a proponent you give them temporary access to the
>mailinglist so that discussion between Bamby and proponent can be on
>one level.
>This will build new volunteers, enhance participation and could build
>a new userbase for news.groups.
The problem that Russ Allbery talked about a week or two ago
wouldn't be solved by a one-way mailing list. The problem
is helping proponents to conduct a focused discussion of their
proposals on Usenet.
Aratzio
>I was reading <news:4525a9af$0$1761$c3e...@news.astraweb.com>, made
>by the entity known as Martin X. Moleski, SJ, that requests spam to be
>sent to <mol...@canisius.edu> and I became inspired,
>
>> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
>> on the discussion of RFDs.
>>
>> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>
>That wouldn't work. I would mean the death of news.groups and the
>moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
>more obscure.
>I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
>If not, make a separate list for that.
>My suggestion is,
>Tunnel that list (one way) towards news.groups to make the process
>transparent. It gives posters an option to participate outside the
>list in news.groups.
>If there is a proponent you give them temporary access to the
>mailinglist so that discussion between Bamby and proponent can be on
>one level.
>
>This will build new volunteers, enhance participation and could build
>a new userbase for news.groups.
You are a silly man.
Aratzio
<mol...@canisius.edu> transparently proposed:
>On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 21:43:08 -0500, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote in
><Pine.LNX.4.63.06...@qbbshf.puvarg.pbz>:
>
>>news.groups would be marginalized further. The Thread That Will Not Die,
>>recently in the guise of the s.m.m troll, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
>
>So we ought to have, by some unstated magical power, killed the
>thread in an unmoderated group?
Nice context snip. Too bad what the part below you segmented was the
qualifier.
>
>Or rejected the proposal out of hand, without discussing it
>in news.groups?
Or possibly paying attention to the fact there was never traffic to
support the proposal, as was pointed out ad intinitum.
>
>Or used ESP to decide who was and was not a troll?
You were told several times it was a troll. The evidence was supplied
several times it was a troll and the people pointing out it was a
troll are experts. The fact you (collective) decided that the troll
was acceptable is your problem and trying to shift the blame elsewhere
is more than a little dishonest.
>
>>Giving That Thread new life was B8MB's contribution to the noise in
>>news.groups.
>
>So the folks who build overpasses and buildings in
>high-crime areas are responsible for the graffitti
>on them?
Wow, segment that context and you can really go off on a tangent.
>
>(Am I stuck in the question game? Should I
>blame someone else for getting me into this mode?)
Bambi.
>
></game>
>
>I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
Which indicates a level of cluelessness that should preclude your
participation in further proposals. The fact you created a dead group
does not bother you and that the group imploded PRIOR to its creation
also does not seem to bother you.
>
>If, after sufficient time to get its act in order,
>it doesn't thrive, I'd be happy to vote to kill it.
What part of the traffic analysis indicating there was never a
justification for the group did you not understand?
>
> Marty
This level of intellectual blindness is hilarious and I do hope for
the sake of those of us entertained by such antics that you and the
rest of the bambi continue in exactly the same manner.
Tim Skirvin
>> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused on the
>> discussion of RFDs.
>> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
> That wouldn't work. I would mean the death of news.groups and the
> moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
> more obscure.
I seriously doubt both of these points.
> I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
Actually, virtually all of the discussion about the proposals is
public already. The Board mailing list is primarily used to hold official
votes (or confirm consensus); discussions of meta-issues of policy; running
documents by each other for quick sanity-checks prior to posting; and purely
social activities. None of this is really suitable for public consumption,
as far as I'm concerned.
- Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
--
http://www.big-8.org/ Big-8 Management Board
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
Tim Skirvin
>> I am not sure why you say that the moderated group wouldn't get any
>> traffic. There is plenty of traffic about proposals in news.groups,
>> so if the moderated group becomes the appropriate place for such
>> traffic, then why wouldn't it move there?
> You just gave a rationale not to create the newsgroup. Why move when
> discussion is possible here?
There's a section on news.groups in Russ' transition post:
I agree with it entirely, and I think that Russ explains very
clearly why something must be done. (Of course, that "something" is
still difficult to nail down, and this upcoming proposal is only one
possible solution. Suggestions are welcome!)
>> In short, I don't see what your proposal would accomplish.
> I don't know the board members and I don't see their thoughts when it
> comes to discussing proposals. I don't see their concerns or cheers
> and I don't see the vote.
> It appears to be a closed process where public participation is
> unneeded, unrequested.
I certainly want public participation in the process. I think
that the system will work better with more participation. And if there is
some way to "officially request" more participation in the process that I
haven't already tried, I'd like to know what it is so I can try it out.
Aratzio
Skirvin) transparently proposed:
>"2Rowdy" <Harry...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> We're talking about creating a moderated group focused on the
>>> discussion of RFDs.
>>> news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>
>> That wouldn't work. I would mean the death of news.groups and the
>> moderated newsgroup wouldn't get any traffic making the process even
>> more obscure.
>
> I seriously doubt both of these points.
You thought SMM was a good idea.
>
>> I assume you are using a closed mailinglist for discussing proposals.
>
> Actually, virtually all of the discussion about the proposals is
>public already. The Board mailing list is primarily used to hold official
>votes (or confirm consensus); discussions of meta-issues of policy; running
>documents by each other for quick sanity-checks prior to posting; and purely
>social activities. None of this is really suitable for public consumption,
>as far as I'm concerned.
>
> - Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
"Pay no attention the man behind the curtain"
Tim Skirvin
> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>> I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
> Which indicates a level of cluelessness that should preclude your
> participation in further proposals.
Or else it indicates that we were willing to experiment, and that
our thresholds are not the same as yours. Is it so hard to consider a
situation where a group of people would be willing to experiment?
In any case, the discussion is over at this point. SMM exists,
and it will survive or fail on its own merits. If the group does fail
entirely - and I don't think that it has yet - we will take action to
remove it. Any further discussion of the proposal itself, at least here
in news.groups, will only serve to raise tempers and make enemies.
This doesn't mean that I think that SMM should never be brought
up again! It's a relevant precedent, and there are lessons to be learned
from it. But it would be healthy to a) take a break from it and b)
consider the effects of the *action*, and not so much the flamewar that
led to that action.
Jayne Kulikauskas
The proposal for soc.men.moderated was a legitimate proposal, as far as my
intentions were concerned. There is no question that it attracted a lot of
noise and abuse. This is an argument in favour of creating a moderated
group for discussing proposals. It is absurd to blame the Board for the
trolling, etc. that happened around the creation of smm.
--
Jayne Check out soc.men.moderated. If your news provider
doesn't carry it, ask. While you're waiting for it use
the web interface:
http://news.killfile.org/?group=soc.men.moderated
Aratzio
Skirvin) transparently proposed:
>Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com> writes:
>> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>
>>> I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
>
>> Which indicates a level of cluelessness that should preclude your
>> participation in further proposals.
>
> Or else it indicates that we were willing to experiment, and that
>our thresholds are not the same as yours. Is it so hard to consider a
>situation where a group of people would be willing to experiment?
Since I might have more than a modest amount of experience in the
design, implementation, results and reporting of experiments I can
assure you, starting with a known failure is not the methodology for
success. Unless you wish to prove the failure. Which in this case
would again point out that same level...
>
> In any case, the discussion is over at this point. SMM exists,
>and it will survive or fail on its own merits. If the group does fail
>entirely - and I don't think that it has yet - we will take action to
>remove it. Any further discussion of the proposal itself, at least here
>in news.groups, will only serve to raise tempers and make enemies.
<blink>
Since this is news.groups and the current discussion is upon the
methods that you and your yes men used to create an obviously failing
newsgroup (sorry, I refuse to were them rose colored glasses) you
would like to end that? Maybe you could issue an edict thus ending the
post mortem on the failure of the Bambi to perform its duties in a
manner that was based upon reason and evidence.
Here is a simple question I have asked numerous times:
Where was the traffic analysis that would have supported the creation
of SMM?
I'll expect the usual aversion to actually presenting a reasoned
response to the question.
>
> This doesn't mean that I think that SMM should never be brought
>up again! It's a relevant precedent, and there are lessons to be learned
>from it. But it would be healthy to a) take a break from it and b)
>consider the effects of the *action*, and not so much the flamewar that
>led to that action.
Or possibly rethink the "build it and they will come" attitude. It is
not like the bambi is made up of newbies. You ALL know that the only
method to determine a groups viability is traffic. Yet you choose, at
this point, to eliminate the single most import aspect of a newsgroup
from the consideration for its creation.
>
> - Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
--
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Aratzio
<jayne.ku...@gmail.com> transparently proposed:
You are correct, the board in and of itself is not responsible for the
trolling. What they are responsible for is the creation of a
non-functional newsgroup. One they created based upon wishful thinking
and without any sort of rationale that had a basis in fact.
The creation of newsgroups must be based upon traffic. <- Period, end
Any other method is doomed to failure. They know that and still
ignored the facts. Sort of like politicians in that sense.
2Rowdy
known as Dave Sill, that requests spam to be sent to <d...@big-8.org>
and I became inspired,
> "2Rowdy" <Harry...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> You just gave a rationale not to create the newsgroup. Why move
>> when discussion is possible here?
>> This discussion appears to be civil.
>
> Yeah, there's a lull in the news.groups spew. Unfortunately, that's
> the exception these days. Plus, we're all experienced news.groupies,
> so we have killfiles, whether real or mental, and can ignore most of
> the junk pretty easily. Newbies here don't have that, obviously.
Obviously. But please do understand that posters, though they might
rant and do not appear to be rational, they have an interest or else
they wouldn't be here.
Despite their trollish behavior they are on-topic and are not using
this newsgroup as a home turf for something completely else. They
care.
Take them seriously and you have a set of supporters that are
motivated to do much more. They are the volunteers Bamby is seeking.
>> It appears to be a closed process where public participation is
>> unneeded, unrequested.
>> That needs to change.
>
> Yes, it does. The false perception that proposal evaluation is
> closed process needs to rooted out and squashed.
My perception may well be false. I don't know how to counteract on
that perception but it's important that it goes away. I'm not the only
one as you can read in this newsgroup.
My suggestion, publicize the internal discussion, is the best thing I
can think of.
I think the audience needs to know what the factors are that are
weighed.
On the other hand, it's likely that the internal discussion isn't all
that interesting giving away the suggestion that there is a discussion
going on behind the discussion.
I don't know.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
I drank of the purifying Nirang, the sterile urine of the spotless white bull of which there is but one in ten thousand. I am the wearer of The Secret Girdle that once belonged to DE.
2Rowdy
sent to <mol...@canisius.edu> and I became inspired,
> The problem that Russ Allbery talked about a week or two ago
> wouldn't be solved by a one-way mailing list. The problem
> is helping proponents to conduct a focused discussion of their
> proposals on Usenet.
Correct me if I am wrong but we are now having a civil on-topic
discussion in an unmoderated newsgroup.
I absolutely see no need for a moderated version of this newsgroup.
The problem Russ talked about is real, very real.
But there still is a good change news.groups can be turned back into a
place where on-topic discussion is appreciated.
You can't change the audience, but you can try and listen, discuss and
agree.
Since we (tinw) are all interested in the same thing.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me http://2rowdy.aacity.net
They killed the Credo. Viva el Credo!
2Rowdy
by the entity known as Aratzio, that requests spam to be sent to
<a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
> You are a silly man.
From you, that's a compliment, I think.
One day, when I'm old, I open up Google and read back my posts. I
think I'll need ask for a new set of diapers afterward.
You forgot your x-post.
--
^Bd:J0han; Certifiable me^J^Mhttp://2rowdy.aacity.net^J^MTRying to telnet to the server^J^MHope it works this time^J^M^C^D^Y
405 Method Not Allowed
400 Bad Request
Fatal Error, Connection Terminated,,,
[Press ENTER to continue]
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
>I was reading <news:4526556f$0$9824$c3e...@news.astraweb.com>, made
"Bunker mentality" has set in with the bambi. They feel under siege
and will basically only accept input from those others in the bunker.
2Rowdy
<a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
> The creation of newsgroups must be based upon traffic. <- Period,
> end
Why?
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://2rowdy.aacity.net
[sig is lost, please use Google to find it]
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
>I was reading <news:f6qci29nrjsdgdsgj...@4ax.com>, made
>by the entity known as Aratzio, that requests spam to be sent to
><a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>> You are a silly man.
>
>From you, that's a compliment, I think.
Correct, this is usenet and being serious can only end badly.
>One day, when I'm old, I open up Google and read back my posts. I
>think I'll need ask for a new set of diapers afterward.
I prefer to look back and see all the people that raged futilely about
my posts. If only I could find a way to get paid for being an utter
fuckhead.
>
>You forgot your x-post.
You remembered.
Tim Skirvin
>> This doesn't mean that I think that SMM should never be brought
>> up again! It's a relevant precedent, and there are lessons to be learned
>> from it. But it would be healthy to a) take a break from it and b)
>> consider the effects of the *action*, and not so much the flamewar that
>> led to that action.
> Or possibly rethink the "build it and they will come" attitude. It is
> not like the bambi is made up of newbies. You ALL know that the only
> method to determine a groups viability is traffic.
But that can't be readily predicted before the group is created.
We can make an educated guess, based on whatever information is around -
and yes that information may include the "traffic analysis" that you keep
bringing up - but it's still a *guess*, and not a reliable predictor.
I can tell you what I'm making my decisions on lately:
- A motivated proponent.
- A potential user base.
- Good/appropriate namespace.
- Good/appropriate charter.
- For moderated groups, a moderation team that seems willing
and able to enforce a charter that will support a viable group.
- A general feeling that discussion has a good chance of being
self-sustaining once it gets going.
And even with all of that, groups may fail. But I don't take this
as a blight on my moral character, or even necessarily on my judgement, in
large part because we've got a removal system too, and we're willing to
use it when it's obvious that we didn't guess correctly.
I don't think that the above qualifies as "build it and they will
come". I also don't think that "build it and they will come" is as bad a
philosophy as most people make it out to be, but that's a different
debate.
- Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
--
2Rowdy
<a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>> Since we (tinw) are all interested in the same thing.
>
> "Bunker mentality" has set in with the bambi. They feel under siege
> and will basically only accept input from those others in the
> bunker.
Need to remember that. "Bunker Mentality".
Perhaps you are right, in that case it can be over quite quickly. The
mod version gets created, two newsgroups lay dead and Beight becomes
another alt.*.
Or something get's done to pull in the userbase. I think they are
still here, lurking, reading, but not posting.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
2Rowdy
<a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>> One day, when I'm old, I open up Google and read back my posts. I
>> think I'll need ask for a new set of diapers afterward.
>
> I prefer to look back and see all the people that raged futilely
> about my posts. If only I could find a way to get paid for being an
> utter fuckhead.
Setup a page with a link towards a google search of your posts. Put
some Google ads around it and spam it in your sig.
>> You forgot your x-post.
>
> You remembered.
:-)
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://2rowdy.aacity.net
IHUMFA
Adam H. Kerman
>On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 21:43:08 -0500, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>news.groups would be marginalized further. The Thread That Will Not Die,
>>recently in the guise of the s.m.m troll, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
>So we ought to have, by some unstated magical power, killed the
>thread in an unmoderated group?
>Or rejected the proposal out of hand, without discussing it
>in news.groups?
You could have learned about the situation in soc.men by lurking there. Then
you would have had an idea if moderation was a solution to the perceived
problem, and whether anyone was capable of moderating.
>Or used ESP to decide who was and was not a troll?
What is it about "They're socmen" that you don't understand?
>>Giving That Thread new life was B8MB's contribution to the noise in
>>news.groups.
>So the folks who build overpasses and buildings in
>high-crime areas are responsible for the graffitti
>on them?
Wrong analogy. The takeover of news.groups for the socmen herding discussion
was something along the lines of Hipcrime's Newsagent network abuse by
proxy.
>I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
>If, after sufficient time to get its act in order,
>it doesn't thrive, I'd be happy to vote to kill it.
Irrelevant, Martin. This is about B8MB's action contributing to lots of
noise in news.groups, an example of which was the socmen threads, and then
proclaiming that news.groups cannot be used for useful discussion.
Aratzio
Skirvin) transparently proposed:
>Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com> writes:
>
>>> This doesn't mean that I think that SMM should never be brought
>>> up again! It's a relevant precedent, and there are lessons to be learned
>>> from it. But it would be healthy to a) take a break from it and b)
>>> consider the effects of the *action*, and not so much the flamewar that
>>> led to that action.
>
>> Or possibly rethink the "build it and they will come" attitude. It is
>> not like the bambi is made up of newbies. You ALL know that the only
>> method to determine a groups viability is traffic.
>
> But that can't be readily predicted before the group is created.
Yes, it can. Ask the proposed participants if they will post.
>We can make an educated guess, based on whatever information is around -
>and yes that information may include the "traffic analysis" that you keep
>bringing up - but it's still a *guess*, and not a reliable predictor.
It is the ONLY one that has EVER proven itself effective. Ignoring
that does not in any way alter the situation. Without traffic, there
is no group. Creation based upon wishful thinking has worked, rarely,
vary rarely.
>
> I can tell you what I'm making my decisions on lately:
>
> - A motivated proponent.
Woo Hoo, they want a group. Now support your desire with facts.
> - A potential user base.
Wishful thinking.
> - Good/appropriate namespace.
Names are easy.
> - Good/appropriate charter.
Actually the second most import item, behind traffic.
> - For moderated groups, a moderation team that seems willing
> and able to enforce a charter that will support a viable group.
You mean like Sobelewski and Grizzlie? Yeah, that vetting process you
used, quite effective.
> - A general feeling that discussion has a good chance of being
> self-sustaining once it gets going.
You mean, like making sure there are sufficient people willing to use
the group?
>
> And even with all of that, groups may fail. But I don't take this
>as a blight on my moral character, or even necessarily on my judgement, in
>large part because we've got a removal system too, and we're willing to
>use it when it's obvious that we didn't guess correctly.
Why bother with discussion at all? Just make it like alt and be done
with it.
>
> I don't think that the above qualifies as "build it and they will
>come". I also don't think that "build it and they will come" is as bad a
>philosophy as most people make it out to be, but that's a different
>debate.
>
> - Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
--
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
>I was reading <news:pjtci219nj43b39th...@4ax.com>, made
>by the entity known as Aratzio, that requests spam to be sent to
><a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>> The creation of newsgroups must be based upon traffic. <- Period,
>> end
>
>Why?
No posts.
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
>I was reading <news:qpuci2h34vsb8amtp...@4ax.com>, made
>by the entity known as Aratzio, that requests spam to be sent to
><a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>>> One day, when I'm old, I open up Google and read back my posts. I
>>> think I'll need ask for a new set of diapers afterward.
>>
>> I prefer to look back and see all the people that raged futilely
>> about my posts. If only I could find a way to get paid for being an
>> utter fuckhead.
>
>Setup a page with a link towards a google search of your posts. Put
>some Google ads around it and spam it in your sig.
ICKY DOO DOO
I hate web pages, especially vanity web pages. I do like vanity
froups, however.
>
>>> You forgot your x-post.
>>
>> You remembered.
>
>:-)
It is all about me.
Tim Skirvin
>>> Or possibly rethink the "build it and they will come" attitude. It is
>>> not like the bambi is made up of newbies. You ALL know that the only
>>> method to determine a groups viability is traffic.
>> But that can't be readily predicted before the group is created.
> Yes, it can.
Do you want me to say "no, it can't"? Do you want to debate this
by bringing in actual information instead of assertions?
soc.support.vision-impaired is a good example of a successful
group that wouldn't have been created by your "show us the traffic ahead
of time" rule.
> Why bother with discussion at all? Just make it like alt and be done
> with it.
...tanj...
- Tim Skirvin (sk...@big-8.org)
--
Adam H. Kerman
>Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com> writes:
>>"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>>>I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
>>Which indicates a level of cluelessness that should preclude your
>>participation in further proposals.
>Or else it indicates that we were willing to experiment, and that our
>thresholds are not the same as yours. Is it so hard to consider a
>situation where a group of people would be willing to experiment?
>In any case, the discussion is over at this point. SMM exists, and it will
>survive or fail on its own merits. If the group does fail entirely - and I
>don't think that it has yet - we will take action to remove it. Any
>further discussion of the proposal itself, at least here in news.groups,
>will only serve to raise tempers and make enemies.
While your lack of common sense and unwillingness to take advice or learn
for yourself the nature of the socmen are points from the past, the issue at
hand is the continuing marginalization of news.groups. Martin has suggest
exploring a solution, holding proposal discussion in a moderated newsgroup
subject to biased acceptance of messages, for a serious problem that B8MB
itself contributed to in a big way.
Kindly do not declare the socmen herding discussion to be the straw the
broke the camel's back when you were the one who added it to the pile.
>This doesn't mean that I think that SMM should never be brought
>up again! It's a relevant precedent, and there are lessons to be learned
>from it.
Then you have learned nothing.
>But it would be healthy to a) take a break from it and b) consider the
>effects of the *action*, and not so much the flamewar that led to that
>action.
The flame war you brought here to news.groups is the main issue.
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
>I was reading <news:fcuci2t88n3cjnoo6...@4ax.com>, made
>by the entity known as Aratzio, that requests spam to be sent to
><a6ah...@sneakemail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>>> Since we (tinw) are all interested in the same thing.
>>
>> "Bunker mentality" has set in with the bambi. They feel under siege
>> and will basically only accept input from those others in the
>> bunker.
>
>Need to remember that. "Bunker Mentality".
Drop enough bombs on someone and they will hide in theiir bunker as
the only safe place for them.
>Perhaps you are right, in that case it can be over quite quickly. The
>mod version gets created, two newsgroups lay dead and Beight becomes
>another alt.*.
That appears the desire. Why, I do not know, since alt already exists.
>Or something get's done to pull in the userbase. I think they are
>still here, lurking, reading, but not posting.
New users gravitate towards web boards and not usenet. They understand
the basics of a web browser but not the basics of a news reader. Most
people are not technically savvy so new/differentsoftware intimidates
them.
Google being the web interface of choice is also a problem. If someone
could figure a way to webify usenet in a manner that could actually be
useful then userbase might increase.
The alternative is to make usenet *kewl*. You need the *younger*
generations and they want the bells and whistles that a text
environment does not supply.
James Farrar
<bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>James Farrar wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:49:42 -0700, Brian Mailman
>> <bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>James Farrar wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 09:35:14 -0500, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>At 3:06pm +0100, 10/04/06, James Farrar <james.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:23:49 -0500, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>At 6:45pm +0100, 10/03/06, James Farrar <james.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>Brian Mailman <bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>sta...@shell.peak.org wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>and constructive criticism of proposals.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>It is especially hard to have a constructive debate of issues when the
>>>>>>>>>>leader of the Founders not only maintains a strict killfile but is proud
>>>>>>>>>>of that fact.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>....which causes anyone wanting to engage in "constructive" criticism to
>>>>>>>>>make an argument on terms pre-defined by said Founder. This is
>>>>>>>>>unacceptable for any attempt at honest discussion.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It's also rather difficult to have constructive discussions with
>>>>>>>>people who insist on throwing insults around.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>Do you care to back up that inuendo with actual evidence,
>>>>>
>>>>>>See my recent attempt at a discussion with Bob Officer, for one.
>>>>>
>>>>>You were accusing Brian Mailman,
>>>>
>>>> I did not accuse him. It was a general comment.
>>>
>>>Ah.
>>>
>>>Another one who tacks "general comments" onto my messages and then
>>>claims they don't read the way they were apparently intended.
>>>
>>>Why can't you (plural) simply post a separate message if you have a
>>>"general comment?"
>>
>> The reply was to your comment about constructive criticism and honest
>> discussion.
>
>I see.
>
>So it's not a "general comment" as you first claimed.
Yes, it was. A general comment about several individuals here, in
reply to a specific post of yours.
--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com
Brian Mailman
> On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:53:31 -0400, in news.groups, "Martin X.
> Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>
>>news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>
> The goal is the identical... to silence the users voices.
>
> Shame on you...
> Shame on Tim...
> and
> Shame on the whole lot of you rubber stamps
>
> Censors, no better than Common abusers, which the board should
> reprimand its chair... Spamming that signature over and over again...
> sometimes I believe he is posting just so people can see who is
> *in charge*.
Again.... you dilute your argument by conflating issues. It weakens
both of them (and in the Big Picture, the signature is a pretty Small
Potatoes anyway.
It's a *symptom,* and not a cause.
Anyway, you need to show how users voices would be silenced. It's not
that res ipsa loquitor thing; you make a claim and then back it up.
B/
Adam H. Kerman
>The proposal for soc.men.moderated was a legitimate proposal, as far as my
>intentions were concerned.
I never once accused you of having bad motives. You're a well known easy
mark among the socmen and were used to drag an obnoxious discussion into
news.groups. That's your part in all this. Well, of course, you dragged the
discussion out through your own inaction on completing the proposal and
keeping the initial moderation team secret.
As part of hierarchy management, the B8MBs are supposed to be the
gatekeepers. They didn't just throw the gate wide open, they tore down the
entire fence.
Now, they have the excuse they were looking for to officially ignore
discussion in news.groups.
>There is no question that it attracted a lot of noise and abuse. This is
>an argument in favour of creating a moderated group for discussing
>proposals. It is absurd to blame the Board for the trolling, etc. that
>happened around the creation of smm.
Why cannot I blame them? It was all so predictable. socmen don't behave
anywhere on Usenet.
James Farrar
>In article <4udai2hbfb24lv8dg...@4ax.com>,
>James Farrar <james.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I would remind the board that there is a standing list already in
>>>existance.
>
>Your response was lost, apparently.
Oh, the withering sarcasm.
>>The aim should be to have a place where discussions can take place
>>without being subjected to all the shit (mostly cross-posted) that
>>characterises news.groups at the moment.
>
>That can easily be accomplished with a killfile. Moderation is, thus,
>not necessary.
It can, provided that when users first come to a newsgroup, they
aren't immediately put off by the S:N ratio. Killfilles are useful for
regulars, but newbies can't be expected to be patient.
>>>>On the other hand, we do have a strong interest in developing and
>>>>supporting a viable polling system,
>>>
>>>If the former is impossible, then so is the latter.
>>
>>Untrue, at least in the sense used. "Voting" makes decisions,
>>"polling" gagues opinions.
>
>Both "voting" and "polling", in the context in which they are being
>used in this group, measure something. If one cannot be used to measure
>something, then the other will be just as useless as a valid measure.
>The only difference between the two is that one is usually used as the
>sole basis for a decision (voting) and the other is used as information
>included to reach one. If the data returned by one cannot be trusted as
>the sole basis for a decision, then one cannot honestly trust the
>data from the other and it is meaningless.
>
Invalid logic, since the "somethings" being measured are different. I
think it's reasonable to suggest that the prose answers given will be
taken more into account that simple up-or-down answers.
>I.e., if I can rig a vote, I can rig a poll. The data is just as wrong
>in both cases.
You appear to be assuming that the pollsters would be looking for
simple numerical "how many people think this?" data, which I believe
to be not the case.
Sure, you can "rig" a poll in terms of getting multiple responses with
the data you require, but if the pollsters are looking for "what
opinions are there?", it doesn't matter if one, five, fifty or five
hundred identical responses are received.
James Farrar
<bobof...@127.0.0.7> wrote:
>On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:53:31 -0400, in news.groups, "Martin X.
>Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:45:35 -0700, Bob Officer <bobof...@127.0.0.7> wrote in <nn9bi25rlasg3208i...@4ax.com>:
>>
>>>On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 09:30:27 -0700, in news.groups, Brian Mailman
>>><bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Peter J Ross wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Have fun with a news.groups that is increasingly devoid of anything
>>>>> but trollery, and in which any semi-tolerable proposal can be assured
>>>>> of your rubber stamp, partly because any criticism is dismissed as
>>>>> "unconstructive".
>>>>
>>>>and the solution is to build an insulated clubhouse.
>>
>>>And right now B*MBy seems to be discussing moderation of this group
>>>to silence people's voices.
>>
>>That's not accurate.
>>
>>We're talking about creating a moderated group focused
>>on the discussion of RFDs.
>>
>>news.groups would continue to be unmoderated.
>
>The goal is the identical... to silence the users voices.
There is no such goal.
Adam H. Kerman
>>>>That's not accurate.
I don't agree with this, since this tangent is about Martin bringing up
moderated proposal discussion again. But I agree with the rest of it.
Aratzio
Skirvin) transparently proposed:
>Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com> writes:
>
>>>> Or possibly rethink the "build it and they will come" attitude. It is
>>>> not like the bambi is made up of newbies. You ALL know that the only
>>>> method to determine a groups viability is traffic.
>
>>> But that can't be readily predicted before the group is created.
>
>> Yes, it can.
>
> Do you want me to say "no, it can't"? Do you want to debate this
>by bringing in actual information instead of assertions?
Nice snip of context TIMMAY!
Let us try that again:
"Yes, it can. Ask the proposed participants if they will post."
That does seem a little more informative, doncha think? Since the
first part is only valid based upon the qualifier that followed? Or do
you believe that the qualifier was irrelevant?
> soc.support.vision-impaired is a good example of a successful
>group that wouldn't have been created by your "show us the traffic ahead
>of time" rule.
Ah, the exception that proves the rule. So based upon a single success
you will go forth and be fruitful.
>
>> Why bother with discussion at all? Just make it like alt and be done
>> with it.
>
> ...tanj...
>
Well? The facts, your own words, point to that being the process that
you are driving towards.
James Farrar
wrote:
>The creation of newsgroups must be based upon traffic. <- Period, end
Past, present or predicted?
Aratzio
transparently proposed:
AHEM!
It is all AUK's fault and even more specifically Jade and my fault.
Come now, everyone knows that.
James Farrar
wrote:
>I was reading <news:eg58qo$5lp$1...@jik2.kamens.brookline.ma.us>, made by
>the entity known as Jonathan Kamens, that requests spam to be sent to
><j...@kamens.brookline.ma.us> and I became inspired,
>
>> I am not sure why you say that the moderated group wouldn't get any
>> traffic. There is plenty of traffic about proposals in news.groups,
>> so if the moderated group becomes the appropriate place for such
>> traffic, then why wouldn't it move there?
>
>You just gave a rationale not to create the newsgroup. Why move when
>discussion is possible here?
Simply, because this place is (mostly) a cesspit. Sure, civil
discussions can take place, but there's an awful lot of spew as well.
If I knew a proposal interested or affected a friend of mine, would I
say to them "come to news.groups to discuss it"? Sadly, I almost
certainly wouldn't. People don't deserve to be subjected to the crap
that characterises this group.
James Farrar
Aratzio
<james.s...@gmail.com> transparently proposed:
>On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 15:28:45 GMT, Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>The creation of newsgroups must be based upon traffic. <- Period, end
>
>Past, present or predicted?
Absolutely.
A. The past posting history is a very good predictor of the future.
B. The current traffic is from where the posters will initially come.
C. The initial traffic is what creates the future traffic.
Easy as ABC.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>Since I might have more than a modest amount of experience in the
>design, implementation, results and reporting of experiments I can
>assure you ...
The argument from authority is the weakest form
of argument.
The argument from oneself as an authority is
the weakest form of the argument from authority.
The argument from a self identified as Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com>
has got to be the weakest form fo the argument from oneself as
an authority.
You want to put your credentials on the table and make
us bow down before them? Identify yourself.
Marty
--
Member of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB), such as it is.
The B8MB is a work in progress.
See http://www.big-8.org for more information.
Tim Skirvin
> [...] the issue at hand is the continuing marginalization of news.groups.
And that's what I was attempting to address, though perhaps
obliquely. As it stands, virtually all discussions in news.groups rapidly
become rehashes of old flamewars. This doesn't engender an atmosphere
of reasonable discussion and compromise; instead, it brings out an us-vs-
them atmosphere, or a bunker mentality, in anybody that cares at all about
the discussion.
I think that continuing to fight over topics that have been
resolved is hurting everybody involved, and I'm doing my best to cut back
on it myself, and to encourage others to do the same. I find it somewhat
disheartening that this encouragement is only fanning the flames.
> Kindly do not declare the socmen herding discussion to be the straw the
> broke the camel's back when you were the one who added it to the pile.
That discussion was definitely not the straw, not in my book.
But even if it was, I don't mind admitting that I'm part of the
problem, because I'm also looking to find a solution. I hope that you'll
join me in that.
(And I deny that either I or the Board "added it to the pile", but
that's not that relevant.)
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<Pine.LNX.4.63.06...@qbbshf.puvarg.pbz>:
>>Or rejected the proposal out of hand, without discussing it
>>in news.groups?
>You could have learned about the situation in soc.men by lurking there. Then
>you would have had an idea if moderation was a solution to the perceived
>problem, and whether anyone was capable of moderating.
In other words, make the decision in the background
using non-transparent methods of surveillance.
>>I voted to create s.m.m. and would do so again.
>>If, after sufficient time to get its act in order,
>>it doesn't thrive, I'd be happy to vote to kill it.
>Irrelevant, Martin. This is about B8MB's action contributing to lots of
>noise in news.groups, an example of which was the socmen threads, and then
>proclaiming that news.groups cannot be used for useful discussion.
These are the actions we took:
-- published an RFD
-- participated in a discussion of the RFD
-- took a vote on the RFD
-- implemented the results of the vote
That seems to me to be "doing our job."
I blame the vandals for the vandalism.
Aratzio
<james.s...@gmail.com> transparently proposed:
>On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 15:43:25 GMT, Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com>
"Do you want me to say "no, it can't"? Do you want to debate this
by bringing in actual information instead of assertions?"
--
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>Correct me if I am wrong but we are now having a civil on-topic
>discussion in an unmoderated newsgroup.
"One swallow does not a summer make."
>I absolutely see no need for a moderated version of this newsgroup.
OK. I see things differently.
>The problem Russ talked about is real, very real.
>But there still is a good change news.groups can be turned back into a
>place where on-topic discussion is appreciated.
>You can't change the audience, but you can try and listen, discuss and
>agree.
Listening and discussion do not necessarily lead
to agreement.
>Since we (tinw) are all interested in the same thing.
I don't feel a common interest with the vandals.
Aratzio
<mol...@canisius.edu> transparently proposed:
>On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 15:24:06 GMT, Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com> wrote in <8psci2p8928b2hjlb...@4ax.com>:
>
>>Since I might have more than a modest amount of experience in the
>>design, implementation, results and reporting of experiments I can
>>assure you ...
>
>The argument from authority is the weakest form
>of argument.
>
>The argument from oneself as an authority is
>the weakest form of the argument from authority.
>
>The argument from a self identified as Aratzio <a6ah...@sneakemail.com>
>has got to be the weakest form fo the argument from oneself as
>an authority.
>
>You want to put your credentials on the table and make
>us bow down before them? Identify yourself.
>
> Marty
Trust is such a wonderful thing, Marty. Believing in something simply
because it was written should not be a stretch for you, now should it?
Whether you choose to believe what I write is purely a personal
choice. I really don't care a whole lot one way or the other. But
using such as a smoke screen to deflect a conversation is sad,
pointless and more than a little childish.
"starting with a known failure is not the methodology for success.
Unless you wish to prove the failure. Which in this case would again
point out that same level..."
Now the actual point being the statement above before you attempted to
derail the conversation. Now would you care to address that point
rather than attack my anonymity?
Tim Skirvin
>> Do you want me to say "no, it can't"? Do you want to debate this
>> by bringing in actual information instead of assertions?
> Nice snip of context TIMMAY!
Okay, I'm going to give this one more shot, but I'd appreciate it
if you would leave out the insults. Please offer me the same respect that
I'm offering you.
> "Yes, it can. Ask the proposed participants if they will post."
In my last post, I cut the second part of your sentence here,
because I didn't think it was worth calling attention to an unsupported
assertion. But if you insist, my thoughts on the matter:
I don't believe that the proposed participants have necessarily
(or even often) been identified at this stage, so I don't think believe
that works as well as you would like. A group can often be successful
with a dozen or less regulars; but those people are rarely present in
news.groups.
I also believe that the numbers of people that respond to such
calls are statistically meaningless. It would be trivial for a proponent
to find a dozen friends to claim that they want to use the group - and
they may even believe it! - but that's not helpful if they're not willing
to be true *regulars*, and one can't really know that, in my experience,
until the group is up and running.
If you set the bar high enough to avoid these cases, then you're
going to reject groups that would otherwise be viable. I'm not willing to
give up on those groups anymore, and I feel that the original mandate of
the B8MB was aired squarely at making sure those corner cases would no
longer be ignored.
And even excluding those cases, there are plenty of cases of false
positives, where a group will fail even if there are many people that say
they would use it. There are many reasons for a group to fail, you see...
Finally, I would like to see evidence that your suggestion
actually works. Do you have any obvious examples to offer?
>> soc.support.vision-impaired is a good example of a successful
>> group that wouldn't have been created by your "show us the traffic ahead
>> of time" rule.
> Ah, the exception that proves the rule.
It was the first time we really give it a shot in the Big-8. It
succeeded far beyond my wildest expectations.