RfD: Cross-posting to comp.ai

[Tristan Miller]

Dear all,

Apropos of a recent comment from someone here whose article had been
automatically rejected for cross-posting, I thought I'd initiate an
informal Request for Discussion (RfD) on the topic of cross-posting to
comp.ai.

While cross-posting isn't explicitly forbidden by the comp.ai. charter
[1], "inappropriate cross-posting" is specifically mentioned in the
rationale for it. Since I took over as moderator from David Kinny in
November 2020, I've had the moderation software configured to
automatically reject all cross-posted articles. (I'm not sure how David
had his software configured. My memory is hazy but I don't recall
seeing any cross-posted articles during his tenure.)

Given the relatively low traffic of the group, and the relatively high
signal-to-noise ratio of submissions, I'm willing to entertain
reconfiguring how the software deals with cross-posts. There are
basically two options:

Option #1: Have the system continue to automatically reject all
cross-posted articles.

Option #2: Have the system automatically reject only those articles that
are cross-posted to more than a certain number of groups. Messages that
are not cross-posted, or that are cross-posted to a number of groups
below this limit, would enter the moderation queue to be manually
approved or rejected by the moderator.

Do posters here have any preference as to which of these two options
should be used in the future? If Option #2 is preferred, is there any
preference as to the limit on the number of cross-posted groups?

Regards,
Tristan
comp.ai moderator

[1] https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.ai

--
Dr.-Ing. Tristan Miller, Research Scientist
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI)
Freyung 6/6, 1010 Vienna, Austria | Tel: +43 1 5336112 12
https://logological.org/ | https://punderstanding.ofai.at/

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On Fri, 31 Mar 2023 03:12:53 EDT
Tristan Miller <tristan...@ofai.at> wrote:
> Given the relatively low traffic of the group, and the relatively high
> signal-to-noise ratio of submissions, I'm willing to entertain
> reconfiguring how the software deals with cross-posts. There are
> basically two options:
>
> Option #1: Have the system continue to automatically reject all
> cross-posted articles.
>
> Option #2: Have the system automatically reject only those articles that
> are cross-posted to more than a certain number of groups. Messages that
> are not cross-posted, or that are cross-posted to a number of groups
> below this limit, would enter the moderation queue to be manually
> approved or rejected by the moderator.
>
> Do posters here have any preference as to which of these two options
> should be used in the future? If Option #2 is preferred, is there any
> preference as to the limit on the number of cross-posted groups?

First time I post on this group so perhaps my preference doesn't count for
much but I would say option 2 with no limit unless it puts too much work on
you.

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On Fri, 31 Mar 2023 03:12:53 EDT
Tristan Miller <tristan...@ofai.at> wrote:

> There are basically two options:
>
> Option #1: Have the system continue to automatically reject all
> cross-posted articles.
>
> Option #2: Have the system automatically reject only those articles that
> are cross-posted to more than a certain number of groups.

Have you reached a decision ?

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

The response to this informal RFD has been both underwhelming and
inconclusive. I got one vote here (namely, yours) for Option 2 and one
vote by e-mail for Option 1. And in the thread that led to this RFD, a
third poster wrote that "allowing cross-posts, or many cross-posts, is
likely to result in chaos, flame-wars and worse", which could be
interpreted as supporting either option.

Given the lack of a clear consensus to change the moderation rules, I
think the best course of action is to preserve the status quo for the
time being.

Regards,
Tristan