RFD: Remove misc.legal.moderated

[Bernie Cosell]

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
{moderated or unmoderated} newsgroup {insert newsgroup name(s)}.

Distribution:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
misc.legal.moderated

Proponent: Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarm.com>

Charter:

See <https://www.dropbox.com/s/74g5zyaa9qc5i29/charter.txt?dl=0>

Rationale for removal:

After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
every month or two, if that

History of the Group:

Group was created in 1994. It was created to provide a moderated
alternative to misc.legal. In the past it has run with as many as
20+ posts a day. Now there's hardly a post at all any more.

Procedure:

Those who wish to comment on this request to remove this newsgroup should
subscribe to news:news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant
threads in
that newsgroup.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
news.groups.proposals.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to
news.groups.proposals.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the discussion may
be
crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure that all
discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as well.

For more information on the newsgroup removal process, please see
http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Removing_newsgroups

History of this RFD:

Original request: 2017-08-15

Bernie Cosell
moderator: misc.legal.moderated

[Good Guy]

On 16/08/2017 01:01, Bernie Cosell wrote:
>
> After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
> every month or two, if that
>

I would say that perhaps the group should become unmoderated so that
anybody can participate and post and discuss anything related to legal
and political matters. The groups are killed because of moderations and
in 2017 there is no place for moderation when old people are dying and
young people are not aware of how to use newsgroups.

We were running a group on: <news.gowestweb.com> but it is being
discontinued soon so we decided to open a new one under a different
management. The group is now at:

<news.lexi.net>

Feel free to join it to discuss Wordpress and all things web-design and
contracts.



--
With over 500 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

[Kathy Morgan]

Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarmcom.dca1.giganews.com> wrote:

> This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
> {moderated or unmoderated} newsgroup {insert newsgroup name(s)}.

The line above should have read:

moderated newsgroup misc.legal.moderated

Since the Subject line and Distribution lines make it obvious that is
what was intended, I did not as moderator of news.announce.newgroups see
that as a reason to reject the post. The intent is perfectly clear.

> Distribution:
> news.announce.newgroups
> news.groups.proposals
> misc.legal.moderated
>
> Proponent: Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarm.com>

(snip)

> Rationale for removal:
>
> After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
> every month or two, if that
>
> History of the Group:
>
> Group was created in 1994. It was created to provide a moderated
> alternative to misc.legal. In the past it has run with as many as
> 20+ posts a day. Now there's hardly a post at all any more.

Since it is the moderator requesting removal of the group due to lack of
posters, and since there is already an unmoderated group for the
subject, I believe the group should be removed.

Kathy, member of B8MB but speaking only for myself

[Tim Skirvin]

kmo...@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan) writes:

> Since it is the moderator requesting removal of the group due to lack of
> posters, and since there is already an unmoderated group for the
> subject, I believe the group should be removed.

Agreed.

- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
--
http://www.facebook.com/tskirvin Skirv's Social Networking

[CRNG]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2017 21:19:45 CST, Good Guy <hello...@example.com>
wrote in <on03dv$vit$1...@news.mixmin.net>

>On 16/08/2017 01:01, Bernie Cosell wrote:
>>
>> After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
>> every month or two, if that
>>
>I would say that perhaps the group should become unmoderated so that
>anybody can participate and post and discuss anything related to legal
>and political matters. The groups are killed because of moderations and
>in 2017 there is no place for moderation when old people are dying and
>young people are not aware of how to use newsgroups.

+1
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.

[Kathy Morgan]

Good Guy <hello...@example.com> wrote:

> On 16/08/2017 01:01, Bernie Cosell wrote:
> >
> > After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
> > every month or two, if that
> >
> I would say that perhaps the group should become unmoderated so that
> anybody can participate and post and discuss anything related to legal
> and political matters.

There are two reasons why this would be a bad idea. One is technical:
some servers would change the status to unmoderated and others would
not, fracturing any possible discussion. Not to mention how ugly the
name would be as an unmoderated group called misc.legal.moderated.

The other is that there is already an unmoderated companion group
misc.legal.

--
Kathy, speaking only for myself

[Barry Gold]

On 8/15/2017 5:01 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote:
> For more information on the newsgroup removal process, please see
> http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Removing_newsgroups

That URL is 404.

I would recommend
http://www.big-8.org/articles/p/r/o/Procedure_to_remove_newsgroups.html
instead.

General comment on the proposal: In spite of the low traffic, I have
very much enjoyed MLM over the years. Normally I would disfavor a
proposal to remove MLM.

But the moderator requests the removal. Far be it from me to tell Bernie
that he has to continue moderating a newsgroup that isn't doing much of
anything. So I guess it's sort of okay.

--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

[CRNG]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 16:07:59 CST, kmo...@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan)
wrote in <1nauhyh.fchstu1cpvuyoN%kmo...@spamcop.net>

>r a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
>> > every month or two, if that
>> >
>> I would say that perhaps the group should become unmoderated so that
>> anybody can participate and post and discuss anything related to legal
>> and political matters.
>
>There are two reasons why this would be a bad idea. One is technical:
>some servers would change the status to unmoderated and others would
>not,

Isn't USENET wonderful!

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On 08/15/2017 07:01 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote:
> Rationale for removal:
>
> After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
> every month or two, if that
>
> History of the Group:
>
> Group was created in 1994. It was created to provide a moderated
> alternative to misc.legal. In the past it has run with as many as
> 20+ posts a day. Now there's hardly a post at all any more.

One of the first things I saw when opening up misc.legal was a thread
"Is it legal to #$%& in public" and there's no telling what other kind
of garbage is waiting in the archives. Obviously, this kind of post
would never be allowed in a properly moderated group, and at the point
in Usenet's lifecycle when the group was made, serious legal posts were
easily drowned out by such crap.

Maybe the demand for a moderated newsgroup about the named topic is not
what it used to be. Maybe the people who would post to
misc.legal.moderated if they knew it exists don't know that it does.
However, I can understand if continuing to maintain moderation of the
group in light of the low post volume is seen as more trouble than it's
worth. At this stage of Usenet's lifecycle, it's unlikely to see higher
post counts than it is now, along with many other groups that once
enjoyed higher traffic.

--
Shawn K. Quinn <skq...@rushpost.com>
http://www.rantroulette.com
http://www.skqrecordquest.com

[r.enge...@gmail.com]

I sent a few responses via my normal USENET provider but they didn't seem to arrive.

Here is one:


Unfortunately the unmoderated misc.legal has a very low signal to noise ratio. Few people post there because of that.

While the m.l.m moderator has done a good job controlling the content of the misc.legal.moderated group, the moderation delay has been a bit excessive in the past and that has driven off people.

I would suggest a change in moderators in an attempt to keep the group going

[McGyver]

Bernie Cosell formulated the question :

I am against removal of misc.legal.moderated. The decline in posting
has two causes. One is a poor job of moderation. Not to single out
Mr. Cosell - the problem goes back far earlier than his tenure. I quit
particpating because of the delay between my contributions and posting
by the moderator and because of the moderator's rejection of posts for
trivial reasons, such as my failure to snip out enough of the original
poster's content. delays and rejections made me feel like I was
wasting my time. My knowledge concerning delays and rejections apply
only to my reply posts. It may be that the original posters have given
up for similar reasons, but I can't say. If the moderator would act
promptly and limit rejections to posts by trolls and off-topic posts, a
participation increase might be possible.

The second reason for declining partipation is that all of usenet is
inconvenient and in decline. I don't have a solution to suggest, but
deletion of newsgroups because of non-participation should start with
those that have zero participation and no prospect for recovery.

If Mr. Cosell's reason for recommending deletion is that he is wasting
his time moderating an inactive newsgroup, resignation would be a
better alternative. (and, no, I am not volunterring. I am not up to
the task.)

Misc.legal and misc.legal.moderated made a valuable contrbution to the
public at one time and I was proud to participate. Misc.legal is
hoplessly lost, but misc.legal.moderated might be salvagable. I vote
against deletion.

McGyver

[micky]

I think removal is a very bad idea. Let it sit and maybe others will
show up who want to run it again.



In misc.legal.moderated, on Tue, 15 Aug 2017 20:01:04 EDT, Bernie Cosell

--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

[micky]

Not only that, if the group needs a moderator, I'll do it.



I was a member of a club for which after having the same set of officers
for 4 or 5 years, at one point they all resigned except the president**.

And they told the prez that they thought the club should be disbanded.
Because they saw it through their own pov, that they were leaving, they
had lost interest.

However he had just found a new activities chairman and the two of them
ran the club for another 4 years. After that another group took over
and the club is still vigorous 20 years later.

I know the situation is not the same, but what does it cost anyone to
have a newsgroup with no traffic, and if there is traffic it's because
people are using it. Two thirds of the newsgroups have never had any
traffic and they haven't dragged down Usenet.

What needs to happen is for someone to advertise Usenet. It's the best
format on the internet, but because it has no advertising and no one is
making money, except a small extent the vendors of news readers and news
servers, no one is advertising it.

I once prepared a list of literally 20 reasons why it was better than
the web, and 10 or 15 why it was better than mailing lists. Instead of
giving in, let the group sit until it become popular again.



**Which was I. Actually the first president resigned. I was VP because
it was the least work, but I became pres. and with the other 4 people
ran the club for 4 years. Then with only one other person ran it for 4
more years. We had about 45 events a year, every year.

[Kathy Morgan]

micky <mis...@bigfoot.com> wrote:

> I know the situation is not the same, but what does it cost anyone to
> have a newsgroup with no traffic, and if there is traffic it's because
> people are using it. Two thirds of the newsgroups have never had any
> traffic and they haven't dragged down Usenet.

Actually, I disagree with you. The many newsgroups with no useful
traffic do discourage people from Usenet, so they do drag Usenet down.

--
Kathy

[Kathy Morgan]

[quoted text rewrapped due to long lines]

<r.enge...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately the unmoderated misc.legal has a very low signal to noise
> ratio. Few people post there because of that.

I've just taken a look in misc.legal. It has very low traffic, less
than 3 posts per day over a 30-day period. It is quiet enough that any
half-way decent news reader (ie, one that has some minimal level of
kill-filing ability) would probably reduce the traffic to less than 2
posts per day.

If you are seeing significantly more traffic in misc.legal than I did,
with a very low signal to noise ratio, it may be because you are not
using a decent quality server. It appears that you may be using Google
Groups, which is a notoriously dreadful interface. Using a real news
reader with a well-run news server would probably really improve the
experience. I recommend either Individual.net (10 Euros per year) or
Albasani.net (free) and others here can offer several others that are
good.

> While the m.l.m moderator has done a good job controlling the content of
> the misc.legal.moderated group, the moderation delay has been a bit
> excessive in the past and that has driven off people.
>
> I would suggest a change in moderators in an attempt to keep the group going

Traffic in misc.legal is low, and the moderator has said that he's
receiving very few submissions to misc.legal.moderated. I have not seen
anyone here say that they want to post to misc.legal.moderated, so I
don't believe changing moderators would make any difference.

I have personal experience attempting to revive 6 different dead
moderated groups and none of them have been successful. The first was
news.groups.reviews, back when Usenet was much more active generally.
Myself and two other volunteers made a really heroic effort to try to
revive the group. Many users enjoyed reading the reviews, but no one
wanted to post reviews. For some of the other groups, the users have
moved to Web forums or Web search engines have rendered them moot.

--
Kathy

[Roy Tremblay]

Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarmcom.dca1.giganews.com> actually wrote:

> This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
> {moderated or unmoderated} newsgroup {insert newsgroup name(s)}.

I will subscribe to news.groups.proposals where this is my first comment
ever on an RFD.

Over the decades, I have *tried* to use misc.legal.moderated and failed
more than half of the time to get a thread to be accepted by the
moderators.

Even the threads that did take took eons of time to post, so I gave up as
the group was, I had assumed, merely badly moderated.

NOTE: Not one was spam. All were topical legal questions. I have been on
Usenet for decades (yes, there's a plural there) under various accounts.

Basically, IMHO, the group negated itself.

[r.enge...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 12:31:18 PM UTC-7, Kathy Morgan wrote:
> [quoted text rewrapped due to long lines]
>
> <r.enge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Unfortunately the unmoderated misc.legal has a very low signal to noise
> > ratio. Few people post there because of that.
>
> I've just taken a look in misc.legal. It has very low traffic, less
> than 3 posts per day over a 30-day period. It is quiet enough that any
> half-way decent news reader (ie, one that has some minimal level of
> kill-filing ability) would probably reduce the traffi
>

> Traffic in misc.legal is low, and the moderator has said that he's
> receiving very few submissions to misc.legal.moderated. I have not seen
> anyone here say that they want to post to misc.legal.moderated, so I
> don't believe changing moderators would make any difference.
>
> I have personal experience attempting to revive 6 different dead
> moderated groups and none of them have been successful. The first was
> news.groups.reviews, back when Usenet was much more active generally.
> Myself and two other volunteers made a really heroic effort to try to
> revive the group. Many users enjoyed reading the reviews, but no one
> wanted to post reviews. For some of the other groups, the users have
> moved to Web forums or Web search engines have rendered them moot.
>
> --
> Kathy

I only have to post to this group via Google groups. The other server I use seems to not work here. But all my other groups work.

While misc.legal seems to have some traffic most of it is just crosspostings with of news items with little or no original content. My guess is there is one discussion topic per week or so.

At least two people have volunteered to become moderators so there is some interest

And I too have been on USENET since the late 1980s including running a service where USENET was gatewayed into some extensive private company networks.

[Bernie Cosell]

Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarmcom.dca1.giganews.com> wrote:

} This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the

} moderated newsgroup misc.legal.moderated.

}
} Distribution:
} news.announce.newgroups
} news.groups.proposals
} misc.legal.moderated
}
} Proponent: Bernie Cosell <mlm...@fantasyfarm.com>
}
} Charter:
}
} See <https://www.dropbox.com/s/74g5zyaa9qc5i29/charter.txt?dl=0>
}
} Rationale for removal:
}
} After a 20+ year run, the traffic in m.l.m has dropped to a post
} every month or two, if that

I'm not sure what happens next. If someone would like to 'officially'
volunteer to take over moderation [as I did when the previous moderator
wanted to retire], I am all for it! I'd be happy to have the newsgroup
continue. But failing someone _really_ stepping forward, I think that
it is time to remove the group.

I agree that moderating an zero-postings newsgroup isn't much work (slight
joke intended) but I'm often away from the location where I can handle
moderation and so there are occasional five-six day delays in getting posts
attended to.

I don't know who actually makes the final decision, nor when, but I'd
suggest that if a new moderator doesn't take the reins in, say, two weeks
[14 Sept] then whoever does such things should remove the group.

Thanks... /Bernie\
Bernie Cosell
moderator: misc.legal.moderated

[Kathy Morgan]

Bernie Cosell <ber...@fantasyfarm.com> wrote:

> If someone would like to 'officially'
> volunteer to take over moderation [as I did when the previous moderator
> wanted to retire], I am all for it! I'd be happy to have the newsgroup
> continue. But failing someone _really_ stepping forward, I think that
> it is time to remove the group.

So far I'm not seeing anyone seriously stepping forward.

> I don't know who actually makes the final decision, nor when, but I'd
> suggest that if a new moderator doesn't take the reins in, say, two weeks
> [14 Sept] then whoever does such things should remove the group.

The final decision will be made by the Big 8 Management Board (B8MB),
and I agree with you that 14 Sept is a reasonable deadline for some kind
of action. At that point, the B8MB can post a Last Call for Comments
and initiate voting on the proposal with the result announced after the
vote and at least a 5 day comment period.

--
Kathy, Chairman B8MB

[Kathy Morgan]

micky <mis...@bigfoot.com> wrote:

> Not only that, if the group needs a moderator, I'll do it.

Have you any experience as a Usenet moderator? Have you selected and
set up a moderation platform? Ie., are you technically _able_ to
moderate the group?

--
Kathy

[r.enge...@gmail.com]

I don't know how to "seriously" step forward but I will volunteer. To answer the "technical" question, I have run a USENET server in the past and currently work part time for an ISP so I have access to the resources.

Roy

On Saturday, September 9, 2017 at 2:21:12 PM UTC-7, Kathy Morgan wrote:

[Bernie Cosell]

r.enge...@gmail.com wrote:

} I don't know how to "seriously" step forward but I will volunteer. To answer the "technical" question, I have run a USENET server in the past and currently work part time for an ISP so I have access to the resources.

Well, I'm amenable to just changing the moderation email address to Roy's
and seeing what happens. Is there an objection letting Roy moderate m.l.m?



Bernie Cosell
moderator: misc.legal.moderated

[McGyver]

Bernie Cosell was thinking very hard :

No objection.

McGyver