Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI) rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated

[Big 8 Management Board]

MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated

This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
moderated newsgroup rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated is not
functioning, and may have been abandoned by its moderator(s).

This investigation will attempt to verify the reasons for non-function,
and may result in the removal of the group or the selection and
installation of a new moderator. In practice, the Big-8 Management Board
considers the third alternative--changing the status of the group from
moderated to unmoderated--as likely to cause more harm than good.

RATIONALE:

According to Stephen Thomas Cole, in a post to news.groups.proposals on
February 11th 2017 (As detailed in article
<o7kfvs$fui$1...@stc.eternal-september.org> posted to news.groups.proposals
February 11th) the group has ceased functioning.

The last post was approved on 2016-05-19, which seems to be after the
modbot died so was likely posted outside of moderation.

Probe posts showed no result. Eventual contact with the remaining
moderator via Twitter (as detailed in post made to news.groups.proposals
February 11th) revealed that the modbot had failed and that the
moderator had little or no interest in resurrecting moderation.

NEWSGROUPS LINE:

rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated Sports Entertainment. (Moderated)


DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated

CHARTER OF rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated

Rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated is to be a forum for the
discussion of all aspects of professional wrestling. As such, all
manner of discussion related to professional wrestling is considered to
be on-topic, including but not limited to:

1) Show reports,
2) Discussions of match, house show, television show and PPV results and
quality (or lack thereof),
3) Discussions of the business aspects of pro wrestling such as angles,
booking, promoting, acquisition and development of talent, including
speculation as to the future,
4) History of pro wrestling,
5) Personal experiences, and anecdotes on pro wrestling,
6) Discussion of upcoming house shows, television programs, PPVs and
matches,
7) Discussion of secondary media such as tapes, newsletters, and
websites,
8) Limited announcements of upcoming shows, television/radio programs,
PPVs
and matches,
9) Regularly posted FAQs and FAQ related documents,
10) All posts to Rec.Sports.Pro-Wrestling.Info ("RSPWI"), to be posted
by the moderator of RSPWI to RSPWM unless requested by the author that
the article not be posted to RSPWM,
11) Other forms of sports entertainment for which no group currently
exists.

The following items are off-topic, and may be rejected by the moderation
team:

1) Encoded binaries, or requests for binaries.
2) HTML-encoded posts.
3) Blank posts.
4) Articles with all quoted text, and no original text. Such posts as
a "me too" are also off-topic by this criteria.
5) Duplicate posts, either by accident or design.
6) Spews or floods of a large number of articles for a single
individual or group.
7) Posts written as if the poster were a professional wrestling persona.
Such posts include works of fiction (e.g. the RSPWF).
8) "News posts" that are intended to be taken seriously (not obviously
satire) but are patently untrue. Known false rumors are also
considered off topic by this criteria.
9) Requests for the posting of information, when that information can be
reasonably be expected to be posted shortly, shall be rejected.
(ex. PPV results, FAQs). If appropriate, the moderator may mail such
information, or the location of such information, directly to the
poster (ex. FAQs).
10) Posts whose primary purpose is to advertise for a web page.
11) Any advertisement that has been posted to RSPWM within the previous
fourteen days.
12) A post that, in the opinion of the moderator, in whole or in part,
is meant to insult or anger any poster or reader of the newsgroup
(aka a "flame") is considered off topic and shall be rejected.
[Posts that are directed at the content of a previous post are
acceptable; ad homeneim attacks are not.]
13) A post that, in the opinion of the moderator, in whole or in part,
is meant to provoke any poster or reader of the newsgroup (aka a
"troll") is considered off topic and shall be rejected.
14) Any post that, in the opinion of the moderator, does not contain
on topic material. This may include posts with some on-topic
content, or with an "ObWrestling," if in the opinion of the moderator
the post is essentially off topic.

The moderators shall not use personal opinion as to the "quality" of
the post in determining approval/rejection. All posts shall be
approved except where rejection criteria is specified.

It is expected that this charter will be modified by the readership
over time as needed. The procedure for modification will be similar
to standard Usenet guidelines, except as follows:

- news.groups and news.announce.newgroups need not be involved
- Discussion and voting periods are 14 days.
- Should UVV members be unable/unwilling to run the vote, the RSPWI
moderator or their consenting designee shall run the vote.

HISTORY OF THE GROUP:

The first recorded newgroup control is dated 1998-03-12

CHANGE HISTORY:

10 September 2017: MVI

--
Big 8 Management Board

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Big 8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:
> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
> moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
>

Thank you for launching the MVI. The only thing I would like to add is
that, should the investigation end up there, I volunteer to take over
moderation of RSPWM and am willing to fund and maintain a server to host
moderation software.

--
STC / M0TEY /
http://twitter.com/ukradioamateur

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:
> Big 8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:
>> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
>> moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
>>
>
> Thank you for launching the MVI. The only thing I would like to add is
> that, should the investigation end up there, I volunteer to take over
> moderation of RSPWM and am willing to fund and maintain a server to host
> moderation software.
>

Hello. It's been almost a month since the MVI was posted, so I was
wondering if there was any update on progress you could provide?

Thanks.

[Kathy Morgan]

There does not appear to be anyone interested in this group other than
yourself. It seems likely to me that the moderator lost interest as a
result of lack of submissions. One of the possible results of an MVI
would be removal of the group. That would be my inclination.

--
Kathy, speaking only for myself

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Kathy Morgan <see_re...@invalid.net> wrote:
> Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:
>
>> Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:
>>> Big 8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:
>>>> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
>>>> moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
>>>
>>> Thank you for launching the MVI. The only thing I would like to add is
>>> that, should the investigation end up there, I volunteer to take over
>>> moderation of RSPWM and am willing to fund and maintain a server to host
>>> moderation software.
>>
>> Hello. It's been almost a month since the MVI was posted, so I was
>> wondering if there was any update on progress you could provide?
>
> There does not appear to be anyone interested in this group other than
> yourself.

The thread I posted here re RSPWM in February did receive one broadly
supportive response, and when I emailed the Big-8 Management Board one of
the members was positive about the notion of restoring moderation
functionality, but point taken. Perhaps the current audience of
news.groups.proposals doesn't particularly intersect with pro-wrestling
fandom.

>It seems likely to me that the moderator lost interest as a
> result of lack of submissions.

It's certainly my impression, from the conversations I've had with them
(see my February post to this group), that they've lost interest, and
that's possibly due to lack of submissions. He didn't seem aware that
moderation was broken until I hunted him down on Twitter and asked about
it. There very well could have been other submissions lost in the void
after the moderation setup had failed.

>One of the possible results of an MVI
> would be removal of the group. That would be my inclination.

I'd like to request for the Board to consider giving resurrection under a
new moderator a chance. I'm willing to take the task on myself, and willing
to fund and maintain a server to house moderation software. The unmoderated
rec.sport.pro-wrestling is, by and large, a disaster but there are
occasional pro-wrestling topics, sadly quickly derailed/nuked by trolling.
I think it's possible that, given a troll-free group, these on-topic
posters might be tempted across. If the group is still moribund after, say,
18 months then I would agree that the case for removal is strong and likely
for the best. But I'd appreciate the opportunity to try and save it first.

[Kathy Morgan]

Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:

> Perhaps the current audience of
> news.groups.proposals doesn't particularly intersect with pro-wrestling
> fandom.

The MVI was crossposted to rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated, so if
anyone is reading the group they will have seen the post. No one other
than yourself has responded to it. (As a moderator for
news.groups.proposals, I know that no submissions have been received, so
it is not that submissions have been received and rejected.)

--
Kathy

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Big 8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:

> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
> moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
>
> This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
> moderated newsgroup rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated is not
> functioning, and may have been abandoned by its moderator(s).

Dear Board, I am writing further to the MVI that is in progress.

I note what has been said previously in terms of no interest having been
expressed for RSPWM but I do observe that no objections from other users
regarding the MVI have been posted to the MVI thread and that no
user/moderator of RSPWM has posted any objection to the statement that
moderation has failed.

I am able and willing to assume moderator duties and am able to have a
moderation software install up and running immediately, with technical
support provided by Paul Schleck. In terms of what I would do with the
group, I would immediately set up scripts to pull in news feeds from
several major pro-wrestling sites, which would seed on-topic content into
the group on a daily basis. Additionally, I would regularly start new
threads on the pro-wrestling topics du jour, such as reaction to PPV and
weekly TV shows, hiring/firing gossip, the various industry scandals that
blow up from time to time, and links/commentary on the latest released
wrestling podcasts, amongst other miscellaneous topics. With this varied
on-topic content, and by making alert posts to unmoderated wrestling
newsgroups, I would hope to attract regular contributors. Also, I would
set-up and grow a Twitter account to bot-Tweet new threads, in the same way
I have done at Twitter.com/ukradioamateur for uk.radio.amateur.moderated.

Accordingly, I respectfully request that the Board move to resolve the MVI
with the decision to assign myself as the new moderator of
rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated.

Many thanks.

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Stephen Thomas Cole <use...@stephenthomascole.com> wrote:

Hello Board. It's been a month since I posted the above request, could you
please advise how this will be resolved?

Thanks

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Hello again, Board. It's been another month, any news on how your thinking
in terms of a resolution? I reiterate; I'm ready and able to take up the
reins of moderation for this currently broken newsgroup.

Thanks!

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Big 8 Management Board <bo...@big-8.org> wrote:

> MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
> moderated group rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
>
> This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
> moderated newsgroup rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated is not
> functioning, and may have been abandoned by its moderator(s).
>

Just FYI; the moderator of RSPWM has resurrected moderation and the
newsgroup is once again functional. The MVI May be ended. Thank you for
your efforts.

If anyone wants to talk pro-graps, head on over to RSPWM!