MWSM Wishlist and Possible Rules (ideas)

[dbl...@gmail.com]

(Hopefully this would be a way to clean up MWSM and foster more screenplay related posts. I'd appreciate any advice on how to do this, and if this is even technically possible. Thank you.)

This is the way I'd like this group to work, if it was up to me and if it's doable. I'm not sure if this is doable technically, so it's just a wishlist, right now. And hopefully something that will get people to make some suggestions.

Whitelist.
One of the things that made misc.writing.screenplays fun was the immediate responses -- manual moderation would kill that. Being totally ignorant of how the mechanism works a whitelist sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

So, if a whitelist is doable this is how I'd like it to work -- if possible.

1) We trap a new user to MWSM and they post a message.
2) An auto reply email is sent to them with the message something like: "Since this is your first post on misc.writing.screenplays.moderated, we need to verify that you're a real person. Please send a message from the same email address to (verification email address), stating 'I am a real person'. After you've been given access to misc.writing.screenplays.moderated your first post will appear. Posts after that will appear immediately, unless you don't behave yourself."
3) The new user gets approved and is put on the whitelist.
4) When approved we send out a form congratulations email to the new user which included "the rules".

The Rules.
1) Don't be a complete asshole. Being a complete asshole can get you banned from this newsgroup. (More "diplomatic" language might not be a bad idea.)
2) Don't spam anything unrelated to screenplays or film making. Spamming unrelated items can get you banned from this newsgroup.
3) If you're spamming items related to screenplays, etc., place "AD" in the title.
4) Even though this group is primarily related to screenplays and film making, off topic posts are permitted. But please place "OT" in the title.

Hopefully that's simple enough. And maybe the whitelist would clean out the spam and the Jai/Jay's.

Just some ideas.

Paulo Joe Jingy

[Mark Kramer]

In article <7b37a34a-c663-40de...@googlegroups.com>,
<dbl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Whitelist.

Whilelists don't work. Ask the people in SSFAM. They had a whitelist.
They refused to believe that whitelists could be easily bypassed. They
were told that they would need to manually vet every article if they
wanted to keep out their very persistent flamers and spammers. They
ignored that advice. It worked ... for a time.

Then it happened. By setting up an unreachable goal they made the
failure to achieve that goal even more spectacular. So they started
manually moderating every message. Then they left Usenet, I think.

>1) We trap a new user to MWSM and they post a message.

What is "trap a new user"? Do you want people to feel trapped in the
group?

>2) An auto reply email is sent to them with the message something like:

Many people post to Usenet with a non-replyable address just to keep from
being spammed themselves. You want them to open themselves up to a flood
of spam in return for an ineffective way of keeping spam out of the group.

Second, email is not a prerequisite to having Usenet.

>The Rules.
>1) Don't be a complete asshole.

Right. That would be your one shot at email into my mailbox.

>3) If you're spamming items related to screenplays, etc., place "AD" in
>the title.

Spam or no spam, pick one. I'm selling paper. People print screenplays
on paper. Thus my spam is related to screenplays. People that
write screenplays live in houses. I have cool stuff to decorate your
house. People that write screenplays have sex. I have pills that help
with sex.

Rules that say "no X except for X that ..." are harder to enforce and
easier to game.

>4) Even though this group is primarily related to screenplays and film
>making, off topic posts are permitted. But please place "OT" in the
>title.

Voluntary tagging does not work. Usenet groups are created based on the
idea that they are for certain topics. Off-topic means they should go where
they are on-topic. But since nobody will tag their stuff just so other
people won't read it ...

>Hopefully that's simple enough. And maybe the whitelist would clean out
>the spam and the Jai/Jay's.

The more persistent the poster, the less the whitelist works.

[Jeff Newman]

On Monday, May 12, 2014 5:50:03 PM UTC-7, dbl...@gmail.com wrote:

> This is the way I'd like this group to work, if it was up to me and if it's doable.
>

> Whitelist.
>
> One of the things that made misc.writing.screenplays fun was the immediate responses -- manual moderation would kill that.

True -- plus, it would be extremely time-consuming for the moderator(s). Now, in another post in response to yours, Mark Kramer points out the whitelists usually don't work. Me: I have no idea. We need to consult with him and Paul Schleck and anyone else knowledgeable about how to get rid of spam and to enforce some basic, clear rules. But the point is: manual moderation would result in unwanted delays, and it would be too time-consuming for the moderators.

> So, if a whitelist is doable this is how I'd like it to work -- if possible.

So let's say, if "technology" exists -- STUMP-based software or whatever.

> 1) We trap a new user to MWSM and they post a message.

Mark K didn't like that term -- I don't know if it's the standard term, but I know what you mean: one's first post can't just go through. One has to have them (a) enter the code from the little box that helps to screen out auto-spam, and (b) informs them of the group's TOS, standards, rules, or whatever you want to call them.

> 2) An auto reply email is sent to them with the message something like: "Since this is your first post on misc.writing.screenplays.moderated, we need to verify that you're a real person. Please send a message from the same email address to (verification email address), stating 'I am a real person'. After you've been given access to misc.writing.screenplays.moderated your first post will appear. Posts after that will appear immediately, unless you don't behave yourself."

This sounds intelligent and based on how other sites operate, doable. We need to adjust the wording of the message a bit, but we get your drift.

> 3) The new user gets approved and is put on the whitelist.

Well, it does seem a good way to initiate things. And then after that, the other auto-filters (ye olde STUMP-based software or other alternatives that have proven reliable, can be employed.

> 4) When approved we send out a form congratulations email to the new user which included "the rules".

> The Rules.
>
> 1) Don't be a complete asshole. Being a complete asshole can get you banned from this newsgroup. (More "diplomatic" language might not be a bad idea.)

More diplomatic language most definitely would be a good idea -- but yes, the gist of it would indeed be what you said. Barbed disagreement has to be allowed. But certain standards of civility have to be maintained. And yes, at times a person will be right on the line of acceptability vs non ... and at times, a subjective judgment call will have to be made -- such is the nature of moderation. But as we've seen, no moderation, or too little, just leads to the bullies and spammers taking over, the the good folks heading for the hills (and/or Facebook). We need to be able to warn, then if needed, ban the flamers and the persistent, overt trolls and most definitely the spam -- and the inundation of off-topic stuff that is not identified as such).

> 2) Don't spam anything unrelated to screenplays or film making. Spamming unrelated items can get you banned from this newsgroup.

I strongly agree. Except not "can": "will."

> 3) If you're spamming items related to screenplays, etc., place "AD" in the title.

This made sense to me, but so does Mark Kramer's rebuttal. Determined spammers would try to circumvent that.

The answer might be: if a poster wants to slip in a smidgen of an ad, s/he can do an actual, screenwriting-related post, and then have a bit of a P.S., or something in his/her signature line. That would be fine. That's what several people did at mws, and it worked fine.

> 4) Even though this group is primarily related to screenplays and film making, off topic posts are permitted. But please place "OT" in the title.

I would get rid of the "please.' People get tired very fast of checking out a post that they assume is about screenwriting (given the name of the group), only to find it's something else. So for me, OT's are fine ... IF they, in the subject line, are preceded by "OT:" ... AND if they are posted by folks who have contributed in the past, and now and then, on actual on-topic, screenwriting-related topics. Otherwise, instead of spam, we'd have an entry page filled with OT: This ... OT: That ... and OT: And the Other.

Now, maybe that would be too difficult to moderate. I don't know. I'm not bothered by a few OT posts, if they are by those who have and sometimes continue to contribute to screenwriting topics. But would this be too time-consuming for the moderators? We could try it and see how it goes. If it's too time-consuming, and/or it still winds up that the majority of the posts are OT, then we could ban those, too.

> Hopefully that's simple enough. And maybe the whitelist would clean out the spam and the Jai/Jay's.

Sounds good to me. It's a great start for the discussion.

And probably the moderator(s) should consult with Paul Schleck and Mark Kramer and any others with experience regarding spam and other filtering. While all of Paul S's suggestions are gobbledygook to an non-techie like me, it does sound like he has some good solutions, and he said he'd be willing to help the moderator set it up.

One would think there would be an easier solution (in terms of software to do what needs to be done to get rid of the spam and do the initial "trap" and etc. mentioned above. If so, chances are someone will suggest it, or some research could ferret it out. But if not, it sounds like he has found ways to make his groups work, and is kindly willing to help (thanks, Paul). And thank you Mark, as well -- your points are well taken.

> Just some ideas.

And good ones, at that. Could be that some need tweaking. But you got the discussion going.

The point is: some of us want to save the group, but only if all the spam can be screened out (or 99%, and the few that get past the filters can then be blocked in advance in the future), and only if the moderator has the discretion to inform, warn, and block those who are toxic -- flamers, persistent trolls, etc.

Once that's done, several of us can get the word out by various means so that folks are aware of the group. I suspect that we could have hundreds, even thousands, who would at least come by now and then to read, and probably dozens, maybe even hundreds, who would post -- some once in a while, and some almost daily.

But we can't spread the word until the group is cleaned up.

Jeff Newman

[Paul W. Schleck]

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Hash: SHA1

In <7b37a34a-c663-40de...@googlegroups.com> dbl...@gmail.com writes:

>(Hopefully this would be a way to clean up MWSM and foster more screenplay related posts. I'd appreciate any advice on how to do this, and if this is even technically possible. Thank you.)

>This is the way I'd like this group to work, if it was up to me and if it's doable. I'm not sure if this is doable technically, so it's just a wishlist, right now. And hopefully something that will get people to make some suggestions.

>Whitelist.
>One of the things that made misc.writing.screenplays fun was the immediate responses -- manual moderation would kill that. Being totally ignorant of how the mechanism works a whitelist sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

>So, if a whitelist is doable this is how I'd like it to work -- if possible.

I would recommend using an existing moderation bot technology that is
already deployed for several moderated newsgroups, and has proven
successful over many years. One that could be a drop-in, turn-key
solution that could be stood up in a Panix account, either new or
existing, within hours, and would be more realistic and low-risk than
trying to reinvent the wheel with a custom software solution which may
or may not get implemented, or even work reliably if so. I have such a
solution.

The idea of a whitelist is workable, but must be done as part of an
overall layered, scored approach (e.g., the Multiuser Adaptive Recursive
Killfile, or MARK). Such a scoring solution will also automatically
address attempts at SPAM(R) (*). Bypassing moderation by forged
approval has not really been seen in recent years, as it's usually
immediately actionable by most News Service Providers, but can be
automatically detected and reported by another useful technology called
PGPMoose.

I would be happy to discuss the details further with you via e-mail.

- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger psch...@novia.net for PGP Public Key

(*) SPAM(R) is a Registered Trademark of Hormel Foods, LLC

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[RonB]

On Tue, 13 May 2014 09:10:09 -0600, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

> I would recommend using an existing moderation bot technology that is
> already deployed for several moderated newsgroups, and has proven
> successful over many years. One that could be a drop-in, turn-key
> solution that could be stood up in a Panix account, either new or
> existing, within hours, and would be more realistic and low-risk than
> trying to reinvent the wheel with a custom software solution which may
> or may not get implemented, or even work reliably if so. I have such a
> solution.
>
> The idea of a whitelist is workable, but must be done as part of an
> overall layered, scored approach (e.g., the Multiuser Adaptive Recursive
> Killfile, or MARK). Such a scoring solution will also automatically
> address attempts at SPAM(R) (*). Bypassing moderation by forged
> approval has not really been seen in recent years, as it's usually
> immediately actionable by most News Service Providers, but can be
> automatically detected and reported by another useful technology called
> PGPMoose.
>
> I would be happy to discuss the details further with you via e-mail.

Hi Paul,

I'm not sure where all this stands right now (I believe Jeff has sent
private email to Alan), but your SPAM solution sounds great. I'm thinking
though that, at this point, Alan Brooks may wish to continue moderating
MWSM -- he's the one who has set up everything -- so it may be best to
address him about this time. I'm not trying to "pass the buck," but, at
this point, neither Jeff or I -- or anyone else -- really has any access
to the Panix account and it may (probably?) work out that we won't need
access. Though I'm willing to help Alan (or any moderator) in any way I
can if it comes down to that.

Thank you for your offer. If MWSM continues to exist (and I hope it does),
this definitely sounds like the way to go.

(If Jeff has already responded, I'm sorry for the extra traffic. But I
wanted to make sure your kind offer wasn't ignored.)

--
RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere."
Important ... discuss MWSM's fate at news.groups.proposals