Informal proposal
William Elliot
(Moderated)
Distribution List:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
sci.math
Proponent: William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.com>
Moderators:
Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack Bateman
Rationale:
Over the last few years, ever increasing amounts of inane, off topic,
gross and commercial stuff has been posted at sci.math and ensuing upon
that, numerous post complaining, lamenting about the large amount of
trash, what to do about it and added discussions about sci.math's
cranks.
The overwhelming amounts of noisome noise puts an undue strain upon
legitimate posters just to filter out the inanity. To the loss of
sci.math, such as discouraged regular quality posters. In addition, it
likely discourages welcomed new posters as well as giving others a totally
wrong impression about sci.math.
The abuse of sci.math has reached the point where some participates have
resolved to thwart further deterioration of sci.math by creating a
moderated sci.math. Five participants have offered to be moderators and
I, another participant, has offered to tackle the creation of a new group.
-- Charter and moderation policy
This is a moderated group for discussion about mathematics,
elementary through advanced, history of math, math education,
mathematical resources and mathematical puzzles, games and humor.
Posts are required to be on topic, sensible,
devoid of rudeness and vulgarity, and non-commercial.
Posts asking for or offering solution manuals are rejected.
Usenet etiquette is expected. See:
http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm
To inquire of a moderator's rejection, post to sci.math.mod
with subject "Moderator" with a correct email address by
which the moderator may privately reply.
This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
of simple TeX. Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
----
Steve Bonine
> Moderators:
> Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack Bateman
I would be interested to know what the plan might be for a moderation
platform -- software, server, and so on -- that these individuals will
access to actually perform the task of accepting and rejecting articles.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>sci.math.moderated Mathematics, elementary through advanced.
A suggestion for the next thread you start: include sci.math.moderated
in the subject line.
It will make it easier for folks to find the relevant threads.
I've changed the subject line in this reply, but with not much
hope that it will persist.
Some typo corrections:
>Over the last few years, ever increasing amounts of inane, off topic,
>gross and commercial stuff has been posted at sci.math and ensuing upon
>that, numerous post complaining, lamenting about the large amount of
post-->posts
>The overwhelming amounts of noisome noise puts an undue strain upon
>legitimate posters just to filter out the inanity. To the loss of
>sci.math, such as discouraged regular quality posters.
"To the loss of sci.math ..." is an incomplete sentence.
Perhaps: "This tends to discourage regular quality posters."
The phrase, "regular quality posters," is not elegant.
>The abuse of sci.math has reached the point where some participates have
participates-->participants
>resolved to thwart further deterioration of sci.math by creating a
>moderated sci.math. Five participants have offered to be moderators and
>I, another participant, has offered to tackle the creation of a new group.
has-->have ("I have")
>Posts are required to be on topic, sensible,
>devoid of rudeness and vulgarity, and non-commercial.
>Posts asking for or offering solution manuals are rejected.
Change "are" to "will be"?
>To inquire of a moderator's rejection ...
of-->about
It's a decent first draft. I'm not opposed to it in principle.
I hope y'all understand all of the costs and drawbacks of
moderation ...
Marty
--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.
William Elliot
Distribution List:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
sci.math
Proponent: William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.com>
Moderators:
Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack Bateman
Rationale:
Over the last few years, ever increasing amounts of inane, off topic,
gross and commercial stuff has been posted at sci.math and ensuing upon
that, numerous posts complaining, lamenting about the large amount of
trash, what to do about it and added discussions about sci.math's
cranks.
The overwhelming amounts of noisome noise puts an undue strain upon
legitimate posters just to filter out the inanity. To the loss of
sci.math, this volume of lousy posts and posters has discouraged some
of the quality posters. In addition, it likely discourages welcomed
new posters as well as giving others a totally wrong impression about
sci.math.
The abuse of sci.math has reached the point where some participants have
resolved to thwart further deterioration of sci.math by creating a
moderated sci.math. Five participants have offered to be moderators and
I, another participant, have offered to tackle the creation of a new group.
-- Charter and moderation policy
This is a moderated group for discussion about mathematics,
elementary through advanced, history of math, math education,
mathematical resources and mathematical puzzles, games and humor.
Posts are required to be on topic, sensible,
devoid of rudeness and vulgarity, and non-commercial.
Posts asking for or offering solution manuals are rejected.
Usenet etiquette is expected. See:
http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm
To inquire about a moderator's rejection, post to sci.math.mod
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
Thanks for fixing the subject line.
Typos:
>Over the last few years, ever increasing amounts of inane, off topic,
>gross and commercial stuff has been posted at sci.math ...
"Amounts" is plural.
"Has" is singular.
Choose: "amount ... has ..." or "amounts ... have ..."
It's called "agreement in number." The subject and predicate
must agree in number.
>The overwhelming amounts of noisome noise puts an undue strain upon
>legitimate posters just to filter out the inanity.
Same problem here. "Amount ... puts ... " or "amounts ... put ..."
>The abuse of sci.math has reached the point where some participants have
>resolved to thwart further deterioration of sci.math by creating a
>moderated sci.math.
Thought problem: You are proposing to create a new group.
That will leave the old group, sci.math, just exactly as
it has been from the beginning: unmoderated and subject
to the influx of trash posts. You will not be moderating
sci.math; you will be moderating sci.math.moderated.
I tend to doubt that the creation of sci.math.moderated
will stop the deterioration of sci.math; it may even
hasten it. Time will tell, if the new group attracts
enough support to elicit a positive vote from the board.
On that score, you might look at the standards for a
formal RFD:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd#traffic_analysis
When you file the formal RFD, and when it is corrected and
ready for prime time, it has to include the standard
boilerplate about how newsgroup creation works. You
should also have made up your minds about HOW to do
the moderation (not trivial). Then you will have to
show that the RFD has support by getting people who
want to post to the group to post to news.group.proposals.
William Elliot
> I tend to doubt that the creation of sci.math.moderated
> will stop the deterioration of sci.math; it may even
> hasten it. Time will tell, if the new group attracts
> enough support to elicit a positive vote from the board.
>
> On that score, you might look at the standards for a formal RFD:
>
> http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd
>
> http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd#traffic_analysis
>
> When you file the formal RFD, and when it is corrected and
> ready for prime time, it has to include the standard
> boilerplate about how newsgroup creation works
> You should also have made up your minds about HOW to do
> the moderation (not trivial).
As the discussion was going on forever and nothing else was getting done,
I went ahead to get the ball rolling and into n.g.p. where we could
address the other issues and discuss the moderation policy among ourselves
and the participants of n.g.p.
We also need help about the moderation platform. What software and
server is available? Is a third party needed for a server?
> Then you will have to show that the RFD has support by getting people
> who want to post to the group to post to news.group.proposals.
Do we do that just before RFD or as part of it?
-- version three
sci.math.moderated Mathematics, elementary through advanced.
(Moderated)
Distribution List:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
sci.math
Proponent: William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.com>
Moderators:
Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack Bateman
Rationale:
Over the last few years, the ever increasing amount of inane, off topic,
gross and commercial stuff has been posted at sci.math and ensuing upon
that, numerous posts complaining, lamenting about the large amount of
trash, what to do about it and added discussions about sci.math's
cranks.
The overwhelming amount of noisome noise puts an undue strain upon
legitimate posters just to filter out the inanity. To the loss of
sci.math, this volume of lousy posts and posters has discouraged some
of the quality posters. In addition, it likely discourages welcomed
new posters as well as giving others a totally wrong impression about
sci.math.
The abuse of sci.math has reached the point where some participants have
resolved to thwart further deterioration of sci.math by creating a
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>We also need help about the moderation platform. What software and
>server is available?
The readily available software I've heard about is listed at
the bottom of the page:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:moderation
> Is a third party needed for a server?
The advantage of server-based solutions is that you can
have multiple moderators work on the newsgroup.
>> Then you will have to show that the RFD has support by getting people
>> who want to post to the group to post to news.group.proposals.
>Do we do that just before RFD or as part of it?
As part of the process. From the explanation of what an
RFD is:
"It is in the best interests of the proposed group to get as many
people as possible interested in the proposal during the discussion
of the RFD. The requirement that prospective supporters show
themselves to be familiar with Usenet means that the new group may
have a good nucleus of posters if and when it is created. A
newsgroup with no news is no fun. The more people whom proponents
persuade to show support for the proposal by making Usenet posts
during the discussion, the better it is for the newsgroup itself if
and when it is created. A proponent may not simply assume that the
creation of a newsgroup will attract traffic from existing
alternatives to Usenet."
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd
Steve Bonine
> On Sun, 23 Aug 2009, Martin X. Moleski, SJ wrote:
>> You should also have made up your minds about HOW to do
>> the moderation (not trivial).
> We also need help about the moderation platform. What software and
> server is available? Is a third party needed for a server?
My advice would be to spend some time, now, on figuring out the nitty
gritty of how you're going to moderate the newsgroup. I say this
because you might discover, after a bit of research, that the process of
moderation is sufficiently complex that you don't care to invest the
resources to make it happen. With the widespread availability of web
forums, the mentality today is that actually setting up the newsgroup is
a five minute job and then you're open for business. With Usenet that's
not true for a moderated newsgroup.
In Usenet, the submissions to a moderated newsgroup are emailed to one
email address. Something at that email address must accept the input
and inject the submissions into Usenet as news articles.
You've got a team of moderators, which is an excellent plan. A
consequence of that decision is that you need a platform, probably web
based, where all the moderators can examine submissions and approve
them. That means that you need a software product and a server to run
it on. You also need someone with sufficient technical expertise to set
up the platform, or you can pay for the service.
The bottom line is that it's not free. At best, you'll find an
individual who has capacity on a server and is willing to donate it to
you and is also willing to provide the technical expertise that you
need. More typically you're going to end up spending actual money to
pay for the service, so you should find out, now, whether there's enough
interest in the idea to obtain that commitment.
William Elliot
>>> Then you will have to show that the RFD has support by getting people
>>> who want to post to the group to post to news.group.proposals.
>
>> Do we do that just before RFD or as part of it?
>
> As part of the process. From the explanation of what an
> RFD is:
>
I make an informal announcement of a moderated sci.math asking if sci.math
users are interesting in having a sci.math.moderated. I cross post that
to sci.math and n.g.p. or I cross post that to sci.math and n.g.p with
Followup-to:news.groups.proposals. The former is likely to get more
discussion. What do you think?
Then, IIRC, I'm to keep a list of positive replies?
The moderators do not want there email addresses posted at sci.math.
Is that to be a problem with RFD?
Doug Freyburger
>
> Then, IIRC, I'm to keep a list of positive replies?
Positive, negative and ambiguous.
So far you've posted 3 versions. Once you post the RFD to NAN
to start the formal process I suggest slower updates. Or even
go with the informal phase to settle on the document then move
through the formal part as quick as the calendar allows.
> The moderators do not want there email addresses posted at sci.math.
> Is that to be a problem with RFD?
It is not a problem while you are in the informal discussion
phase, but once you post the actual RFD to NAN to get the
process formally started it's definitely a problem. Part of the
price of volunteering to be a moderator is your e-mail address
appears in full without any munging in the document.
There's the option of opening a new account strictly for that
purpose. I've been posting to UseNet with an open account
since before people started munging their addresses and
using handles so when I listed my address in several I just
used my well known one, but that's a matter of personal
preference on my part. If the concern is spam level I get
far less spam than my wife and she never posts to UseNet.
There are non-spam concerns that I have decided to not
worry about.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>I make an informal announcement of a moderated sci.math asking if sci.math
>users are interesting in having a sci.math.moderated. I cross post that
>to sci.math and n.g.p. or I cross post that to sci.math and n.g.p with
>Followup-to:news.groups.proposals. The former is likely to get more
>discussion. What do you think?
You may post directly to sci.math and set the followup to n.g.p.
Make sure that you have a note to that effect in the post.
It's not fair to folks to set the followup without telling them
you have done so.
>Then, IIRC, I'm to keep a list of positive replies?
Positive, negative, cautionary, etc.
The best way to identify posts is with message IDs in case
anybody wants to check your work.
>The moderators do not want their email addresses posted at sci.math.
>Is that to be a problem with RFD?
There should be at least one real and humanly decipherable e-mail
address in the RFD. It is useful to be able to discuss the
development of the RFD in e-mail (so, for example, correcting
typos like "there-->their" before the next version of an RFD
is published).
Doug Freyburger
>
> Thought problem: You are proposing to create a new group.
> That will leave the old group, sci.math, just exactly as
> it has been from the beginning: unmoderated and subject
> to the influx of trash posts. �You will not be moderating
> sci.math; you will be moderating sci.math.moderated.
> I tend to doubt that the creation of sci.math.moderated
> will stop the deterioration of sci.math; it may even
> hasten it. �Time will tell, if the new group attracts
> enough support to elicit a positive vote from the board.
I have ended up disagreeing with Marty on this point.
Before I submitted the RFD for soc.religion.asatru I found as
many topics as possible that have an unmoderated and a
moderated newsgroup. I counted posts and saw that in
every case the moderated version has lower traffic. I also
checked moderated groups that don't have direct parallels
of unmoderated groups and they too had lower traffic. Where
some use that data to conclude that moderation is the
problem every active moderated group I checked had a far
better signal to noise ratio than any unmoderated group I
checked. Because of the better signal to noise ratio I took
it as an environmental statistic about moderated groups that
applies in general and looked to other effects of how
moderation impacted historical traffic trends.
In most case what I saw was after a moderated version was
created the noise level on the unmoderated group started
to drop. It would have been nice for that to have happened
in all cases, but the pairs of soc.men plus soc.men.moderated
and news.groups plus news.groups.proposals failed to follow
the trend set by other pairs. But the drop in noise on the
unmoderated version was very interesting to me and enough
for me to pursue a moderated group.
Once a moderated group is in place, the regulars have the
option to use it as a bomb shelter to move to during very high
noise level times. The very existance of that option tends to
cause a gradual drop in the troll inclusions by the highest
traffic types like kooks and kookologists who do not go away
when ignored because they answer their own posts. But note
well it does nothing to change the traffic by trolls of the type
that do go away when ignored like the single-shot contest
trolls. Having a moderated version also does nothing to
reduce traffic from spammers in the unmoderated version.
So I suggest a non-obvious criterion for judging the success
of the moderated version - 1) Get better signal to noise in the
unmoderated version and the moderated version was
successful no matter its traffic. 2) Get significant traffic to
the moderated version and the group was successful no
matter the signal to noise ratio on the unmoderated group.
Sure, both would be nice but either is enough.
On the moderated group, depending on the software used
for moderation some spam may get through - The more
automated the package selected the more it depends on
automated spam filtering and our own e-mail boxes show
how well that works. Moderation only solves the spam problem
if it is hand moderation. Even with spam filtering combined
with hand moderation the moderators see spam in the hand
moderation queue - I'm on two hand moderation teams and I
reject a few spam messages each week and I see very many
automated rejection messages in my filtered folder of ones
the automation caught. Try finding some inactive moderated
groups and you'll see the rate of spam that gets through by
forging approvals - The rate is low but not zero. Part of the
duties of the moderation team is to go after the preps who
forge approvals and get their accounts cancelled.
A note on other duties of the proponent and moderation
team - Propagation of Big-8 newsgroups is gradual and
uncertain. For a while they need to track which major NSPs
carry the group and ask them to carry it. Having each
moderator use a different service helps because requests
from registered members get more attention than requests
from outsiders. This will include finding posters on the
unmoderated version who are on some service and getting
them to request the moderated version be carried. This duty
eventually drops to nothing - I haven't worked on further
propogation of soc.religion.asatru or news.groups.proposals
in a long time, but there is a group I volunteered to help on
that I still ask Google Groups each year to carry it.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<1f704ca7-64e9-402a...@o6g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>:
> ... Part of the
>price of volunteering to be a moderator is your e-mail address
>appears in full without any munging in the document. ...
The guidelines, such as they are, only mandate that the
contact address be decipherable by humans and that someone
be available at that address.
4. Proponent Information
* Proponents must supply a name and a decipherable
e-mail address.
* More than one proponent may be listed in the RFD.
So long as the RFD supplies the lead proponent's e-mail
address, the other proponents may provide an address
or not at their discretion.
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:rfd#proponent_information
The purpose of this requirement is to allow the board and
other interested parties to contact the proponent(s) during
the RFD phase. It is not a standing requirement after
that; the submission address then becomes the preferred
way to contact the moderator(s) for a moderated group;
for an unmoderated group, posting to the newsgroup should
get the attention of the proponent(s).
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<e243cfee-5fe7-4af2...@w6g2000yqw.googlegroups.com>:
>"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mole...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>> ... I tend to doubt that the creation of sci.math.moderated
>> will stop the deterioration of sci.math; it may even
>> hasten it. ...
>I have ended up disagreeing with Marty on this point. ...
Fair enough.
I haven't done the kind of comparative study that you've
done. You've earned the right to take a different view. :o)
For the purposes of refining the RFD, I think it ought not to
claim that the creation of sci.math.moderated will rescue
sci.math from noise and confusion. Maybe it will, maybe it
won't. The proposal to create sci.math.moderated has to
prove attractive to enough active posters for sci.math.moderated
to work, regardless of what happens in sci.math.
Some moderated groups work; some fail. Some unmoderated groups
work; some fail. Some moderated groups may improve the
atmosphere in parallel unmoderated groups--but I don't think
that can be assumed or asserted as a given in the Rationale.
There are five proponents for this RFD (so far). That's
a good start on getting a nucleus of active posters to commit
to making sci.math.mod work.
One wrinkle for the proponents to work on sooner or later:
will MathForum carry the moderated group if it is created?
It would be nice to have a "yes" to that question in terms
of attracting a larger audience for the proposed group.
William Elliot
> William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> wrote
>
>> I make an informal announcement of a moderated sci.math asking if
>> sci.math users are interesting in having a sci.math.moderated. I cross
>> post that to sci.math and n.g.p. or I cross post that to sci.math and
>> n.g.p with Followup-to:news.groups.proposals. The former is likely to
>> get more discussion. What do you think?
>
> You may post directly to sci.math and set the followup to n.g.p.
>
Ok I've decided to do an interest survey in the informal discussion.
Am I correct to understand once that's done, that for the RFD, all that
will be required to show interest, is my log of replies.
The options I see are
cross post to sci.math and NGP,
cross post to sci.math and NGP with replies to NGP
post to sci.math with replies to NGP.
Which options are acceptable and which are not?
> Make sure that you have a note to that effect in the post.
> It's not fair to folks to set the followup without telling them
> you have done so.
>
>> Then, IIRC, I'm to keep a list of positive replies?
>
> Positive, negative, cautionary, etc.
>
> The best way to identify posts is with message IDs in case
> anybody wants to check your work.
>
By that's you mean the message-id in the header.
Kathy Morgan
> This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
> of simple TeX. Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
I'm worried about this. I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
binary postings. Could someone more knowledgable of TeX comment? Is
simple TeX customarily used in sci.math?
--
Kathy, member of B8MB, speaking only for myself
Bart Goddard
kmo...@spamcop.net:
> William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> wrote:
>
>> This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
>> of simple TeX. Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
>
> I'm worried about this. I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
> binary postings. Could someone more knowledgable of TeX comment? Is
> simple TeX customarily used in sci.math?
They would not be binary. TeX is a typesetting language, so a
"TeX post" would be in ASCII, but look a little funny to the
untrained eye:
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{x^2} \; dx = \sqrt{pi}
The nice-looking .PDF or .DVI that one gets after processing
the TeX code would be off limits, but not the code itself.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> wrote:
>> This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
>> of simple TeX. Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
>I'm worried about this. I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
>binary postings.
I think not.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Mathematics
LaTeX is a ridiculously powerful markup language.
Its roots lie in the early days of computing when
there were no WYSIWYG editors available. I first
heard about TEX in 1982 when I was exploring how
to do a dissertation on a DEC minicomputer;
fortunately I was spared the agony of SED/NROFF
by the PC revolution ...
TEX and LaTeX allow an ASCII string to be formatted and
displayed graphically, while the source itself
is plain text.
Folks could take a post that uses LaTeX and
run it through an interpreter to make the
mathematics more readable.
I don't know whether there are newsreaders that
would detect LaTeX and interpret it on the fly.
That sure would be nice to have for the math
newsgroups ...
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>Ok I've decided to do an interest survey in the informal discussion.
>Am I correct to understand once that's done, that for the RFD, all that
>will be required to show interest, is my log of replies?
Yes.
You should keep your log current as the discussion continues.
You may post interim reports as you see fit. The final
RFD (Last Call for Comments) is where you submit the results
available up to that time.
>The options I see are
> cross post to sci.math and NGP,
> cross post to sci.math and NGP with replies to NGP
> post to sci.math with replies to NGP.
>Which options are acceptable and which are not?
So long as replies are made in some newsgroup, Message-IDs
will let those who wish to confirm your results see the
data.
Replies to n.g.p are helpful because the board has made
a commitment to follow discussions there, but you may
collect feedback in sci.math or news.groups or from other
newsgroups as well.
>> The best way to identify posts is with message IDs in case
>> anybody wants to check your work.
>By that you mean the message-id in the header.
Yes, exactly. For example, the Message-ID of your post,
the one to which I am replying now, is:
Message-ID: <2009082800...@agora.rdrop.com>
That Message-ID can then be used in an Advanced Google
Search to see the original message:
http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&hl=en&
Alternatively, people who have their own archives or
access to a system with long retention may use their
own search system to find the original message.
This is the only system we have for allowing others
to check the results of interest surveys. If someone
contacts you via e-mail, you should ask them to make
a post in a newsgroup that expresses their view.
Steve Crook
Message-Id: <1j54qxt.1ntzzo61fjn8kbN%kmo...@spamcop.net>:
> I'm worried about this. I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
> binary postings. Could someone more knowledgable of TeX comment? Is
> simple TeX customarily used in sci.math?
TeX is a document markup language so it shouldn't be recognized as
Binary by filters. It would probably be good idea to clarify if the
groups prefers inline or MIME attached teX. There are a couple of
associated MIME Types:
application/x-tex
application/x-latex
Doug Freyburger
> William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> wrote:
>
> > This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
> > of simple TeX. �Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
>
> I'm worried about this. �I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
> binary postings. �Could someone more knowledgable of TeX comment?
TeX is a programming language. It is not binary but the output
after processing it is.
> Is simple TeX customarily used in sci.math?
Tex was written by a math professor to be able to produce math
papers.
Kathy Morgan
Ah, good! Thanks to you and all the other respondents who clarified
that for me.
--
Kathy
William Elliot
> kmo...@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan) wrote
>> William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This is a plain text ascii only newsgroup that allows small amounts
>>> of simple TeX. Binaries and attachments are not allowed.
>>
>> I'm worried about this. I'm fairly sure Simple TeX postings would be
>> binary postings. Could someone more knowledgeable of TeX comment? Is
>> simple TeX customarily used in sci.math?
>
> They would not be binary. TeX is a typesetting language, so a
> "TeX post" would be in ASCII, but look a little funny to the
> untrained eye:
>
> \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{x^2} \; dx = \sqrt{pi}
>
That's the very upper limit of simple.
Oh yes, as was pointed out, inline TeX.
A rule I use is the visually harder it is to read,
the less likely I'll read it, the lousier the punctuation,
the less likely I'll give a hoot.
Frederick Williams
> Moderators:
> Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack Bateman
May we know who the moderators are? I.e. can each of the above state
(Scouts' Honour or whatever) that they are not using a pseudonym? It
may be that it is quite improper of me to raise the point, if so then I
lower it forthwith and ask forgiveness.
Also, if any of the moderators have professional affiliations related to
mathematics, may we know what they are? This is simple curiosity on my
behalf and I shall not object if I am told to mind my own business.
--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.
Bart Goddard
news:4AB9DD86...@tesco.net:
> William Elliot wrote:
>
>> Moderators:
>> Cliff Bott, Bart Goddard, Bob Silverman, Penny Hassett, Jack
>> Bateman
>
> May we know who the moderators are?
I'm Bart Goddard, and I'm a lecturer at UT Austin. It's easy
enough to google me. (But I'm not the realtor or the bicycle
racer.) Of the other moderators, the only one I know personally
is Bob Silverman, who is a whopping good mathematican.
Cliff B
moderators in order to introduce myself.
My name is Cliff Bott. I'm a retired guy who reads maths as a hobby.
Many years ago I got a PhD in physical chemistry, I worked for a while
as a research fellow in that field but most of my working life I spent
as a civil servant in the federal government in Australia. I now live
in Sydney, Australia, conveniently not too far from the University of
Sydney.
On Sep 24, 2:24�am, Frederick Williams <frederick.willia...@tesco.net>
wrote: