3rd RFD: moderate news.newusers.questions
Jon Bell
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for changing the status
of an existing newsgroup, news.newusers.questions (n.n.q), from
'unmoderated' to 'moderated.' This is not a Call For Votes (CFV).
You cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are given below at
the end of this RFD.
CHANGES from previous RFD:
Added explicit language saying that "watch listing" will only happen
in response to off-topic posting attempts and only off-topic threads
will be terminated.
Added paragraph guaranteeing that the content of posted articles will
not be modified (except for adding the footer and header fields).
Changed allowing of rejection of
Empty articles (no subject or no body)
to the rejection of
Articles with no subject
Added one proponent.
END CHANGES.
This 3rd RFD continues the official public discussion phase of the
newsgroup modification process. Its purpose is to generate interest
in, and public comment on, the proposal listed above. It contains
information on the rationale underlying our proposal, a proposed
charter for n.n.q, plus further information on procedural details
regarding the Call For Votes. Members of the Usenet community are
encouraged to take part in the discussion, to ask questions about this
proposal, and to make suggestions for improvement.
Newcomers to Usenet, please note that when a Usenet newsgroup switches
to 'moderated' status, articles will no longer automatically be posted
to the group. Instead they will be reviewed by robot or human
moderators and accepted or rejected in accordance with the criteria
set forth in the newsgroup's charter.
If you have a good argument for or against this change or an idea of
how it could be improved, please post to news.groups. The easiest way
to do this is to respond directly to this RFD (using e.g. "Re: News"
in Netscape, or "follow up" in some newsreaders). Your comments will
be automatically posted only to news.groups. Then, if you want to
follow the discussion, you should subscribe to news.groups yourself
and look for articles with 'newusers' in the subject line. Please be
forewarned that news.groups can be rather busy, with discussions about
many newsgroup proposals going at the same time.
Newsgroup line:
news.newusers.questions Q & A for new users of Usenet. (Moderated)
RATIONALE: news.newusers.questions
News.newusers.questions (n.n.q) was intended to be a place where
newcomers could ask questions about Usenet and other Internet
services. Since June of 1995 traffic has increased dramatically to
around 1000-1100 articles per day. Many of these are "test" articles
("does this really work?"), requests for contacts ("send me some
e-mail"), and various other kinds of chatter which does not belong in
n.n.q. As a result, fewer than 20% of the articles posted to n.n.q
fall into the question-and-answer category. This makes it difficult
both for new users who are overwhelmed by the heavy traffic in
off-topic articles, and for the n.n.q helpers who are trying to give
meaningful assistance to those users actually seeking advice about
Usenet.
The proponents of this change plan to moderate the group with the help
of moderation software to return the group to readability without
requiring an enormous amount of work from the human moderator(s).
The charter below does not give a specific plan for implementing the
moderation process, nor does it give a specific balance between
robomoderation and hand-moderation. We expect it will be challenging
to convert such a high-traffic group with such a naturally transient
population of new users. We think that no one can say for sure which
methods are likely to prove effective, short of complete hand-
moderation, which we consider to be impractical. Therefore, we would
like to have the freedom to try various approaches, within the limits
specified below, and to determine by experiment which measures are
effective.
CHARTER: news.newusers.questions
NEWS.NEWUSERS.QUESTIONS (n.n.q) is for questions, answers and advice
about using Usenet news and other Internet newsgroups and services.
Articles which do not contribute to educating or informing new users
about Usenet are inappropriate for this newsgroup.
Some examples of inappropriate posts include:
Chain letters, including "Make Money Fast" articles
Known hoaxes (like the "Good Times Virus")
Announcements of non-relevant Web pages
Announcements of non-relevant services
Personal introductions or requests for e-mail
Irrelevant questions or conversation
Articles offering items for sale
Commercial advertisements
Test articles
These posts may be rejected regardless of their topic:
Articles which aren't primarily text in a standard alphabet
(e.g. binaries, pictures, Rot13).
Articles cross-posted to several newsgroups (except proper FAQs)
Articles posted as separate copies to many newsgroups ("spam")
Excessively long articles (more than ~200 lines or ~10K bytes)
Articles containing significantly more quoted than new content
Articles with no subject
Duplicate/rapidly reposted messages
The newsgroup will be moderated by a Moderation Board, consisting of
a Head Moderator and a pool of Backup Moderators. The moderation
process will be overseen by the Head Moderator, who may employ
assistants from the pool of Backup Moderators as the need arises.
Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to judge posts.
The current moderation procedures and policies will be described in
an Administrative Statement, which will be maintained by the Head
Moderator, with any changes subject to veto by the Board. The
Statement will be posted to the group whenever it changes, and at
least once per month. It will be available at all times at an address
posted regularly in the group.
All posts to the group may be processed through moderation software
which will take one of the following actions on each article:
1. Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria;
2. Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other
criteria; or
3. Post it immediately.
The criteria being used by either the moderation software or human
moderators will be described in the Administrative Statement. They
will not refer to the source of the articles except that the Head
Moderator may place certain individuals or sites which repeatedly try
to post off-topic material on a "watch list," which will cause their
articles to be forwarded to a human moderator for review. The Head
Moderator may also declare certain off-topic discussion threads to be
"closed," so that no more articles in that thread will be accepted.
Rejected articles will, if possible, be returned to the sender along
with a letter of explanation. Rejected articles may be appealed to an
address specified in the Administrative Statement and in any letter of
rejection. If an article was rejected by a human moderator, the
appeal will be judged by a different moderator. In the event of abuse
of the appeals process, the Moderation Board will decide what action
will be taken to deal with the abuse.
An article will normally be subject to rejection only at the time it
is submitted. Canceling of articles after they have been posted
("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control.
Cancelations will be permitted only under the following special
circumstances:
1. When performed or requested by the original poster or by his/
her Internet Service Provider;
2. When performed by the Head Moderator, to cancel articles with
forged approvals; or
3. When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as
determined by the Head Moderator), to cancel articles that are
widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g.
binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam").
In addition to rejecting inappropriate articles, the moderators may
take measures to discourage users from submitting such articles in the
first place, including:
1. Appending short "footers" to all posted articles, informing
newcomers of the purpose of the newsgroup and providing
references to more detailed information about the newsgroup,
the Usenet community, and the Internet in general; and
2. E-mailing "welcome" messages to all first-time posters,
containing similar information as in (1).
Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will
not modify the content of a posted article
The Head Moderator will submit a report to the Moderation Board each
month, providing statistics on the functioning of the group, a
summary of the articles appealed, and a list of any changes to the
Administrative Statement or the moderation software. The Board may
instruct the Head Moderator to eliminate any automatic rejection or
forwarding criterion from the moderation software.
The Board may elect a new Head Moderator if the position becomes
vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board may appoint a Backup Moderator
to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.
The Board also has the power to remove a Head Moderator. It may
remove a Head Moderator who has been in office for less than six weeks
through a simple majority vote of all members. A Moderator who has
been in office for more than six weeks may only be removed by a 2/3
majority vote of those who have been on the Board for at least six
weeks.
The Board controls its own membership. It may admit new members with
a simple majority vote, or remove members who have served for less
than six weeks with a simple majority vote. Members who have served
longer than six weeks may only be removed by a 2/3 vote of those who
have been on the Board for at least six weeks. The Board will make a
good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three persons.
The working charter for the group may be modified by a 2/3 vote of
those who have been members of the Moderation Board for at least six
weeks. A copy of the current charter will be available at a location
given in the Administrative Statement.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: news.newusers.questions
Moderator: Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu>
Jon teaches physics and computer science, administers the news server
at Presbyterian College (South Carolina, USA), and has participated in
news.newusers.questions since the spring of 1993. He will be the lead
moderator for the group, and the other moderators named below will
serve as backup moderators.
Moderator: Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu>
Ethan is a contract programmer and PhD candidate in physics. He has
been a regular Usenet participant since 1992.
Moderator: Dennis Calhoun <dcal...@BLomand.Net>
Dennis is a CNC Machinist, avid fisherman and a home computer user who
has been on Usenet since early 1996, primarily in n.n.q.
Moderator: Denis McKeon <dmc...@swcp.com>
Denis is an independent consultant and Usenet participant since 1982.
Moderator: Stella Nemeth <s.ne...@ix.netcom.com>
Stella is an executive assistant and data analyst. She has been a
regular Usenet participant since 1993.
Moderator: Barbara Pattist <pat...@ix.netcom.com>
Barbara is a chemical engineer, retired, and an active Usenet
participant since 1995.
Moderator: Kivi Shapiro <ki...@pobox.com>
Kivi is a Ph.D. candidate in Library and Information Science at the
University of Western Ontario (Canada) and has participated in Usenet
since 1989.
Submission address: <nnq...@presby.edu>
Administrative address: <nnq-...@presby.edu>
END MODERATOR INFO.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the newsgroup modification process, any potential problems with the
proposed change should be raised and resolved. The discussion period
will continue for a minimum of 10 days (starting from when the revised
RFD for this proposal was posted to news.announce.newgroups), after
which an official Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote
taker if the discussion warrants it.
Please do not attempt to vote until the Call For Votes is posted.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup," "How
to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal," and "How to Format and Submit a
New Group Proposal." Please refer to these documents, which are
available at http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/newgroup/ and in
news.announce.newgroups, if you have any questions about the
newsgroup creation process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been distributed to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, news.groups.questions,
news.newusers.questions, alt.newbie, alt.newbies, soc.penpals
and to the following mailing list:
Proponent: Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu>
Proponent: Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu>
Proponent: Michael Buchenrieder <mi...@scrum.muc.de>
Proponent: Dennis Calhoun <dcal...@BLomand.net>
Proponent: David Farrar <david....@mx.parliament.govt.nz>
Proponent: Dave Howard <cip...@mindspring.com>
Proponent: Denis McKeon <dmc...@swcp.com>
Proponent: Stella Nemeth <s.ne...@ix.netcom.com>
Proponent: Barbara Pattist <pat...@ix.netcom.com>
Proponent: Kivi Shapiro <ki...@pobox.com>
Proponent: Jeremy Taylor <jeremy...@mail.tait.co.nz>
Proponent: Katharine Weizel <ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu>
Henrietta Thomas
Jon Bell <jtb...@cs1.presby.edu> wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
>This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for changing the status
>of an existing newsgroup, news.newusers.questions (n.n.q), from
>'unmoderated' to 'moderated.' This is not a Call For Votes (CFV).
>You cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are given below at
>the end of this RFD.
>CHANGES from previous RFD:
>Added explicit language saying that "watch listing" will only happen
>in response to off-topic posting attempts and only off-topic threads
>will be terminated.
Here is the text of the first change:
>The criteria being used by either the moderation software or human
>moderators will be described in the Administrative Statement. They
>will not refer to the source of the articles except that the Head
>Moderator may place certain individuals or sites which repeatedly try
>to post off-topic material on a "watch list," which will cause their
^^^^^^^^^
>articles to be forwarded to a human moderator for review. The Head
>Moderator may also declare certain off-topic discussion threads to be
^^^^^^^^^
>"closed," so that no more articles in that thread will be accepted.
It is helpful to clarify that these measures will be taken only
against off-topic posts.
>Added paragraph guaranteeing that the content of posted articles will
>not be modified (except for adding the footer and header fields).
Here is the text of the second change:
>Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will
>not modify the content of a posted article
This is not so clear as regards the expressions "adding headers" and
"posted article".
I understand there must be an Approved: line added to the headers for
articles posted to a moderated group. I would like to know if any other
headers are planned.
I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
review.
My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
now due to the authority granted to the moderators to amend the charter
at will after they have held office for six weeks.
Henrietta Thomas
Chicago, Illinois
h...@wwa.com
--
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose
heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct,
will pursue his principles unto death. --- Thomas Paine
Ethan Bradford
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
> >Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will
> >not modify the content of a posted article
>
> This is not so clear as regards the expressions "adding headers" and
> "posted article".
>
> I understand there must be an Approved: line added to the headers for
> articles posted to a moderated group. I would like to know if any other
> headers are planned.
No others are planned, but informative headers are used in some groups
and we might use them some day.
> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
> review.
If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
Rodger Whitlock
Jon Bell <jtb...@cs1.presby.edu> wrote:
>...Since June of 1995 traffic has increased dramatically to
>around 1000-1100 articles per day. Many of these are...chatter
>which does not belong in n.n.q....
If/when the chatter is cut off, should new users see regular posts telling them
where such chatter *is* on-topic? Some fraction of new users seem to have an
irresistible urge to post "does this work" or "hi, send me email"
I admit that this urge may be an example of "monkey see, monkey do" and eliminating
the chatter from n.nu.q. may eliminate the urge itself.
----
Rodger Whitlock
Ethan Bradford
Rodger Whitlock <toto...@mail.pacificcoast.net> writes:
> If/when the chatter is cut off, should new users see regular posts
> telling them where such chatter *is* on-topic? Some fraction of new
> users seem to have an irresistible urge to post "does this work" or
> "hi, send me email"
Yes, indeed. We will regularly direct users to misc.test for "does
this work" posts. We're working on finding a group for "hi, send me
email" posts. Probably we will have to create one, and we've almost
decided on alt.test.hello-world.
> I admit that this urge may be an example of "monkey see, monkey do"
> and eliminating the chatter from n.nu.q. may eliminate the urge
> itself.
There is a lot of that, so eliminating some of it will eliminate
others, but since this is the first group many users are connected to
that they can post to, they will continue to try to do this here if we
aren't constantly vigilant against it.
-- Ethan
A Lieberman
Ethan Bradford wrote:
> Yes, indeed. We will regularly direct users to misc.test for "does
> this work" posts. We're working on finding a group for "hi, send me
> email" posts. Probably we will have to create one, and we've almost
> decided on alt.test.hello-world.
Hello,
Just curious..... Is it possible to have the robo-moderator
automatically forward test messages (using the same criteria already
proposed for rejection) to the appropriate "test" newsgroup with a
followup to the sender of the post advising where they can find their
message?
2 benefits from this idea......
1) The test poster has received a "response" from his post.
2) The test poster has been "gently" guided to the proper newsgroup.
Allen
--
http://www.bright.net/~lieberma/
Come visit my homepage!!!
Any unsolicited COMMERCIAL Email will be replied with a
complaint to the postmaster of the sender!
Ethan Bradford
> Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 23:02:21 -0800
> From: A Lieberman <lieb...@mail.bright.net>
> Newsgroups: news.groups
>
> Ethan Bradford wrote:
> > Yes, indeed. We will regularly direct users to misc.test for "does
> > this work" posts. We're working on finding a group for "hi, send me
> > email" posts. Probably we will have to create one, and we've almost
> > decided on alt.test.hello-world.
>
> Hello,
>
> Just curious..... Is it possible to have the robo-moderator
> automatically forward test messages (using the same criteria already
> proposed for rejection) to the appropriate "test" newsgroup with a
> followup to the sender of the post advising where they can find their
> message?
It is considered immoral to redirect a post. It is much better to
tell the person where the post should go and let him send it again.
If we automatically redirect it without telling him, he won't know
where to look for the post, anyhow.
> 2 benefits from this idea......
>
> 1) The test poster has received a "response" from his post.
Actually, assuming his email return address is correct, he will get a
response in the form of our rejection letter.
> 2) The test poster has been "gently" guided to the proper newsgroup.
We will make the rejection letters as gentle as possible, given that
we are mostly dealing with newbies who want to do the right thing but
just don't know what it is.
Thank you for helping work on our problem.
Jon Bell
>>around 1000-1100 articles per day. Many of these are...chatter
>>which does not belong in n.n.q....
>
>If/when the chatter is cut off, should new users see regular posts telling them
>where such chatter *is* on-topic? Some fraction of new users seem to have an
>irresistible urge to post "does this work" or "hi, send me email"
In fact, one of the techniques we will try is to append a short "footer"
to all messages posted to n.n.q, containing pointers to a few other
newsgroups, and to a Web site that contains more detailed information for
new users.
It should also be noted that we hope not to have to "cut off" all
off-topic chatter by direct review of all postings. We hope that removing
the most obvious examples via robomoderation, and providing ubiquitous
pointers to other groups, will discourage many newcomers from trying to
post such chatter in the first place.
If this doesn't work, we will consider other approaches, within the
limits given by the charter.
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[for beginner's Usenet info, see http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/ ]
Henrietta Thomas
Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
[snip]...
>> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>> review.
>If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
so as to make it qualify for rejection?
Jon Bell
A Lieberman <lieb...@bright.net> wrote:
>Just curious..... Is it possible to have the robo-moderator
>automatically forward test messages (using the same criteria already
>proposed for rejection) to the appropriate "test" newsgroup with a
>followup to the sender of the post advising where they can find their
>message?
It seems to be the general opinion that it is *not* appropriate for a
moderator to forward misplaced postings to another newsgroup. The
general practice seems either to discard the posting silently, or else to
return it to the sender so that he/she can re-post it elsewhere if desired.
The idea is that the poster has the responsibility to decide where to (try
to) post a message, and it is improper for a moderator to second-guess
that decision (except of course to reject the message from his own
newsgroup).
Henrietta Thomas
A Lieberman <lieb...@bright.net> wrote:
>Ethan Bradford wrote:
>> Yes, indeed. We will regularly direct users to misc.test for "does
>> this work" posts. We're working on finding a group for "hi, send me
>> email" posts. Probably we will have to create one, and we've almost
>> decided on alt.test.hello-world.
>Hello,
>Just curious..... Is it possible to have the robo-moderator
>automatically forward test messages (using the same criteria already
>proposed for rejection) to the appropriate "test" newsgroup with a
>followup to the sender of the post advising where they can find their
>message?
This idea was raised and rejected a long time ago. It is called
redirecting posts, and it amounts to modifying the content of an
article without the advice or consent of the author. The proponents
pledge, in this 3rd RFD, _not_ to modify the content of any posted
article. I assume this pledge includes a promise not to tamper with
the Newsgroups: line or the Followup-To: line or any other line in
the headers. On that basis, I support this change in the charter,
and would like to see it extended to cover all articles received at
the newsgroup submission address, whether they are posted or not.
>2 benefits from this idea......
>1) The test poster has received a "response" from his post.
>2) The test poster has been "gently" guided to the proper newsgroup.
I understand your motivation, but it really is rude to do as you
please with someone else's article just because you have the power
to do it. Plus, it will be very confusing to many newcomers and may
create a lot of hard feelings. It is therefore best, IMO, to simply
send the article back and explain to the author how to post to the
appropriate group.
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
>Allen
>--
>http://www.bright.net/~lieberma/
>Come visit my homepage!!!
>Any unsolicited COMMERCIAL Email will be replied with a
>complaint to the postmaster of the sender!
--
Don Croyle
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
Under what circumstances do you think that a moderator would care
enough to bother?
--
I've always wanted to be a dilettante, but I've never quite been ready
to make the commitment.
J. Kivi Shapiro
In article <5gk4da$5f1$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>I understand there must be an Approved: line added to the headers for
>articles posted to a moderated group. I would like to know if any other
>headers are planned.
No other headers are planned. We discussed the issue, and decided
there was no benefit to be had in doing so: headers were at best no
better than footers.
>I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>review.
No particular reason; that's just the way we happened to word it.
>I see no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months
>from now.
We do not foresee any reason to change the charter. The amendability
section is strictly to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
- Kivi, proponent and proposed Backup Moderator
--
ksha...@julian.uwo.ca or ki...@pobox.com (Kivi Shapiro)
It's all right. I'm a librarian.
Kate the Short
>
>> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
>> moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
>
>>not modify the content of a posted article
>
>"posted article".
>
>articles posted to a moderated group. I would like to know if any other
>headers are planned.
Not as yet, but moderators should have the right to add administrative
notices to the headers. Many moderated groups have headers listing what
modbot is used, for example. It's quite common, and I'd like to leave
that door open.
>I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>review.
*boggle* What need would anyone have to modify anything that isn't going
to be posted? How would we modify them? What are you talking about,
because I have no idea what prompted you to say this...
>My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
>no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
>now due to the authority granted to the moderators to amend the charter
>at will after they have held office for six weeks.
Well, that's what the NO vote is for. Enjoy using it.
kate.
posting from her other account.
Kate the Short
In article <5gl6m1$t7r$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>> review.
>
>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
Um, the moderators are trying to make LESS work for themselves. Not more work. If
a post passes the bot, the moderators won't even see it. If a single person is
posting poor posts (sex ads, for example) that bypass the bot, I would believe that
that address would be put on a grey list, and would be hand-moderated. If it's
on-topic ofr the group, then it's posted. IF it's off-topic and the post is
grey-listed, then it would be rejected by the moderator anyway.
Now, posts will likely pass through the bot before they are handled by the
moderators-- in most cases, we won't see the posts unless there's already something
questionable in them. At that point, a post that is bounced to the moderators will
be passed if it is on-topic, and rejected if it is off-topic. There would be no
need to even consider changing a post to meet rejection criteria, because there's
really nowhere in the process for it to fit. We're trying to make less work for the
moderators, not more.
Phil Boswell
>>> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>> review.
>>If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
Why would they bother? You think they got nothing better to do?
Sheesh, I thought *Ricardo* was paranoid!
--
Phil Boswell (Systems Manager) Codd & Date Ltd
1 Broadway Court, CHESHAM, Bucks HP5 1EG
http://www.codd-date.co.uk/
Strictly my own opinion, as if anyone else would want it ...
Henrietta Thomas
Don Croyle <cro...@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> wrote:
>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>>
>> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>Under what circumstances do you think that a moderator would care
>enough to bother?
It is hard to say. But the traffic level now exceeds 1200 articles
a day in news.newusers.questions, and some of the proponents have
already run into trouble with some posters who appear to be hostile
to their presence in the group. The transition to moderation will
not be easy, and moderators may be tempted to solve their problems
the easy way by giving themselves reasons to reject articles sent
to them for hand review. So just to be on the safe side, I'd like to
see this sentence revised to say that there will be no content changes
of any kind in any article sent to the moderation address.
I'm sorry I didn't save the proposed charter for soc.culture.african.
american.moderated. They laid down a very strict policy forbidding
themselves from tampering with any article(s) in any manner, shape,
or form. I think that is a wise policy for any group to follow.
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
Henrietta Thomas
kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu (Kate the Short) wrote:
>In article <5gl6m1$t7r$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>>Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>>>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>>
>>>> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>>> review.
>>
>>>If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>>
>>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>Um, the moderators are trying to make LESS work for themselves. Not more
>work. If a post passes the bot, the moderators won't even see it. If a
>single person is posting poor posts (sex ads, for example) that bypass
>the bot., I would believe that that address would be put on a grey list,
>and would be hand-moderated.
This is the point that concerns me -- the point at which a poster
is put on the grey list for hand review of his articles.
>If it's on-topic ofr the group, then it's posted. IF it's off-topic and
>the post is grey-listed, then it would be rejected by the moderator anyway.
And what is to prevent a moderator from altering a post in such a way
as to justify rejection?
>Now, posts will likely pass through the bot before they are handled by
>the moderators-- in most cases, we won't see the posts unless there's
>already something questionable in them. At that point, a post that is >bounced to the moderators will be passed if it is on-topic, and rejected
>if it is off-topic.
And the rule I am questioning is the rule that _posted_ articles will
not be tampered with. My question is, why doesn't this rule apply also
to articles _not_ posted? What is the rationale for making a distinction
here between posted and not posted articles?
>There would be no need to even consider changing a post to meet rejection >criteria, because there's really nowhere in the process for it to fit.
Yes, there is. You just gave a couple of good examples. The opportunity
is there every time a moderator hand reviews a post.
>We're trying to make less work for the moderators, not more.
The rule in question applies only to articles reviewed by human
moderators, so there is no extra work involved. I simply want to
know why UNposted articles are excluded from the tampering rule
Henrietta
Henrietta Thomas
ksha...@julian.uwo.ca (J. Kivi Shapiro) wrote:
>In article <5gk4da$5f1$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>>I understand there must be an Approved: line added to the headers for
>>articles posted to a moderated group. I would like to know if any other
>>headers are planned.
>No other headers are planned. We discussed the issue, and decided
>there was no benefit to be had in doing so: headers were at best no
>better than footers.
I am not necessarily opposed to additional headers, so long as the
idea is not overdone. In soc.culture.russian.moderated, for example,
there is one header for the submission address and another containing
the URL of the newsgroup's web page. I think that would be a good idea
for any moderated group.
>>I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>>to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>review.
>No particular reason; that's just the way we happened to word it.
Well, I think it leaves the door open to abuse.
>>I see no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months
>>from now.
>We do not foresee any reason to change the charter. The amendability
>section is strictly to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
It sets a bad precedent for Usenet. If this proposal passes, I forsee
a future of RFDs containing the very same amendability provisions --
by the will of the moderators without procedure and without any kind
of input from the reader. And the same rationale will be applied: We
need this to deal with "unforeseen circumstances" and "we don't want
to tie the hands of those who may follow us."
This is exactly what happened with blacklists and lockouts. The stage
was set when soc.culture.russian.moderated was passed in 1995. Since
then, all sorts of proposals have come through with blacklist/lockout
provisions, and when these provisions were first questioned, s.c.r.m.
was given as the example to follow.
Henrietta
--
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the
music which he hears, however measured or far away.
--- Henry David Thoreau
Ethan Bradford
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
> Don Croyle <cro...@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> wrote:
>
> >h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
> >> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
> >> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
> >>
> >> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
> >> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>
> >Under what circumstances do you think that a moderator would care
> >enough to bother?
>
> It is hard to say. But the traffic level now exceeds 1200 articles
> a day in news.newusers.questions, and some of the proponents have
> already run into trouble with some posters who appear to be hostile
> to their presence in the group. The transition to moderation will
> not be easy, and moderators may be tempted to solve their problems
> the easy way by giving themselves reasons to reject articles sent
> to them for hand review. So just to be on the safe side, I'd like to
> see this sentence revised to say that there will be no content changes
> of any kind in any article sent to the moderation address.
>
> I'm sorry I didn't save the proposed charter for soc.culture.african.
> american.moderated. They laid down a very strict policy forbidding
> themselves from tampering with any article(s) in any manner, shape,
> or form. I think that is a wise policy for any group to follow.
It boggles my mind the lengths you will go to, Henrietta. It is
implicit in the charter that we will be judging the posts as
submitted; it is ridiculous to interpret it any other way. If a
moderator modifies a post so that it is no longer acceptable (for
unimaginable reasons), that doesn't justify rejecting it; it is the
original post which is to be judged.
-- Ethan
Kate the Short
In article <5gl6m1$t7r$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>> review.
>
>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
Um, the moderators are trying to make LESS work for themselves. Not more
work. If a post passes the bot, the moderators won't even see it. If a
single person is posting poor posts (sex ads, for example) that bypass
the bot, I would believe that that address would be put on a grey list,
and would be hand-moderated. If it's on-topic ofr the group, then it's
posted. IF it's off-topic and the post is grey-listed, then it would be
rejected by the moderator anyway.
Now, posts will likely pass through the bot before they are handled by
the moderators-- in most cases, we won't see the posts unless there's
already something questionable in them. At that point, a post that is
bounced to the moderators will be passed if it is on-topic, and rejected
if it is off-topic. There would be no need to even consider changing a
post to meet rejection criteria, because there's really nowhere in the
process for it to fit. We're trying to make less work for the moderators,
not more.
kate.
Kate the Short -(ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu)- at the U. of Chicago
Read FAQs at: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/keweizel/faq.html
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t.r.mcloughlin
Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>
> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> >h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
>
> >> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
> >> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
> >> review.
>
> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
????
I'm misreading something here. Are you really proposing the scenario
where a poster sends a post; a moderator reads it; decides that
s/he wants to reject it even though it passes the moderation criteria
as written; adds some dirty words, make money fast, etc.; rejects
it back to the poster saying "your post is inappropriate because it
is a foul mouthed chain letter and inappropriate for n.n.q"?
Actually, that would be a pretty cool scenario, but I can't imagine
this happening in my universe.
trm
Russ Allbery
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
> The transition to moderation will not be easy, and moderators may be
> tempted to solve their problems the easy way by giving themselves
> reasons to reject articles sent to them for hand review.
It's faster and easier to approve an article than it is to reject it under
nearly every moderation scheme I've seen, since approval is the common
case. If the moderators were to start violating the charter to decrease
their workload (a rather dubious worry on your part, in my opinion), it
would make no sense for them to do so by rejecting too many articles since
that would *increase* their workload.
(Doesn't anyone use common sense any more? It doesn't require any
technical knowledge to figure that out, just some basic understanding of
the concept of "optimize for the common case." I really wish you'd at
least spend ten minutes or so thinking these sorts of things through
before you post them.)
> I'm sorry I didn't save the proposed charter for soc.culture.african.
> american.moderated. They laid down a very strict policy forbidding
> themselves from tampering with any article(s) in any manner, shape, or
> form. I think that is a wise policy for any group to follow.
Is this where I insert my standard rant about legislating morality? No
matter how many different wording changes you try to make, no matter how
many hypothetical scenarios you bring up, no matter how much red tape you
cover the problem with, and no matter how many little restrictions and
bureaucratic rules you stick in the charter, you are *STILL* going to have
to trust the moderators. Period. End of story. The way Usenet works
leaves you no alternative.
So either you trust the moderators or you don't. If you don't, this is
all pointless -- just vote against the group. If you do, this is all
pointless -- they won't do any of these evil things.
In short, either way you cut it, this entire thread of endless nit-picking
of the charter is pointless.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@cs.stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Russ Allbery
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
> It sets a bad precedent for Usenet. If this proposal passes, I forsee a
> future of RFDs containing the very same amendability provisions -- by
> the will of the moderators without procedure and without any kind of
> input from the reader.
If you wanted to stop that, you're about fifteen years too late.
Fluffy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> thought for a moment, and meowed:
{chomp}
> And the rule I am questioning is the rule that _posted_ articles will
> not be tampered with. My question is, why doesn't this rule apply also
> to articles _not_ posted? What is the rationale for making a distinction
> here between posted and not posted articles?
Does that Refrigerator light /really/ darken when the Door shuts, or is
this story simply part of a massive Disinformation Campaign perpetuated
by the Appliance Industry?
Can be be truly certain that Paul McCartney is not a Ghost, staging his
own Life as a Hoax?
Why are those Helicopters continually circling Henrietta's Neighborhood?
Really, now. If a Moderator wishes not to post an Article that passes
all the Topicality and Formatting Criteria, what is a Rule against
modifying this unposted Article supposed to accomplish? It is the
Poster, not this hypothetical Rogue Moderator, who will be making the
Appeal and resubmitting the unaltered Article for reconsideration by
another Panel Member.
If the Concern is that the entire Moderation Panel will conspire to bar
posters they unanimously dislike, is it at all reasonable to believe
that something like a Charter Clause would stop them? Why would the
initial Panel vote to replenish its Ranks with such a crew?
{Followups set accordingly.}
Meow.
Fluffy
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Kathy I. Morgan
Jon Bell <jtb...@cs1.presby.edu> wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
>
> This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for changing the status
> of an existing newsgroup, news.newusers.questions (n.n.q), from
> 'unmoderated' to 'moderated.'
I think this is a necessary step. As a new user of Usenet, I learned a
great deal by reading othe'rs questions and responses on n.n.q. However,
the huge number of off-topic postings was really overwhelming. Since
gaining a little experience, I've also tried to be a good samaritan by
answering other new user's questions, and again the huge number of
off-topic postings simply overwhelms me and my newsreaders.
Many less drastic attempts to discourage off-topic and inappropriate
postings have been attempted, but none of them worked. (For example, Jon
Bell and others have regularly posted clearly labeled hints and
suggestions for new users to get the most from the newsgroup--and those
postings just get lost or ignored in the 1000 or so off-topic posts
daily.)
Kathy Morgan <kmo...@polarnet.com>
Kate the Short
In article <5gmllp$rdl$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>>> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>>>
>>> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>>> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>
>>enough to bother?
>
>It is hard to say. But the traffic level now exceeds 1200 articles
>a day in news.newusers.questions, and some of the proponents have
>already run into trouble with some posters who appear to be hostile
>the easy way by giving themselves reasons to reject articles sent
>see this sentence revised to say that there will be no content changes
>of any kind in any article sent to the moderation address.
If they rejected an article sent to them for review, they'd reject it.
They wouldn't bother to alter it in the process. If it was rejected, the
poster could appeal. What more needs to be said here?
The switchover will be gradual, ensuring that categories of off-topic posts
are added by the bot. Anything that isn't 100% off-topic by the bot will
either be passed as questionable or will be posted. If a person in
continually posting questionable stuff, he or she will be placed on a watch
list. If the moderator rejects a watch-listed post, the poster can appeal.
The moderators aren't going to take the time to mess with posts they aren't
going to post. Besides, if we return the post quoted in the rejection
letter, would that constitute altering the post?
You said yourself that we'd be tempted to solve problems "the easy way."
Tampering with articles doesn't make our job easier. Your own logic shows
that we wouldn't do it.
>I'm sorry I didn't save the proposed charter for soc.culture.african.
>american.moderated. They laid down a very strict policy forbidding
>themselves from tampering with any article(s) in any manner, shape,
>or form. I think that is a wise policy for any group to follow.
I think you're a ridiculously paranoid troll, who has a few good ideas
buried in there among the paranoia.
*plonk*
Dennis Calhoun
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 04:46:01 GMT, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
wrote:
>Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
>[snip]...
>
>>> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>> review.
>
>>If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>
Anyone whose attempt to post to n.n.q is rejected will be able, by
Charter, to file an appeal after their post is returned to them. If
any Moderator of n.n.q were to alter the content of an article to
cause it to be rejected, the poster would know of that as soon as s/he
read the returned posting attempt. I believe it is safe to say that
people will know if they wrote what is returned to them.
In the _extremely_ unlikely event that a Moderator were to try to get
by with such an unethical act as you suggest, rest assured that the
rest of us would come down on that Moderator very quickly and with
little if any mercy. That person would most likely be ejected from the
Board in a very short time. Personally, I believe the chances of any
such occurrence are infinitesimally small, virtually nonexistent.
--
Dennis D. Calhoun <mailto:dcal...@blomand.net>
Proposed Backup Moderator for and proponent of the 3rd RFD currently
being discussed in news:news.groups as
3rd RFD: moderate news.newusers.questions
Rhythm junkie
+---- kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu wrote (Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:23:32 GMT):
| In article <5gk4da$5f1$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
| >My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
| >no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
| >at will after they have held office for six weeks.
|
| Well, that's what the NO vote is for. Enjoy using it.
Having just walked into this thread I find that surprising.
Is there a good reason for unchecked moderator editing of
the charter?
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Stella Nemeth
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>This is exactly what happened with blacklists and lockouts. The stage
>was set when soc.culture.russian.moderated was passed in 1995. Since
>then, all sorts of proposals have come through with blacklist/lockout
>provisions, and when these provisions were first questioned, s.c.r.m.
>was given as the example to follow.
Ahhhh..... So now we FINALLY come to it.
I gather that soc.culture.russian.moderated was your first exposure to
a moderated group where the moderator had the power to cut the access
of an abusive poster off from the group? Since it was the first group
you knew about, you took it for granted that it was the first group
anywhere where this was true.
I, on the other hand, have a lot of experience with moderated groups
in a lot of place, including Usenet style newsgroups, commercial nets
and echoed nets through BBSs. I've experienced moderated groups where
the moderator not only had the ability to keep someone from posting,
they had the ability to cut off that person's ability to READ the
group, and in some cases even to sign on to any BBS that carried that
particular echoed net, and in very extreme cases could even ban the
BBS itself from the echoed net. I've also experienced moderated
groups where retromoderation was the norm, not the exception.
I doubt very much if soc.culture.russian.moderated was the first
newsgroup in the Big 8 where a moderator could "lock out" someone. I
rather imagine that it is more common than not in moderated groups in
the Big 8.
Stella Nemeth at s.ne...@ix.netcom.com, proponent
and proposed backup moderator for the RFD for
news.newusers.questions now being discussed in news.groups
Kate the Short
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
> +---- kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu wrote (Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:23:32 GMT):
> | >My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
> | >no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
> | >now due to the authority granted to the moderators to amend the charter
> | >at will after they have held office for six weeks.
> |
> | Well, that's what the NO vote is for. Enjoy using it.
> +----
>
>Having just walked into this thread I find that surprising.
>Is there a good reason for unchecked moderator editing of
>the charter?
Well, it's all a case of semantics. Do you really believe that the charter
is without checks and balances?
nnq gets 1200 posts a day. And we have no idea what will come into the
group two years from now. A few years ago it was useable because the
traffic was relatively small-- now, it's one of three auto-subbed groups,
none of which are misc.test. Which is a real shame.
The current posters are 95% newbies who don't know what moderation is, what
a newsgroup is, what an email address should look like, how to configure
their software, anything. Henrietta ran a poll for quite a few days-- and
she got about a dozen responses. That's IT. No, it wasn't very
scientific. But it points to a problem-- we have an uneducated public.
In the United States, we have voters who can vote once they reach 18.
Those who are too young and unexperienced are not given the power to vote.
Their decisions are entrusted to Congress, which has its own checks and
balances. And which can, when necessary, amend the Constitution of the
United States in order to deal with issues that had never been considered
when it was first written.
We don't know what the future will bring. We could have a release of
Netscape 5.0 which... I don't know, inserts a <<blink> blink </blink> tag
somewhere in the post. Or which includes the Netscape N icon as an
attatchment to every post. Should we not be able to amend our charter and
our criterion to deal with that?
The ability to amend a charter can go both ways. If poor moderators come
into power, even the best unamendable charter can go ignored. If good
moderators are in power, even the weakest amendable charter can be made
strong. We have the power to ADD unamdenability to certain parts of the
charter three years down the road. We have the power to MANDATE robo-
moderation or rejection notices if that's something we can guarantee in
2016. But right now, we can't make those guarantees.
Let me tell you, the charter of a newsgroup I'm currently in could *really*
use some amending right now. And as of right now, it isn't possible.
There's no body appointed to decide how to do it, no system in place to
make the charter stronger. It's totally weak. And that's a real shame.
So. In *this* case, think of the charter as the Constitution of the US,
the moderators as Congresspeople, and the netizens as people who are
mostly not yet "of age" to wield or understand the power or responsibility
or ramifications of voting. While I am strongly against the coddling of
newbies, I also realize that the moderators of this group need to act in
more of a guardian role. Congress doesn't just abolish everything once it
gets into office. There are checks and balances in place to prevent that.
Those elected to carry out the Constitution and the laws are elected
because they are trustworthy. Those are the criteria that you must use.
Our charter is *not* wholly unchecked. Like the US constitution, it
currently requires certain majority votes to change things. There is power
of appeal, and power to veto. The US Bill of Rights technically could be
amended, but it isn't. The voting age could be raised up to be 35, but it
hasn't been. In fact, the voting age was LOWERED when the population was
able to handle the responsibility, and voting was extended to women and to
all citizens where once it was only given to a select group of landholders.
And if things had stayed like they were, it would have been a real shame.
But, we have the power to amend. To strengthen. To adapt.
So, please, look over the proposal. Consider it carefully. If you feel
that it sets a bad precedent, then please cast a NO vote. That is your
right in Usenet. If you believe that the proposal is strong, and that the
moderators are worthy of the responsibilities they will wield, then please,
vote YES.
kate.
Kate the Short -(ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu)- at the U. of Chicago
Read FAQs at: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/keweizel/faq.html
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You must vote by MARCH 26, 1997.
Stella Nemeth
dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) wrote:
> +---- kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu wrote (Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:23:32 GMT):
> | In article <5gk4da$5f1$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
> | >My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
> | >no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
> | >now due to the authority granted to the moderators to amend the charter
> | >at will after they have held office for six weeks.
> |
> | Well, that's what the NO vote is for. Enjoy using it.
> +----
>
>Having just walked into this thread I find that surprising.
>Is there a good reason for unchecked moderator editing of
>the charter?
It isn't unchecked. It requires that one don a purple tutu and dance
on the back of an elephant while on point! <g>
No, really. <g> Please read the Charter. There are all kinds of
levels of checks and balances. And recognize that this isn't a
discussion group, or a political or religious group. It is a place
where new users currently get help using Netscape for News and e-mail
because Netscape can't be bothered to provide a help file for its
software.
If someone actually gets put on a permanent watch list for
misbehaving, what have they actually lost? No one stays on this group
for more than a few days unless they want to pay back the kindness of
strangers by being kind to the next group that arrives "off the boat."
They can still read the group and get answers to the Three Questions.
(How do I add a newsgroup [in Netscape]? How do I unsubscribe [to this
newsgroup]? How do I find the right group to discuss x, y or z?) If
they actually have a fourth question, there is e-mail. I answer
polite requests for help every day from people too shy to ask in
public, or who's original answer wasn't quite on target.
A good deal of the checks, balances and appeals process is overkill
for a help group. On the other hand, it is beautifully constructed
overkill and not a bad pattern of how to do it right, which is, IMHO,
a Good Thing for a news.* group.
The ability to change things is actually in the ability to publicly
inform the readers of the newsgroup about changes in details about the
moderation of the group. Are we using a both? Or not? What kinds of
posts are being caught by the bot this week? And finally, the ability
to deal with the next crazy thing some outside company decides to do
to the group without consulting anyone. And the ability to deal with
changes in technology. We are REQUIRED to post these changes. In
most moderated groups, the changes happen and no one knows about it.
Kate the Short
Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
>
>> The transition to moderation will not be easy, and moderators may be
>> tempted to solve their problems the easy way by giving themselves
>> reasons to reject articles sent to them for hand review.
>
>matter how many different wording changes you try to make, no matter how
>many hypothetical scenarios you bring up, no matter how much red tape you
>cover the problem with, and no matter how many little restrictions and
>bureaucratic rules you stick in the charter, you are *STILL* going to have
>to trust the moderators. Period. End of story. The way Usenet works
>leaves you no alternative.
>
>So either you trust the moderators or you don't. If you don't, this is
>all pointless -- just vote against the group. If you do, this is all
>pointless -- they won't do any of these evil things.
>
>In short, either way you cut it, this entire thread of endless nit-picking
>of the charter is pointless.
I hate to act like a newbie, but all I can say to this is ME TOO!
The wording nitpicks will solve nothing. A Bad moderator would just ignore
them anyways. Do you trust that moderators will be able and responsible?
Then vote YES. End of story.
Thanks, Russ.
Stella Nemeth
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
>[snip]...
>
>>> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>>> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>>> review.
>
>>If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>>they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
You are a very dangerous woman. What would prevent me from doing this
is that it would never occur to me. The fact that it would occur to
you makes me certain that I would never vote for any proposal where
you had power.
This is a NEW USERS group. It is not a group discussing politics or
religion. The entire concept of someone wanting to alter the contents
of a new user or helper article to make it qualify for rejection is
absurd.
piranha
In article <5gl6m1$t7r$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>
>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
henrietta channels the gruboursy; film at 11. this is just
about as much as i care to see of this sort of head-spinning
and projectile vomiting.
my advice to the proponents: count this one as a "HELL,
NO WAY, no matter what you do" vote and move on. anything
else is clearly a waste of time and effort. this isn't in
the interest of any newbies anymore, and hasn't been for a
long time now. that grating sound we're all hearing is the
sound of henrietta grinding an axe.
enough already. this dead horse is pining for the fjords.
-alix
Rhythm junkie
+---- jtb...@cs1.presby.edu wrote (Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:01:40 GMT):
| CHARTER: news.newusers.questions
[...]
| The Board controls its own membership. It may admit new members with
| a simple majority vote, or remove members who have served for less
| than six weeks with a simple majority vote. Members who have served
| longer than six weeks may only be removed by a 2/3 vote of those who
| have been on the Board for at least six weeks. The Board will make a
| good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three persons.
|
| The working charter for the group may be modified by a 2/3 vote of
| those who have been members of the Moderation Board for at least six
| weeks. A copy of the current charter will be available at a location
| given in the Administrative Statement.
+----
With language like that my vote would be against the proposal.
Not because nnq is a critical source of information or because
I have doubts about the currently proposed moderators. I will
vote no because it sets a precedent (unless one has already been
set) that is dangerous and tilted heavily towards the few instead
of the many. It's potential for abuse is too broad for my tastes.
If the problem is an inability, under current procedures, to
modify charters with an RFD then I find this solution very
wanting. It isn't a solution, it is an invitation to further
problems in the long term.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
David Farrar
Rhythm junkie wrote:
>
> +---- kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu wrote (Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:23:32 GMT):
> | In article <5gk4da$5f1$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
> | >My other objections to this proposal still stand. In particular, I see
> | >no reason to vote _for_ a charter which may not exist two months from
> | >now due to the authority granted to the moderators to amend the charter
> | >at will after they have held office for six weeks.
> |
> | Well, that's what the NO vote is for. Enjoy using it.
> +----
>
> Having just walked into this thread I find that surprising.
> Is there a good reason for unchecked moderator editing of
> the charter?
>
The reasons for the moderator board to have the power to amend the
charter in the future were discussed quite heavily in the discussion of
the 2nd RFD, which if you are interested in viewing will be at Dejanews.
In summary though the reasons were as follows :
1) The group is extremely large with 1,200 - 1,400 posts a day and
moderating this will be a huge effort. It is impossible at this stage
to say exactly what will be needed to cope with this, so we have gone
for flexibility to allow us to adapt to the circumstances. As long as
news.newusers.questions is pre-subscribed for Netscape users, then we
are going to have a lot more challenges than normal moderated groups and
will need the flexibility to deal with them.
2) With changing technology we don't want to be faced with having a
charter that is uselss in a few years time because, for example, back
then no-one realised you may have Usenet posts in HTML.
3) Any change to the "working charter" will need a 2/3rds majority of
the members of the moderation board. Now remember that this is not a
political or controversial group where people may want to censor views.
All those involved are doing this because we like to help out newusers.
It is inconceivable that 2/3rds of the moderators are suddenly going to
turn rogue and make news.newusers.questions their personal fiefdom. Any
changes will be made only if they will help enhance the usefulness of
news.newusers.questions.
All of the proponents and proposed moderators have signed up to the
present charter and I don't think it is realistic to suspect that the
moment the CFV is passed, that they will start working to amend the
charter. We'll all be too busy with answering questions, posting FAQS
and Hints etc. But it is important to have that flexibility for future
years.
DPF
------------------------------------------------------------------
David Farrar <d...@ihug.co.nz> <david....@mx.parliament.govt.nz>
I don't speak for the Government and it doesn't speak for me!
Cabinet : http://www.executive.govt.nz
Ministerial FAQ : http://www.ministers.govt.nz/faqhome.nsf
A proponent of the 3rd RFD to moderate news:news.newusers.questions
Henrietta Thomas
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>United States in order to deal with issues that had never been considered
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>when it was first written.
All by itself with no input from the people or the several States?
When did you last read the Constitution of the United States?
Henrietta Thomas
S.NE...@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) wrote:
>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>>This is exactly what happened with blacklists and lockouts. The stage
>>was set when soc.culture.russian.moderated was passed in 1995. Since
>>then, all sorts of proposals have come through with blacklist/lockout
>>provisions, and when these provisions were first questioned, s.c.r.m.
>>was given as the example to follow.
>Ahhhh..... So now we FINALLY come to it.
>I gather that soc.culture.russian.moderated was your first exposure to
>a moderated group where the moderator had the power to cut the access
>of an abusive poster off from the group? Since it was the first group
>you knew about, you took it for granted that it was the first group
>anywhere where this was true.
Actually, no. My first contact with lockouts and stuff was on
Compuserve, where sysops monitor the traffic in the groups. And
my second contact was at Delphi, where I was a co-host of a forum
on Russia. The sysops at Compuserve and Hosts at Delphi had the
power to lock people out, cancel posts, edit posts, etc. They set
it up that way because the sysops/hosts are "owners" of the forums.
It is a way of making money. The more traffic in your forum, the
more money you make. I don't know if it's still that way, but that's
the way it was before I came to Usenet in 1995. So I have firsthand
experience with all of this stuff, and I still don't think it's right.
Usenet, on the other hand, has a tradition of open communications
based on the honored concept of academic freedom. As Voltaire once
said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it." There are limits to free speech, of course,
but Voltaire's dictum has been a guiding force of my life, and I'm
not about to give it up now.
>I, on the other hand, have a lot of experience with moderated groups
>in a lot of place, including Usenet style newsgroups, commercial nets
>and echoed nets through BBSs. I've experienced moderated groups where
>the moderator not only had the ability to keep someone from posting,
>they had the ability to cut off that person's ability to READ the
>group, and in some cases even to sign on to any BBS that carried that
>particular echoed net, and in very extreme cases could even ban the
>BBS itself from the echoed net. I've also experienced moderated
>groups where retromoderation was the norm, not the exception.
Usenet is not a BBS, and should not be run as if it were. Moderators
do not "own" the groups they moderate. Their job is to enforce the
charter, and they should always be accountable to the readership for
what they do. Moderation should be done with moderation, not with
heavy-handed clubs.
>I doubt very much if soc.culture.russian.moderated was the first
>newsgroup in the Big 8 where a moderator could "lock out" someone. I
>rather imagine that it is more common than not in moderated groups in
>the Big 8.
So far as I know, scrm was the first. I remember it very well; I was
involved in all the debates, and I ended up voting NO.
Henrietta
Ethan Bradford
dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
> With language like that [modifiability] my vote would be against the
> proposal. Not because nnq is a critical source of information or
> because I have doubts about the currently proposed moderators. I
> will vote no because it sets a precedent (unless one has already
> been set) that is dangerous and tilted heavily towards the few
> instead of the many. It's potential for abuse is too broad for my
> tastes.
>
> If the problem is an inability, under current procedures, to
> modify charters with an RFD then I find this solution very
> wanting. It isn't a solution, it is an invitation to further
> problems in the long term.
That is a very serious problem in my view. If it were possible to
amend the charter through an RFD process, I would accept some parts of
it being unamendable except by that process. As it is, I think it is
unconscionable to disallow our successors the flexibility they need to
deal with situations we haven't foreseen. We've spent many months
hashing out this charter, but we'd be idiots if we believed we've
thought of everything. As such, we've got to allow flexibility.
-- Ethan
Henrietta Thomas
[cc'd to piranha, whose article does not deserve a response]
"t.r.mcloughlin" <no_s...@please.edu> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>>
>> [snip]...
>>
>> >> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>> >> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted for
>> >> review.
>>
>> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>>
>> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>????
>I'm misreading something here. Are you really proposing the scenario
>where a poster sends a post; a moderator reads it; decides that
>s/he wants to reject it even though it passes the moderation criteria
>as written; adds some dirty words, make money fast, etc.; rejects
>it back to the poster saying "your post is inappropriate because it
>is a foul mouthed chain letter and inappropriate for n.n.q"?
Nothing so crude as that. Some articles may not even be returned
because the poster put a bad address in his From: line. And MMF
might not be returned because it is cancel-on-sight. But I was not
thinking of that; I was thinking of the general opportunity for
creative editing which is available to any moderator of a Usenet
newsgroup.
The subject of content tampering was raised in the discussion on
the 2nd RFD by Ginger Glaser:
>Given the loose based nature of the charter, which I agree to some
>extent is needed to allow you to develop a procedure that works, I
>would also prefer some declared "we will nots" in this charter, such
>as "we will not begin blacklisting", "we will not tamper with the
>content of messages" and "there will always be an opportunity to
>appeal rejected posts".
Ethan Bradford seemed puzzled by this:
>> "we will not tamper with the content of messages"
>That seems like an odd thing to promise, since it never occurred to us
>that anyone would consider tampering with the contents, except to add
>a clearly-delineated footer. What did you have in mind?
Then Barbara Pattist explained:
>I know what Ginger means here because I'm familiar with a group where
>the moderators feel it is acceptable to change the newsgroup line and
>send the post to an unmoderated group, or to change the follow-ups. I
>find that unacceptable policy for any moderation team and I believe it
>is widely considered bad moderating. The issue has not come up, but I
>wouldn't mind locking that one in just for good measure.
On that basis, I expected to see something in the 3rd RFD to the
effect that messages would not be tampered with. Period. No exceptions.
Instead, we get the following sentence:
>Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will
>not modify the content of a posted article.
And my question is, why do we deal only with _posted_ articles?
Ethan says rejected articles "aren't our business any more." But that
cannot be true. They will have to save the rejects in case appeals are
filed. This means, to me, that steps should be taken to ensure that
the rejects are retained in their original condition (and that nobody
tampers with them) so that fair decisions can be made on the appeals
if and when they occur. So it seems to me that _all_ articles, not
just the _posted_ ones, ought to be included in the prohibition against
content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
dealing with new users in this newsgroup, and we need moderators who
will bend over backwards to give these new users more than a fair shake
when their articles are rejected. And we need that to be reflected in
the charter.
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
Henrietta Thomas
[news.groups restored to Newsgroups: line]
flu...@macconnect.com (Fluffy) wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> thought for a moment, and meowed:
>{chomp}
>> And the rule I am questioning is the rule that _posted_ articles will
>> not be tampered with. My question is, why doesn't this rule apply also
>> to articles _not_ posted? What is the rationale for making a distinction
>> here between posted and not posted articles?
>Does that Refrigerator light /really/ darken when the Door shuts, or is
>this story simply part of a massive Disinformation Campaign perpetuated
>by the Appliance Industry?
The light goes off when the door is closed.
>Can be be truly certain that Paul McCartney is not a Ghost, staging his
>own Life as a Hoax?
Nothing is certain except death and taxes.
>Why are those Helicopters continually circling Henrietta's Neighborhood?
They are on patrol duty over Lake Michigan, and Henrietta lives on
the lakefront.
>Really, now. If a Moderator wishes not to post an Article that passes
>all the Topicality and Formatting Criteria, what is a Rule against
>modifying this unposted Article supposed to accomplish? It is the
>Poster, not this hypothetical Rogue Moderator, who will be making the
>Appeal and resubmitting the unaltered Article for reconsideration by
>another Panel Member.
You may be operating under an erroneous assumption that Netscape users
are able to save, retrieve, and re-send articles they have written. I
do not use Netscape, but Dennis Calhoun does, and I suggest you ask
him about this. Here's what I found in the Netscape Handbook on the
Web:
begin quote....
Organizing messages: Typically, you'll organize and store your
mail messages on your hard disk in folders you create. News
messages, on the other hand, are already organized and stored in
newsgroups on remote servers. If you want to store news messages
on your hard disk, you'll need to explicitly save news messages
using the File|Save As menu item. The News window does not offer
a mailbox/folder facility.
end quote....
>If the Concern is that the entire Moderation Panel will conspire to
>bar posters they unanimously dislike, is it at all reasonable to believe
>that something like a Charter Clause would stop them?
No, but it might make them think twice before they act because they
would know they were acting in violation of the charter, and someone
might complain about that.
>Why would the initial Panel vote to replenish its Ranks with such
>a crew?
I have no idea what kind of people the initial panel would look for.
But change in the panel would most likely occur incrementally, not
all at once. So it is hard to say what the panel would look like a
year or two from now. It might be a better panel, or it might be much
worse. And the charter may have changed, too, for better or worse,
over the same period of time.
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
--
Man was made at the end of the week when God was tired.
--- Mark Twain
Rhythm junkie
+---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 00:22:18 -0800):
| dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
| > With language like that [modifiability] my vote would be against the
| > proposal.
| That is a very serious problem in my view. If it were possible to
| amend the charter through an RFD process, I would accept some parts of
| it being unamendable except by that process. As it is, I think it is
| unconscionable to disallow our successors the flexibility they need to
| deal with situations we haven't foreseen. We've spent many months
| hashing out this charter, but we'd be idiots if we believed we've
| thought of everything. As such, we've got to allow flexibility.
It is interesting that the part you added ([modifiability]) is
the part that first drew me into this thread. The language I
found offensive was the Board picks members, Board removes
members, Board modifies charter stuff.
Not that any of those things is a bad thing. Volunteers get
slack, and it isn't like the n.n.q flow affects the speed of
the planet. And there does need to be a way to modify
charters over time. But, as a pattern of behaviour that will
be immitated by those less informed than the average
news.groups reader, it is flawed.
Instead of n.n.q imagine soapbox.i.love-hate.your.-.advocacy.misc
that has gone moderated and is now evolving a Board with
incestious growth. Being a patient agent provacetuer I do
moderation grunt work for a while and manage to bring a few
Senior Board members along with me. With editorial power
wielded carefully the content of the group is manipulated, the
subtle waves of change spreading through societies which alters
the weather leading to a reduction in leaves falling. As silly
as that is it can affect the speed of the spin of the planet.
More specifically; Board makes Board is less than optimal and
Board modifies charter is less than optimal. Combined they are
double plus ungood.
1. Need a way to add moderators.
2. Need a way to remove moderators.
3. Need to modify charter.
Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
tolerant.
Meanwhile, I was just wondering if unsolicited junk mail sent
to people posting to newsgroups that are known to echo test
posts isn't unsolicited if it is an echo.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Jon Bell
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
>Instead of n.n.q imagine soapbox.i.love-hate.your.-.advocacy.misc
>that has gone moderated and is now evolving a Board with
>incestious growth. Being a patient agent provacetuer I do
>moderation grunt work for a while and manage to bring a few
>Senior Board members along with me. With editorial power
>wielded carefully the content of the group is manipulated,
If I'm reading you correctly, you're worried not so much about n.n.q
itself as with the precedent that this might set for other newsgroups on
more contentious subjects. I can't seriously see someone passing an
RFD/CFV for, say, soc.culture.albania moderated, with a full amendability
provision, just because n.n.q has it. One can find precedent for almost
anything among the dozens of moderated groups that exist already. Each
newsgroup is a specific case unto itself. The proposed rules and
operating procedures for any proposed moderated group have to be judged
in the context of that particular group.
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[for beginner's Usenet info, see http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/ ]
Kate the Short
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
> +---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 00:22:18 -0800):
> | dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
> | > With language like that [modifiability] my vote would be against the
> | > proposal.
>
> | amend the charter through an RFD process, I would accept some parts of
> | it being unamendable except by that process. As it is, I think it is
> | unconscionable to disallow our successors the flexibility they need to
> | deal with situations we haven't foreseen. We've spent many months
> | hashing out this charter, but we'd be idiots if we believed we've
> | thought of everything. As such, we've got to allow flexibility.
>
>the part that first drew me into this thread. The language I
>found offensive was the Board picks members, Board removes
>members, Board modifies charter stuff.
>
>Board modifies charter is less than optimal. Combined they are
>double plus ungood.
>
>1. Need a way to add moderators.
>2. Need a way to remove moderators.
>3. Need to modify charter.
>
>Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
>part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
>tolerant.
Well, right now there's a very good possibility that we will need all
10 moderators. If three new browsers came up and added nnq to their
auto-subscribed groups, we might end up needing 15 or 16 moderators to deal
with all of the posts. Because of that, I don't want to mandate a maximum
number of moderators. A good-faith effort to keep one moderator and two
backups is not unreasonable.
Should anyone who wants to be a moderator be added? I don't think so. At
this time, having a vote in the newsgroup would be funny, as most people
only read a few posts and post a few questions before moving on. At the
same time, anyone who has volunteered to be a moderator has been accepted
by the current group. It's easier to add a moderator than it is to remove
one, but at least there *are* mechanisms in place to do so. But not in the
newsgroup membership. Between the time the vote is posted and the result
is posted, there will be maybe 20 people who vote on it out of 400 new
people who come to the newsgroup each day. And the 400 people who voted
may not even be around to see the RESULT posting.
Should the charter be amendable? I believe so. Right now there is NO
mechanism in place to revise a charter in news.groups. Right now,
moderators or readers decide to "bend the rules" or create new ones where
there were none. Which is better-- having a mechanism to ensure that the
rules the moderators play by are set forth in *some* way, or simply saying
"well, we can't change the charter, but we need to solve this problem so
we're just going to work around it."
>Meanwhile, I was just wondering if unsolicited junk mail sent
>to people posting to newsgroups that are known to echo test
>posts isn't unsolicited if it is an echo.
Do you mean nnq or misc.test?
Those who are testing for propagation post one post and get one set of
responses to their messages within a reasonable amount of time. They want
to know if their message got out there and how long it took and whether all
of it got through. Junk email does very few of these things-- it sends out
messages that do not usually note which newsgroup a post was sighted in or
when the post was sighted. These messages are sometimes sent MANY times,
instead of once, as a propagation test response is. If you're testing,
then you're soliciting some kind of response. Junk email is not it.
kate.
who really wishes the junk emailers would cut it out.
Rhythm junkie
+---- ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:44:19 GMT):
| Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
| >1. Need a way to add moderators.
| >2. Need a way to remove moderators.
| >3. Need to modify charter.
| >
| >Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
| >part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
| >tolerant.
Was that a yes? I didn't say that the readers of n.n.q
should be expected to pay attention. Or that moderators
don't need procedural tools to get their thankless tasks
done. I did say that I think self referential governing
bodies is a buggy design. I continue to oppose for that
reason.
| Should the charter be amendable? I believe so. Right now there is NO
| mechanism in place to revise a charter in news.groups.
That is a general bug that is not specific to n.n.q, or
moderation, so a general solution would probably be more
effective.
| >Meanwhile, I was just wondering if unsolicited junk mail sent
| >to people posting to newsgroups that are known to echo test
| >posts isn't unsolicited if it is an echo.
|
| Do you mean nnq or misc.test?
+----
I meant misc.test posts that get timely echoes that just
happen to look like junk mail. I wonder if that is a
patentable process. This could be just the breakthough
idea that the stagnating junk mail world needs! Anyone
want to license early so I can pay for the patent
application?
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Henrietta Thomas
ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Kate the Short) wrote:
>Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
[snip]....
>>1. Need a way to add moderators.
>>2. Need a way to remove moderators.
>>3. Need to modify charter.
>>
>>Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
>>part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
>>tolerant.
>Well, right now there's a very good possibility that we will need all
>10 moderators. If three new browsers came up and added nnq to their
>auto-subscribed groups, we might end up needing 15 or 16 moderators to
>deal with all of the posts. Because of that, I don't want to mandate
>a maximum number of moderators. A good-faith effort to keep one moderator
>and two backups is not unreasonable.
The unreasonable part is that it is only a "good-faith effort". Once
again, I will cite soc.culture.african.american.moderated. They set
a mandatory minimum of three moderators and authorized expansion of
the moderation team if it was necessary later on. Also, IIRC, new
moderators are to be selected from the membership. I see no reason
why the same procedure wouldn't work with nnq.
>Should anyone who wants to be a moderator be added? I don't think so. At
>this time, having a vote in the newsgroup would be funny, as most people
>only read a few posts and post a few questions before moving on. At the
>same time, anyone who has volunteered to be a moderator has been accepted
>by the current group. It's easier to add a moderator than it is to remove
>one, but at least there *are* mechanisms in place to do so. But not in the
>newsgroup membership. Between the time the vote is posted and the result
>is posted, there will be maybe 20 people who vote on it out of 400 new
>people who come to the newsgroup each day. And the 400 people who voted
>may not even be around to see the RESULT posting.
Should we then bar the new users from voting on this proposal because
they won't be around when the RESULT is posted? I think not. I think
the new users have just as much right as you and I do to vote on this
proposal. And I think they should have a right to express their views
on newsgroup policy and procedure, including the right to say whether
they think Person X would make a good moderator. Or even to say that
they think Person Y is not doing a very good job.
>Should the charter be amendable? I believe so. Right now there is NO
>mechanism in place to revise a charter in news.groups. Right now,
>moderators or readers decide to "bend the rules" or create new ones where
>there were none. Which is better-- having a mechanism to ensure that the
>rules the moderators play by are set forth in *some* way, or simply saying
>"well, we can't change the charter, but we need to solve this problem so
>we're just going to work around it."
The best mechanism would be that readers and moderators jointly decide
whether or not a change is needed, and what that change should be. Then
it should be put down in writing for all the world to see.
Henrietta
Henrietta Thomas
jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
> Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
>>Instead of n.n.q imagine soapbox.i.love-hate.your.-.advocacy.misc
>>that has gone moderated and is now evolving a Board with
>>incestious growth. Being a patient agent provacetuer I do
>>moderation grunt work for a while and manage to bring a few
>>Senior Board members along with me. With editorial power
>>wielded carefully the content of the group is manipulated,
>[...]
>If I'm reading you correctly, you're worried not so much about n.n.q
>itself as with the precedent that this might set for other newsgroups on
>more contentious subjects. I can't seriously see someone passing an
>RFD/CFV for, say, soc.culture.albania moderated, with a full amendability
>provision, just because n.n.q has it.
I'm afraid that is exactly what will happen. If this proposal passes,
it won't be long before you see this same "flexibility/modifiability"
written into new moderation proposals, and nnq will be citied to anyone
who objects.
>One can find precedent for almost anything among the dozens of
>moderated groups that exist already. Each newsgroup is a specific
>case unto itself. The proposed rules and operating procedures for
>any proposed moderated group have to be judged in the context of
>that particular group.
There is no precedent for giving all power to the moderators to
do as they please with a newsgroup. And I do not see how the "context"
of nnq requires this. Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights
as those who have been here a while. They have the right to vote on
this proposal, why don't they have the right to be involved in nnq's
internal affairs?
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
>> Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
>>>Instead of n.n.q imagine soapbox.i.love-hate.your.-.advocacy.misc
>>>that has gone moderated and is now evolving a Board with
>>>incestious growth. Being a patient agent provacetuer I do
>>>moderation grunt work for a while and manage to bring a few
>>>Senior Board members along with me. With editorial power
>>>wielded carefully the content of the group is manipulated,
>>[...]
>>If I'm reading you correctly, you're worried not so much about n.n.q
>>itself as with the precedent that this might set for other newsgroups on
>>more contentious subjects. I can't seriously see someone passing an
>>RFD/CFV for, say, soc.culture.albania moderated, with a full amendability
>>provision, just because n.n.q has it.
>I'm afraid that is exactly what will happen. If this proposal passes,
>it won't be long before you see this same "flexibility/modifiability"
>written into new moderation proposals, and nnq will be citied to anyone
>who objects.
Sorry for the self-followup. I just read a newly posted proposal for
soc.org.freemasonry (moderated), which contains the following statement:
begin quote....
Amendments:
Any part of this charter may be ammended or the charter may be
added to by a 2/3 quorum with a 2/3 majority vote of all officers.
end quote.....
I am going to ask them about this. It will be interesting to see what
is their rationale, and whether it is related to the nnq RFD.
Lynn Diana Gazis
Henrietta Thomas (h...@wwa.com) wrote:
: Nothing so crude as that. Some articles may not even be returned
: because the poster put a bad address in his From: line. And MMF
: might not be returned because it is cancel-on-sight. But I was not
: thinking of that; I was thinking of the general opportunity for
: creative editing which is available to any moderator of a Usenet
: newsgroup.
??? By altering a message with a bad return address, perhaps, to make it
an MMF posting rather than the reasonable, on topic question that it
originally was? Why would the moderator bother, since it's easier for an
unethical moderator to simply lose the offending message.
Or you're concerned with, perhaps, the case where the moderator returns a
rejected posting to a poor, clueless new users, who happened to be
using Netscape and not to have it set up to save posts in a folder, and
therefore didn't have a saved copy? Couldn't the poor mistreated poster,
who presumably remembers what he or she wrote, just remove the
modifications?
[snipped]
: content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
: things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
Why is this "on the safe side"? Altering rejected messages to add
invented reasons for rejecting them is so obviously unethical, that I
can't imagine why a person unethical enough to do this would be
constrained by something like a charter provision. I mean, do we have to
spell out in detail every possible grotesquely wrong thing which the
moderators shouldn't do?
1) The moderators pledge never, under any circumstances, to email copies
of the UNIX kernel to the people whose posts they reject.
2) The moderators promise not to respond to every appeal of a rejection
by making posts attributing very strange sexual practices to the people
who have made such appeals.
3) The moderators promise not to post forged MMF posts to
rec.pets.cats.community in the name of people who have a bone to pick
with their moderation policies.
etc.
Lynn Gazis-Sax
Rodger Whitlock
A Lieberman <lieb...@bright.net> wrote:
[quotage snipped]
>Just curious..... Is it possible to have the robo-moderator
>automatically forward test messages (using the same criteria already
>proposed for rejection) to the appropriate "test" newsgroup with a
>followup to the sender of the post advising where they can find their
>message?
>
>2 benefits from this idea......
>
>1) The test poster has received a "response" from his post.
>2) The test poster has been "gently" guided to the proper newsgroup.
You have overlooked a non-beneficial effect of this kindly intentioned idea:
3) The raw newbie is confused, very confused.
----
Rodger Whitlock
t.r.mcloughlin
Henrietta Thomas wrote:
> t.r.mcloughlin wrote:
> >Henrietta Thomas wrote:
[snip]
> >> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
> >> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>
> >????
>
> >I'm misreading something here. Are you really proposing the scenario
> >where a poster sends a post; a moderator reads it; decides that
> >s/he wants to reject it even though it passes the moderation criteria
> >as written; adds some dirty words, make money fast, etc.; rejects
> >it back to the poster saying "your post is inappropriate because it
> >is a foul mouthed chain letter and inappropriate for n.n.q"?
>
> Nothing so crude as that. Some articles may not even be returned
> because the poster put a bad address in his From: line. And MMF
> might not be returned because it is cancel-on-sight. But I was not
> thinking of that; I was thinking of the general opportunity for
> creative editing which is available to any moderator of a Usenet
> newsgroup.
>
[snip]
> Ethan says rejected articles "aren't our business any more." But that
> cannot be true. They will have to save the rejects in case appeals are
> filed. This means, to me, that steps should be taken to ensure that
> the rejects are retained in their original condition (and that nobody
> tampers with them) so that fair decisions can be made on the appeals
> if and when they occur. So it seems to me that _all_ articles, not
> just the _posted_ ones, ought to be included in the prohibition against
> content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
> things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
> dealing with new users in this newsgroup, and we need moderators who
> will bend over backwards to give these new users more than a fair shake
> when their articles are rejected. And we need that to be reflected in
> the charter.
>
Wow. It just dawned on me. I'm voting NO on this proposal.
All the while I've been thinking that I'd just pass on this proposal
and enjoy the debate as a spectator sport. I bunch of well-meaning folks
with too much time on their hands, trying to be the perfect newbie-helper.
But the simple, useful idea of "Let's make it easier to introduce newbies
to usenet" has transmogrified into a socio-political bureaucracy that rivals
both third century Rome and my condo association.
Remember, we're talking newbies. They really don't need a Court of Appeals,
a Ministry of Truth, or a wet nurse. At most they need an usher.
There are lot's of fine, noble ideas here that are worth the money,
but the shipping and handling costs have gotten way out of line.
And once the aga.bots are unleashed upon this Usenet, it won't matter, anyway.
t "It's the economy, stupid" rm
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
waste of bandwidth to satisfy bandwidth-watse-prevention-functionality
Russ Allbery
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
> Usenet, on the other hand, has a tradition of open communications
> based on the honored concept of academic freedom. As Voltaire once
> said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
> your right to say it."
As a complete aside, which I bring up simply because I'm something of a
collector of quotes and this is a FAQ on alt.quotations, Voltaire (so far
as anyone can determine) never actually said that.
> So far as I know, scrm was the first [to have blacklists].
It may have been the first to have blacklists specifically mentioned in
the charter, but then the whole concept of specifically listing the
moderation policy in the charter is rather new. Most of the existing
moderated groups run something along the lines of "here's what's on topic
and the moderator is free to do whatever they want to encourage/enforce
that." I'm quite sure that includes dumping all posts from abusive
posters or spammers in many existing groups.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@cs.stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Russ Allbery
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> writes:
> With language like that my vote would be against the proposal. Not
> because nnq is a critical source of information or because I have doubts
> about the currently proposed moderators. I will vote no because it sets
> a precedent (unless one has already been set) that is dangerous and
> tilted heavily towards the few instead of the many. It's potential for
> abuse is too broad for my tastes.
Moderators have always been able to modify the charters of their groups in
most cases, to allow for changing needs of the readership or changing
traffic patterns. The only thing that's new here is that it's explicitly
being listed with *more* checks and balances than frankly is normal.
Ethan Bradford
dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
> +---- ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:44:19 GMT):
> | Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
> | >1. Need a way to add moderators.
> | >2. Need a way to remove moderators.
> | >3. Need to modify charter.
> | >
> | >Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
> | >part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
> | >tolerant.
> [...a bunch of information in reply...]
>
> Was that a yes? I didn't say that the readers of n.n.q
> should be expected to pay attention. Or that moderators
> don't need procedural tools to get their thankless tasks
> done. I did say that I think self referential governing
> bodies is a buggy design. I continue to oppose for that
> reason.
The normal situation in a moderated group is to give control to one
person, who does what he thinks best and then passes on the reigns to
one other person of his choosing. It works remarkably well in many
groups. We have additional checks in that a board must agree on a new
moderator and (by a super-majority vote) they can remove abusive
moderators.
Other than that, there is no practical way to provide for replacement
of moderators. This position is a service position; there is not a
lot of power involved. Only those actively involved in the operation
of the group will know or care enough to choose successors.
I presume you are opposed to every moderated group? Or did you not
realize that moderators generally choose their successors? You may
not have realized that because much of what is implicit in other
moderated groups is explicit in our charter.
> | Should the charter be amendable? I believe so. Right now there is NO
> | mechanism in place to revise a charter in news.groups.
>
> That is a general bug that is not specific to n.n.q, or
> moderation, so a general solution would probably be more
> effective.
Yes, perhaps so. If you start a movement to allow this, I will
support you. You'd want something like an RFD to 1) overthrow current
moderators or 2) amend a charter. The threshold for doing so should
of course be very large.
However, we need to do something about this group *now*. Please
browse n.n.q. A very brief inspection will prove to you that
something needs to be done and we can't afford to wait until your
reform process is completed.
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
> jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
>
> >If I'm reading you [Rhythm junkie] correctly, you're worried not so
> >much about n.n.q itself as with the precedent that this might set
> >for other newsgroups on more contentious subjects. I can't
> >seriously see someone passing an RFD/CFV for, say,
> >soc.culture.albania moderated, with a full amendability provision,
> >just because n.n.q has it.
>
> I'm afraid that is exactly what will happen. If this proposal passes,
> it won't be long before you see this same "flexibility/modifiability"
> written into new moderation proposals, and nnq will be citied to anyone
> who objects.
Their proponents are welcome to cite any precedents they like and the
voters are welcome to ignore them. You should judge each group
proposal on its own merits, except for when you want to bring in
examples of what's working well or poorly.
> ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Kate the Short) wrote:
>
> >A good-faith effort to keep one moderator and two backups is not
> >unreasonable.
>
> The unreasonable part is that it is only a "good-faith effort".
And what would you have the moderators do if they simply can't find a
third person who wants to take on all that work and worry? Must the
group revert to unmoderated status?
I like the current language -- they try to keep a minimum membership,
but it isn't the end of the show if they can't.
-- Ethan
bogey
Henrietta Thomas wrote:
> Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights
> as those who have been here a while. They have the right to vote on
> this proposal, why don't they have the right to be involved in nnq's
> internal affairs?
>
> Henrietta
Well, suitable posts about the RFD have been made.
Quite frankly, most of the posts by new users are trivial, and only made
to test.
Otherwise, you would see them here...
___________________________________________________
Spam-less Return Address: Remove the _ to Reply...
___________________________________________________
Denis McKeon
In <slrn5j049...@dream.season.com> Rhythm junkie wrote:
> +---- ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:44:19 GMT):
> | Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
> | >1. Need a way to add moderators.
> | >2. Need a way to remove moderators.
> | >3. Need to modify charter.
> | >
> | >Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
> | >part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
> | >tolerant.
>[...a bunch of information in reply...]
>
>Was that a yes? I didn't say that the readers of n.n.q
>should be expected to pay attention. Or that moderators
>don't need procedural tools to get their thankless tasks
>done. I did say that I think self referential governing
>bodies is a buggy design. I continue to oppose for that
>reason.
As one of those self-referential "less than 10 people" (currently 8)
I appreciate your concern. Newsgroups that have a stable population
of users (readers, posters, lurkers, whatever) who understand the medium
of the net news environment would probably do better to gather opinions
on significant changes to a newsgroup charter with a public opinion poll
in the newsgroup, similar to the initial RFD/CFV process.
But, as several people have pointed out, n.n.q is a newsgroup for new users,
people who are by definition not familiar with the net news environment,
and who generally will participate briefly in n.n.q and then move on to
a topical newsgroup (modulo any who stick around to help answer questions).
These new users are often intelligent adults, sometimes with a number of
clues, but generally without experience in Usenet, or understanding of it.
Would debating every change to the charter/moderation policy/robot code
among that population tend to produce a better charter or signal:noise ratio?
Would the volunteers answering questions be better spending their time
answering the new user questions about Usenet, the Web, software, etc.,
or explaining repeatedly in debate the differences in difficulty between
having a mod-bot spot cross-posts without followups and spotting some
more subtle form of off-topic or off-charter post?
My thinking, after a lot of debate among the proponents on the nnq-workers
mailing list, is that the readers of this group would be better served by
a self-governing moderation board than by recurring charter debates.
(Thought experiment - imagine that every 10th RFD posted to news.groups
is also cross-posted to a moderated n.n.q - would the resulting followup
posts from new users tend to significantly improve that RFD? What would
the effect be on the S:N ratio in that thread in news.groups?)
> | Should the charter be amendable? I believe so. Right now there is NO
> | mechanism in place to revise a charter in news.groups.
>
>That is a general bug that is not specific to n.n.q, or
>moderation, so a general solution would probably be more
>effective.
OK - propose some general solutions for charter revision for any group,
and for moderator replacement/retention for moderated groups. Consider
insulating against readers of one group staging a voting raid on another
- a similar problem to the issues of widespread vote solicitation on CFVs.
To me, a "vote of confidence" process seems appealing - a moderator could
make decisions with or without polling a group on each decision, and then
call for a retention ballot in the group at least every year or so.
But, the recurring question arises - who should be able to vote?
Identifying posters to a group is trivial, but identifying lurkers and
separating lurkers from non-participants seem to be intractable tasks.
I suggested above using an opinion poll for charter changes in some
moderated groups - should such a poll be binding on moderator(s), or
would a binding poll be open to abuse by non-participants?
How could any binding process be enforced against a moderator who
actively opposes charter change or replacement?
I don't necessarily think that all of these questions are unanswerable,
but it does seem that there are a number of things about Usenet which
don't look to be fault-tolerant - but which often generally work well.
--
Denis McKeon - one of twelve proponents for:
Subject: 3rd RFD: moderate news.newusers.questions
Comments welcome on the Moderated Newsgroups FAQ, available on the Web at
http://www.swcp.com/~dmckeon/mod-faq.html
and in Newsgroups: news.groups,news.newusers.questions,news.answers, etc. as
news:moderated-ng-f...@swcp.com
--
Denis McKeon
Henrietta Thomas
gazi...@netcom.com (Lynn Diana Gazis) wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas (h...@wwa.com) wrote:
>: Nothing so crude as that. Some articles may not even be returned
>: because the poster put a bad address in his From: line. And MMF
>: might not be returned because it is cancel-on-sight. But I was not
>: thinking of that; I was thinking of the general opportunity for
>: creative editing which is available to any moderator of a Usenet
>: newsgroup.
>??? By altering a message with a bad return address, perhaps, to make it
>an MMF posting rather than the reasonable, on topic question that it
>originally was? Why would the moderator bother, since it's easier for an
>unethical moderator to simply lose the offending message.
Articles with bad addresses will be "lost" anyway because there are
no provisions for attempting to decipher the error and re-send. So
there would be no point in altering a message with a bad address. I
thought I made that clear above, but I guess I did not.
>Or you're concerned with, perhaps, the case where the moderator returns a
>rejected posting to a poor, clueless new users, who happened to be
>using Netscape and not to have it set up to save posts in a folder, and
>therefore didn't have a saved copy? Couldn't the poor mistreated poster,
>who presumably remembers what he or she wrote, just remove the
>modifications?
Most of the "poor mistreated" posters in nnq are using Netscape, and
most likely do not know how to save their posts. They also probably
would have trouble remembering what they wrote. See Kate Weizel's
scathing description of them in another article in this thread.
>[snipped]
>: content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
>: things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
>Why is this "on the safe side"? Altering rejected messages to add
>invented reasons for rejecting them is so obviously unethical, that I
>can't imagine why a person unethical enough to do this would be
>constrained by something like a charter provision. I mean, do we have to
>spell out in detail every possible grotesquely wrong thing which the
>moderators shouldn't do?
No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
Henrietta Thomas
Chicago, Illinois
h...@wwa.com
Atiya Hakeem
> gazi...@netcom.com (Lynn Diana Gazis) wrote:
<snip>
> >Or you're concerned with, perhaps, the case where the moderator returns a
> >rejected posting to a poor, clueless new users, who happened to be
> >using Netscape and not to have it set up to save posts in a folder, and
> >therefore didn't have a saved copy? Couldn't the poor mistreated poster,
> >who presumably remembers what he or she wrote, just remove the
> >modifications?
>
> Most of the "poor mistreated" posters in nnq are using Netscape, and
> most likely do not know how to save their posts. They also probably
> would have trouble remembering what they wrote. See Kate Weizel's
> scathing description of them in another article in this thread.
While I agree that it might be hard for someone to completely rewrite
a post from memory, surely anyone can remember whether their post was
something like MMF, a test article, or a commercial ad! They could
send an appeal saying that the post returned was not the post sent.
If the moderation team started seeing this often, it would be obvious
that there was a rogue moderator involved.
Furthermore, why on earth would an evil moderator even bother to change
the article and return it rather than just making it vanish? By your
own reasoning this would prevent the poster from submitting their post
for appeal, since they would have no rejection letter and would not be
able to reconstitute the post.
Really, this is getting a bit silly. As Russ Allbery said elsewhere in
this thread, either you trust the moderators not to do anything evil, or
you don't. Nitpicky charter provisions aren't going to restrain someone
with the gall to alter returned posts.
<snip>
> No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
> tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
Except that presumably that would forbid the moderators from embedding
the rejected post in a rejection letter, which I think is by far clearer
for the new user than sending the letter and the returned post separately.
<snip>
While I am not convinced that the robomoderator as it has so far been
discussed here will be sufficiently effective in filtering out off-topic
stuff, I believe that this group of moderators will work at it until
n.n.q is a usable and useful place.
--
Atiya Hakeem
at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu
Eve M. Behr
On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:33:37 -0800, "t.r.mcloughlin"
<no_s...@please.edu> wrote in news.groups:
>Wow. It just dawned on me. I'm voting NO on this proposal.
As one of the "well-meaning folks with too much time on their
hands" (hah!), I'm sorry you're voting No, but in light of what
you must be seeing here I can hardly blame you.
>All the while I've been thinking that I'd just pass on this proposal
>and enjoy the debate as a spectator sport. I bunch of well-meaning folks
>with too much time on their hands, trying to be the perfect newbie-helper.
>But the simple, useful idea of "Let's make it easier to introduce newbies
>to usenet" has transmogrified into a socio-political bureaucracy that rivals
>both third century Rome and my condo association.
There are a number of people on the nnq-workers list who are
every bit as dismayed as you are that all this charter discussion
has gotten so out of hand. Myself, all I want to see is that the
dreck gets pushed aside enough so that I don't have to waste my
(human) time on it on the way to finding questions to answer.
Computers are great at sending the same form letter over and
over, humans tend to get bored. The charter stuff is nice but
irrelevant to this purpose. Most newusers don't understand the
politics of usenet well enough yet to understand things at that
level anyway. In fact, the promise to keep the Administrative
Statement in a visible position already puts us ahead of most
moderated groups who rarely publish their charter and/or let them
become obsolete without comment.
>Remember, we're talking newbies. They really don't need a Court of Appeals,
>a Ministry of Truth, or a wet nurse. At most they need an usher.
>There are lot's of fine, noble ideas here that are worth the money,
>but the shipping and handling costs have gotten way out of line.
Meet the head usher :-) . Most of my answers involve, "if you
want to discuss that, here's the group(s) you should do that in,
now go there".
I believe that once things actually get going, we will be busy
enough just keeping up with the mechanics of the job. Some will
be monitoring the bot and others (like me) will be in there
attempting to educate the newbies and send them forth as
respectable citizens. With the floods of people coming in (even
with the bot I suspect), there isn't all that much time for
handholding. Besides most of us *do* have lives. :-)
The purpose of this reorganization is not only to make the
newsgroup more useful for newusers, but also to make it a more
inviting place for helpers to work (helpers are what makes this
group useful in the first place after all).
Eve M. Behr
eb...@internode.net
Jani Pearce
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>David Farrar <david....@mx.parliament.govt.nz> wrote:
>>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>>>
>>> >>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>>> >>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>>>
>
>
>>What's to stop a moderator pretend they never received the article and
>>binning it?
>
>I understand this _does_ happen more often than people like to admit.
In discussion groups I can imagine it might. But yet again (and Lord
knows why this needs to be repeated so often), this is a help group. It
would not behoove a moderator to "misplace" an honest newbie question.
And since any discussion of politics, religion, sex, racial issues, or
PC vs. MAC is going to be rejected, along with spam, MMF, velveeta, and
URL ads, what else is there?
Perhaps adding "no editing of rejected posts" wouldn't hurt the
charter, but it does not, IMHO, seem worth the effort. Frankly, the
subject is a dead horse that doesn't speak well of those who keep
beating it...
--
Remove "ANTI_SPAM" from my address to write me!
Hints and Tips for Newusers: http://www.halcyon.com/pearce/newuser.htm
Why & How to Leave AOL: http://www.halcyon.com/pearce/why.htm
Dennis Calhoun
On 19 Mar 1997 10:38:38 GMT, dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie)
wrote:
> +---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 00:22:18 -0800):
> | dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
> | > With language like that [modifiability] my vote would be against the
> | > proposal.
>[...]
> | That is a very serious problem in my view. If it were possible to
> | amend the charter through an RFD process, I would accept some parts of
> | it being unamendable except by that process. As it is, I think it is
> | unconscionable to disallow our successors the flexibility they need to
> | deal with situations we haven't foreseen. We've spent many months
> | hashing out this charter, but we'd be idiots if we believed we've
> | thought of everything. As such, we've got to allow flexibility.
> +----
>
<SNIP>
>
>More specifically; Board makes Board is less than optimal and
>Board modifies charter is less than optimal. Combined they are
>double plus ungood.
>
>1. Need a way to add moderators.
>2. Need a way to remove moderators.
>3. Need to modify charter.
>
>Is giving control of all three items to less than 10 people
>part of the design goal? If nothing else it isn't very fault
>tolerant.
During our discussions of this matter I and a few others stood firmly
for checks and balances of power. The "powers" should not be in the
hands of any one person, the Head Moderator, rather spread across the
membership of the Moderation Board. There are a number of moderated
newsgroups in which one single Moderator is virtually all powerful and
I do not beleive that this should be the case in n.n.q. Nor do I
beleive that we should open the floor to the 3 of 4 newusers in n.n.q
who are the equavalent of "Usenet newborns" who have not yet matured.
We have tried to acheive a "democratic process" for moderation of
n.n.q and I beleive that we have come as close to that as is
reasonably possible at this time, given the current condition of
n.n.q. We are looking into the future and trying have tried to compose
a Charter that will allow the absolutely necessary flexibility without
sacrificing protection of users rights and recognizing the immaturity
of the majority of n.n.q users. Those who are or will become helpers
in n.n.q will have the ability to contact the Moderators and request
consideration for their membership in the Board.
I must also say that our concerns have nothing to do with the current
proposed Head Moderator's abilities or condition. Jon Bell is a
trustworty and quite honorable man. It is the potential for future
abuse that we checked by the balance of power within the Board.
--
Dennis D. Calhoun <mailto:dcal...@blomand.net>
Proposed Backup Moderator for and proponent of the 3rd RFD currently
being discussed in news:news.groups as
3rd RFD: moderate news.newusers.questions
David Farrar
Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>
> >>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
> >>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>
What's to prevent a moderator sending a 100 MB file to everyone whose
surname starts with Q
What's to prevent a moderator from hiring some mercenaries to track down
and kneecap people who post off-topic to the group?
What's to stop a moderator pretend they never received the article and
binning it?
They're about as ridicolous as each other in that the chances of any
happening are approximately nil.
DPF
------------------------------------------------------------------
David Farrar <d...@ihug.co.nz> <david....@mx.parliament.govt.nz>
I don't speak for the Government and it doesn't speak for me!
Cabinet : http://www.executive.govt.nz
Ministerial FAQ : http://www.ministers.govt.nz/faqhome.nsf
A proponent of the 3rd RFD to moderate news:news.newusers.questions
Henrietta Thomas
David Farrar <david....@mx.parliament.govt.nz> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>>
>> >>What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>> >>so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>>
[snip]....
>What's to stop a moderator pretend they never received the article and
>binning it?
I understand this _does_ happen more often than people like to admit.
Henrietta
Jim Baranovich
In a previous article, jtb...@cs1.presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
>These posts may be rejected regardless of their topic:
>
> Articles which aren't primarily text in a standard alphabet
> (e.g. binaries, pictures, Rot13).
^^^^^
<giggle> Was this put in here just for me?
If so, thank you.
If not, thank you anyway.
I'll be voting YES on the proposal.
--
"Akazukin Cha-cha/ChibiUsa H pics: Because some of us believe ...."
Jim Baranovich, hh...@cleveland.freenet.edu * lolicom * nijikon *
Steven Packard has translated and edited the Sailormoon FAQ, rendering it
readable, at http://looney.physics.sunysb.edu/~daffy/sos/sosif/faq.html
Want it, but don't have web access? Email me and I'll send it to you.
Steven Garman
18 Mar 1997, Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu>
/Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
/>It sets a bad precedent for Usenet. If this proposal passes, I forsee a
/>future of RFDs containing the very same amendability provisions -- by
/>the will of the moderators without procedure and without any kind of
/>input from the reader.
/
/If you wanted to stop that, you're about fifteen years too late.
Forsooth, and it seems Henrietta has been hitting the all-natural herbs and
spices again. :^)
Still, she has missed the point that a moderator and the reading public form
a synergy. The moderator cannot do just *anything*; the readership will
make their dissatisfaction known if they truly disapprove.
I have changed my newsgroup's Charter many times. Even though they were
mainly small and additive changes, they were changes nonetheless. The
readers have let me know before when they disapproved of any procedural
changes I made, and they will continue to do so.
Jon Bell
bogey <bogey@sprint_mail.com> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>> Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights
>> as those who have been here a while. They have the right to vote on
>> this proposal, why don't they have the right to be involved in nnq's
>> internal affairs?
>
More specifically, I have been posting a *daily* pointer to the RFD,
a copy of which is on my Web page, and to the discussion in news.groups.
Stella Nemeth
kmo...@polarnet.com (Kathy I. Morgan) wrote:
>Jon Bell <jtb...@cs1.presby.edu> wrote:
>
>> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
>> moderated group news.newusers.questions (moderates existing group)
>>
>> This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for changing the status
>> of an existing newsgroup, news.newusers.questions (n.n.q), from
>> 'unmoderated' to 'moderated.'
>
>I think this is a necessary step. As a new user of Usenet, I learned a
>great deal by reading othe'rs questions and responses on n.n.q. However,
>the huge number of off-topic postings was really overwhelming. Since
>gaining a little experience, I've also tried to be a good samaritan by
>answering other new user's questions, and again the huge number of
>off-topic postings simply overwhelms me and my newsreaders.
Would you believe that in the overwhelming number of posts, I've
managed to miss yours? ...[sigh]... And I make it a point to try to
spot the other helpers. I'll be looking for your messages in the
future.
>Many less drastic attempts to discourage off-topic and inappropriate
>postings have been attempted, but none of them worked. (For example, Jon
>Bell and others have regularly posted clearly labeled hints and
>suggestions for new users to get the most from the newsgroup--and those
>postings just get lost or ignored in the 1000 or so off-topic posts
>daily.)
Indeed many other techniques have been tried. There is currently
someone attempting a campaign against hello-world posts. Last week
there was an active campaign against testing that actually seemed to
be making progress when the helper was called back to real life. You
wouldn't know that looking at the group this week. Neither of these
people, like Kathy, are part of nnq-workers which is really too bad.
We've been so tied up with this RFD and trying to keep up with
answering questions, that we haven't had the time or the energy to
contact the new helpers and invite them into nnq-workers.
Kathy, consider this an invitation. e-mail Jon Bell (address above)
and ask to join us. He is the keeper of the list.
Stella Nemeth at s.ne...@ix.netcom.com, proponent
and proposed backup moderator for the RFD for
news.newusers.questions now being discussed in news.groups
Rhythm junkie
+---- r...@cs.stanford.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 16:37:26 -0800):
| Moderators have always been able to modify the charters of their groups in
| most cases, to allow for changing needs of the readership or changing
| traffic patterns. The only thing that's new here is that it's explicitly
| being listed with *more* checks and balances than frankly is normal.
Moderators choose moderators. Moderators edit charter.
A design bug that has little to do with this particular
instance beyond a (bad) pattern for the future.
The ability to edit charters should be addressed separately
and 'globally'. As a bit of pork added to the n.n.q RFD it
is a bad thing. That bad thing is what I would vote against.
Not the need to adjust n.n.q policy as it transitions or
because I distrust the moderators or because there is anything
wrong with the specifics of the moderation policy.
Putting complete 'control' in the hands of a handful of people
is an invitation to corruption, is not fault tolerant, and
lessens the impact of 'public opinion' on 'policy'. I didn't
notice anything describing 'impeachment' procedures that
involved anyone but the select few.
Please don't confuse my opposition with a dislike of the
n.n.q rational or charter. I am opposing bad infrastructure,
especially because it is being proposed by those 'in the know'.
If the desire to formalize is a motive I suggest avoiding
'star chamber' policies. They get funky with age.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Rhythm junkie
+---- jtb...@presby.edu wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 13:08:53 GMT):
| Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
| >Instead of n.n.q imagine soapbox.i.love-hate.your.-.advocacy.misc
| >that has gone moderated and is now evolving a Board with
| >incestious growth. Being a patient agent provacetuer I do
| >moderation grunt work for a while and manage to bring a few
| >Senior Board members along with me. With editorial power
| >wielded carefully the content of the group is manipulated,
| [...]
|
| more contentious subjects. I can't seriously see someone passing an
| RFD/CFV for, say, soc.culture.albania moderated, with a full amendability
| newsgroup is a specific case unto itself. The proposed rules and
| operating procedures for any proposed moderated group have to be judged
| in the context of that particular group.
You are reading me correctly.
I can seriously see n.n.q passing as is, but not with my help.
I can also see yet more "Kabal!" complaints.
Do as I say, not as I do?!
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Henrietta Thomas
at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu (Atiya Hakeem) wrote:
>In article <5gpogq$1ap$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
>wrote:
>> gazi...@netcom.com (Lynn Diana Gazis) wrote:
><snip>
>
>> >Or you're concerned with, perhaps, the case where the moderator returns
>> >a rejected posting to a poor, clueless new users, who happened to be
>> >using Netscape and not to have it set up to save posts in a folder, and
>> >therefore didn't have a saved copy? Couldn't the poor mistreated poster,
>> >who presumably remembers what he or she wrote, just remove the
>> >modifications?
>>
>> Most of the "poor mistreated" posters in nnq are using Netscape, and
>> most likely do not know how to save their posts. They also probably
>> would have trouble remembering what they wrote. See Kate Weizel's
>> scathing description of them in another article in this thread.
>While I agree that it might be hard for someone to completely rewrite
>a post from memory, surely anyone can remember whether their post was
>something like MMF, a test article, or a commercial ad! They could
>send an appeal saying that the post returned was not the post sent.
>If the moderation team started seeing this often, it would be obvious
>that there was a rogue moderator involved.
Yes, I know. Dennis Calhoun has already assured me the Board would
react strongly to such an event. But it would not be a violation of
the charter because the charter does not discuss rejected articles
beyond saying they will be returned, _if_possible_, with a rejection
note.
>Furthermore, why on earth would an evil moderator even bother to change
>the article and return it rather than just making it vanish? By your
>own reasoning this would prevent the poster from submitting their post
>for appeal, since they would have no rejection letter and would not be
>able to reconstitute the post.
This particular scenario was really not my main concern, and I did
not initially raise the question of tampering with articles submitted
to nnq. You apparently did not read my response to t.r. mcloughlin a
little further up this thread:
begin quote.....
"t.r.mcloughlin" <no_s...@please.edu> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>>
>> [snip]...
>>
>> >> I am also curious as to why the ban on modifying content applies only
>> >> to articles posted to the group, and not to all articles submitted
>> >> for review.
>>
>> >If they pass review, they are posted to the group, aren't they? If
>> >they aren't posted to the group, they aren't our business any more.
>>
>> What is to prevent a moderator from altering content of an article
>> so as to make it qualify for rejection?
>????
>I'm misreading something here. Are you really proposing the scenario
>where a poster sends a post; a moderator reads it; decides that
>s/he wants to reject it even though it passes the moderation criteria
>as written; adds some dirty words, make money fast, etc.; rejects
>it back to the poster saying "your post is inappropriate because it
>is a foul mouthed chain letter and inappropriate for n.n.q"?
Nothing so crude as that. Some articles may not even be returned
because the poster put a bad address in his From: line. And MMF
might not be returned because it is cancel-on-sight. But I was not
thinking of that; I was thinking of the general opportunity for
creative editing which is available to any moderator of a Usenet
newsgroup.
The subject of content tampering was raised in the discussion on
the 2nd RFD by Ginger Glaser:
>Given the loose based nature of the charter, which I agree to some
>extent is needed to allow you to develop a procedure that works, I
>would also prefer some declared "we will nots" in this charter, such
>as "we will not begin blacklisting", "we will not tamper with the
>content of messages" and "there will always be an opportunity to
>appeal rejected posts".
Ethan Bradford seemed puzzled by this:
>> "we will not tamper with the content of messages"
>That seems like an odd thing to promise, since it never occurred to us
>that anyone would consider tampering with the contents, except to add
>a clearly-delineated footer. What did you have in mind?
Then Barbara Pattist explained:
>I know what Ginger means here because I'm familiar with a group where
>the moderators feel it is acceptable to change the newsgroup line and
>send the post to an unmoderated group, or to change the follow-ups. I
>find that unacceptable policy for any moderation team and I believe it
>is widely considered bad moderating. The issue has not come up, but I
>wouldn't mind locking that one in just for good measure.
On that basis, I expected to see something in the 3rd RFD to the
effect that messages would not be tampered with. Period. No exceptions.
Instead, we get the following sentence:
>Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will
>not modify the content of a posted article.
And my question is, why do we deal only with _posted_ articles?
Ethan says rejected articles "aren't our business any more." But that
cannot be true. They will have to save the rejects in case appeals are
filed. This means, to me, that steps should be taken to ensure that
the rejects are retained in their original condition (and that nobody
tampers with them) so that fair decisions can be made on the appeals
if and when they occur. So it seems to me that _all_ articles, not
just the _posted_ ones, ought to be included in the prohibition against
content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
dealing with new users in this newsgroup, and we need moderators who
will bend over backwards to give these new users more than a fair shake
when their articles are rejected. And we need that to be reflected in
the charter.
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
--
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose
heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct,
will pursue his principles unto death. --- Thomas Paine
end quote......
>Really, this is getting a bit silly. As Russ Allbery said elsewhere in
>this thread, either you trust the moderators not to do anything evil, or
>you don't. Nitpicky charter provisions aren't going to restrain someone
>with the gall to alter returned posts.
If charters don't count, why is everybody put through this tortuous
RFD/CFV process? Why doesn't group-advice just set up a panel of
experts to approve group names and moderators? That would be so much
simpler than pretending we are writing charters intended to be "an
informal "contract" between the proponent (you) and the future readers
of the group . . . ." (Source: How to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal).
><snip>
>
>> No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
>> tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
>Except that presumably that would forbid the moderators from embedding
>the rejected post in a rejection letter, which I think is by far clearer
>for the new user than sending the letter and the returned post separately.
Appending a rejected article to a rejection note should not be
considered as "editing" or "tampering" with the article. This
is done every day by the moderators of moderated groups. I have
no problem with this. My question is why the proponents limited
their response to Ginger Glaser's request to _posted_ articles
only and left NOT posted articles hanging in the air.
><snip>
>While I am not convinced that the robomoderator as it has so far been
>discussed here will be sufficiently effective in filtering out off-topic
>stuff, I believe that this group of moderators will work at it until
>n.n.q is a usable and useful place.
The robomoderator has not been sufficiently discussed because there
are very few people here who know anything about it. Jon has said
they are doing some practice runs with copies of articles from the
group, but hasn't said anything about what those practice runs involve.
This is a rather important question. The impression I have is that they
will allow everything to go through that they can't robomod. This means
the group will still contain "garbage" for some time to come. I cannot
discuss this question myself except in very general terms because I am
not familiar with programming techniques. Plus, everything else I have
tried to say has been misconstrued, so why bother saying anything about
the robomod?
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com
Henrietta Thomas
Steven Garman <Suga...@world.std.com> wrote:
>18 Mar 1997, Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu>
>/Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
>/>It sets a bad precedent for Usenet. If this proposal passes, I forsee a
>/>future of RFDs containing the very same amendability provisions -- by
>/>the will of the moderators without procedure and without any kind of
>/>input from the reader.
>/
>/If you wanted to stop that, you're about fifteen years too late.
>Forsooth, and it seems Henrietta has been hitting the all-natural herbs
>and spices again. :^)
Natural is better than artificial flavored any day.
>Still, she has missed the point that a moderator and the reading public
>form a synergy. The moderator cannot do just *anything*; the readership
>will make their dissatisfaction known if they truly disapprove.
I doubt there will be any real "synergy" between this proposed
Moderation Board and the readership of nnq. What synergy there
is will most likely be between readers and individual helpers.
And this may not include members of the proposed Board. There
are a fair number of helpers in the group the Board apparently
knows nothing about. Readers may respond more readily to some
of these helpers than to members of the Moderation Board.
>I have changed my newsgroup's Charter many times. Even though they were
>mainly small and additive changes, they were changes nonetheless. The
>readers have let me know before when they disapproved of any procedural
>changes I made, and they will continue to do so.
Your readers are experienced Netizens who know how to exercise their
rights. The nnq readers are beginners who sometimes do not even know
where they are, let alone know how to complain to the management.
They are like Freshmen on Orientation Day, a bit bewildered and lost.
Their reaction to change may be mixed -- some may complain privately,
some may complain openly, some may suffer in silence, while others
may just go away.
The key to the situation, though, will be the Board's reaction to any
feedback it gets. If it is really positive, there may be a chance for
nnq to develop into a viable group. But if suggestions and complaints
are basically ignored, I do not have high hopes for the future.
Rhythm junkie
+---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 16:42:48 -0800):
| I presume you are opposed to every moderated group? Or did you not
| realize that moderators generally choose their successors? You may
| not have realized that because much of what is implicit in other
| moderated groups is explicit in our charter.
Which is, to me, a bug and not a feature. It has revealed a
weakness in current policy that I hadn't noticed before. I like
moderated groups. I prefer them. I dislike information
chokepoints that are insulated from recourse, however well
intentioned. Especially when they are insulated by design,
explicitly.
The first moderator is usually elected, if not implicitly.
That is a feature.
| Yes, perhaps so. If you start a movement to allow this, I will
| support you. You'd want something like an RFD to 1) overthrow current
| moderators or 2) amend a charter. The threshold for doing so should
| of course be very large.
Yes, more than 10 by at least an order of magnitude.
So what would it take to make such a thing happen? I've heard
rumors about some powers that be disliking like the idea of
charter modification. An obvious problem would be a popular
newsgroup with a contested vote suffering from a small group
passing a charter modification while everyone else was on
vacation. And the need for speedy vs good changes. And the
hassle of running votes for trivia or sport.
| However, we need to do something about this group *now*. Please
| browse n.n.q. A very brief inspection will prove to you that
| something needs to be done and we can't afford to wait until your
| reform process is completed.
+----
There's that urgency trick again.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Henrietta Thomas
jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
> bogey <bogey@sprint_mail.com> wrote:
>>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>>> Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights
>>> as those who have been here a while. They have the right to vote on
>>> this proposal, why don't they have the right to be involved in nnq's
>>> internal affairs?
>>
>>Well, suitable posts about the RFD have been made.
>More specifically, I have been posting a *daily* pointer to the RFD,
>a copy of which is on my Web page, and to the discussion in news.groups.
But you know that daily pointer is hard to find amongst the 1200 daily
posts. Btw, how many people retrieved the 2nd RFD and this 3rd RFD?
Henrietta Thomas
Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
[snip]...
>> ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Kate the Short) wrote:
>>
>> >A good-faith effort to keep one moderator and two backups is not
>> >unreasonable.
>>
>> The unreasonable part is that it is only a "good-faith effort".
>And what would you have the moderators do if they simply can't find a
>third person who wants to take on all that work and worry? Must the
>group revert to unmoderated status?
1. With the number of helpers in the newsgroup itself, there should
be no problem recruiting sufficient replacement moderators.
2. If by chance your scenario should happen to occur, reverting to
unmoderated status would not be the worst thing in the world.
3. The group could even be closed down and made a "read only" group.
4. Or the last moderator could just turn out the lights and walk.
>I like the current language -- they try to keep a minimum membership,
>but it isn't the end of the show if they can't.
I didn't know this was a "show" -- I thought it was a serious attempt
to get control over a troubled newsgroup.
Anyways, I don't like one man shows.
Henrietta
Rhythm junkie
+---- Dmc...@swcp.com wrote (19 Mar 1997 12:45:36 -0700):
| As one of those self-referential "less than 10 people" (currently 8)
| I appreciate your concern.
Conflict resolution training is a good thing.
| These new users are often intelligent adults, sometimes with a number of
| clues, but generally without experience in Usenet, or understanding of it.
|
| Would debating every change to the charter/moderation policy/robot code
| among that population tend to produce a better charter or signal:noise ratio?
Who said anything about n.n.q readers involvement
as a default? As things are worded the next n.n.q
vote could be the last chance for everyone outside
the Board to have a say, including any future
charter rewrites.
Is that a good object lesson for newbies reading
their first newsgroup? Or for a medium that is
finding significant value in methods of moderation?
| OK - propose some general solutions for charter revision for any group,
| and for moderator replacement/retention for moderated groups. Consider
| insulating against readers of one group staging a voting raid on another
| - a similar problem to the issues of widespread vote solicitation on CFVs.
Yes, that is a problem. One made worse by the
'need for speed'.
| To me, a "vote of confidence" process seems appealing - a moderator could
| make decisions with or without polling a group on each decision, and then
| call for a retention ballot in the group at least every year or so.
Maybe require "things I did last summer" and
"things I'll do next winter" documents that are
open to scrutiny?
| But, the recurring question arises - who should be able to vote?
My choice would be anyone that wants to. I also
wish the USA was a democracy instead of a republic.
| How could any binding process be enforced against a moderator who
| actively opposes charter change or replacement?
Replacement I suppose. The difference between a
moderated and an unmoderated group is the single
point of initial distribution for everyone using
it. If that part of the process is a problem
there should be readily available means of repair.
| I don't necessarily think that all of these questions are unanswerable,
| but it does seem that there are a number of things about Usenet which
| don't look to be fault-tolerant - but which often generally work well.
+----
The enforcement of either approach would
hopefully be a rare occurance. As written
n.n.q gives future determination to a small
group.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Rhythm junkie
+---- S.NE...@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 03:28:18 GMT):
| No, really. <g> Please read the Charter. There are all kinds of
| levels of checks and balances.
+----
I read it, I posted. Board elects Board, Board modifies charter.
Design bug. No.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Rhythm junkie
+---- ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu wrote (Wed, 19 Mar 1997 03:20:34 GMT):
| In the United States, we have voters who can vote once they reach 18.
| Those who are too young and unexperienced are not given the power to vote.
| Their decisions are entrusted to Congress, which has its own checks and
| balances.
+----
Checks and balances that are missing from the
currently proposed Board. The line between a
republic and a dictatorship?
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Henrietta Thomas
Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
>> Usenet, on the other hand, has a tradition of open communications
>> based on the honored concept of academic freedom. As Voltaire once
>> said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
>> your right to say it."
>As a complete aside, which I bring up simply because I'm something of a
>collector of quotes and this is a FAQ on alt.quotations, Voltaire (so far
>as anyone can determine) never actually said that.
It was attributed to him by S.G. Tallentyre in 'The Friends of Voltaire'
(1907), p. 199, according to the Oxford University Press Dictionary of
Quotations, so he must have said something to that effect.
>> So far as I know, scrm was the first [to have blacklists].
>It may have been the first to have blacklists specifically mentioned in
>the charter, but then the whole concept of specifically listing the
>moderation policy in the charter is rather new. Most of the existing
>moderated groups run something along the lines of "here's what's on topic
>and the moderator is free to do whatever they want to encourage/enforce
>that." I'm quite sure that includes dumping all posts from abusive
>posters or spammers in many existing groups.
And I would agree that probably is the case, especially in the days
when Usenet was grounded more or less in academia. But times have
changed, and continue to change. Usenet is growing rapidly, and new
users need to know upfront what they are getting into. It is a Good
Thing to bring the "unwritten rules" out into the open where they
can be debated and discussed. Then perhaps a new and greater Usenet
will emerge which will try to meet the needs of the majority rather
than cater to the desires of a select few.
Henrietta
Jon Bell
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> wrote:
> +---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 16:42:48 -0800):
> | support you. You'd want something like an RFD to 1) overthrow current
> | moderators or 2) amend a charter. The threshold for doing so should
> | of course be very large.
>
>Yes, more than 10 by at least an order of magnitude.
>
>So what would it take to make such a thing happen?
In such a fundamental area such as this, nothing can happen unless David
Lawrence (the moderator of news.announce.newgroups) goes along with it.
He controls the mail aliases at isc.org (or are they still at uu.net?)
that point to the actual submission addresses for moderated groups.
I suspect that he does not consider rogue moderators to be a serious
enough problem (yet) to be worth investing his time in coming up with a
solution.
In my experience, major changes in the newsgroup creation/management
system have come about only in reaction to "crisis situations" which
caused something to break down. For example, the UVV (which now handles
virtually all votes) was created in response to a hotly disputed vote on
a very controversial newsgroup which turned out to have been run by one
of the supporters of the group, and in which there was strong suspicion
that the votetaker "cooked" the results. Also, the PGP signatures on
David Lawrence's control messages came about because of a rash of forged
'newgroup' and 'rmgroup' messages in his name.
So I wouldn't expect a major overhaul of the "rules" for moderated
newsgroups unless some crisis explicitly points up the need for it. For
example, a situation in which an overwhelming majority of a newsgroup's
readers clearly want to kick out an existing moderator, and they raise a
sufficiently big stink about it. Say, if a moderator obviously goes
completely "around the bend" and turns his group into a temple for Kibo
worshippers. :-)
Ethan Bradford
dr...@dream.season.com (Rhythm junkie) writes:
>
> +---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (19 Mar 1997 16:42:48 -0800):
> | I presume you are opposed to every moderated group? Or did you not
> | realize that moderators generally choose their successors? You may
> | not have realized that because much of what is implicit in other
> | moderated groups is explicit in our charter.
>
> Which is, to me, a bug and not a feature. It has revealed a
> weakness in current policy that I hadn't noticed before. I like
> moderated groups. I prefer them. I dislike information
> chokepoints that are insulated from recourse, however well
> intentioned. Especially when they are insulated by design,
> explicitly.
>
> The first moderator is usually elected, if not implicitly.
> That is a feature.
In the moderated groups that you like and prefer, there is one
moderator chosen at RFD time. He has absolute control over the
(effective) charter and absolute control over his successor. There is
no requirement that he follow any procedure for choosing a successor
or describing changes in the effective charter.
In our proposal, which you're objecting to, the first group of
moderators is being elected implicitly by this RFD process, which is
the same as for a traditionally moderated group. However, in our
proposal a group has some ability to check a single rogue moderator, a
group chooses the new moderator, and any changes in the charter have
to be made explicitly and announced publicly.
It seems to me that our group has many more protections than the
traditional moderated groups. If you're keen for changing precedents
to provide more protection for the users, it seems like you should be
supporting this, not opposing it.
-- Ethan
Ginger Glaser
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) wrote:
>Should we then bar the new users from voting on this proposal because
>they won't be around when the RESULT is posted? I think not. I think
>the new users have just as much right as you and I do to vote on this
>proposal. And I think they should have a right to express their views
>on newsgroup policy and procedure, including the right to say whether
>they think Person X would make a good moderator. Or even to say that
>they think Person Y is not doing a very good job.
>
Which of course, means all those now posting hello cascades, can vote
that the moderators are doing a bad job because they won't post their
cascade, and thus leave nnq a wreck like its current incarnation. I
don't think that is the ideal solution either.
Ginger
Jon Bell
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
>
>>More specifically, I have been posting a *daily* pointer to the RFD,
>>a copy of which is on my Web page, and to the discussion in news.groups.
>
>But you know that daily pointer is hard to find amongst the 1200 daily
>posts. Btw, how many people retrieved the 2nd RFD and this 3rd RFD?
Since 24 February, the 2nd RFD has received 109 hits.
Since 9 March, the 3rd RFD has received 49 hits.
(I should note that many of these hits probably come from people who
reached my Web page by way of the URL in my signature.)
Kate the Short
In article <5gqn10$o7s$3...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>
>Ethan says rejected articles "aren't our business any more." But that
>cannot be true. They will have to save the rejects in case appeals are
>filed. This means, to me, that steps should be taken to ensure that
>the rejects are retained in their original condition (and that nobody
>tampers with them) so that fair decisions can be made on the appeals
>if and when they occur. So it seems to me that _all_ articles, not
>just the _posted_ ones, ought to be included in the prohibition against
>content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
>things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
>dealing with new users in this newsgroup, and we need moderators who
>will bend over backwards to give these new users more than a fair shake
>when their articles are rejected. And we need that to be reflected in
>the charter.
I pulled this post out of my killfile because it is important to note
something here.
If the moderators are going to archive rejected postings, they are NOT
going to have limitless space. If it's a 2000-line binary posting, I
would MUCH rather see that "altered" so that the full headers and the
first 20 lines of the binary are archived, with a note at the bottom
saying [1796 remaining lines of binary post snipped].
Therefore, I would NOT put such a restriction into the charter, because it
would impose on space considerations.
Additionally, if the moderators were to return posts for appeals, would
the newbie want to receive a 2000-line quoted binary in HIS email? I
don't think so. I would much rather have the post snipped, and returned
with an explanation for the rejection, the appeals address, and the full
headers and the first 20 lines of the binary quoted at the bottom, with
the same note at the bottom saying [1796 remaining lines of binary post
snipped].
Again, because of this, I would NOT put such a restriction into the
charter, because it would prevent the moderators from doing their jobs in
an efficient manner.
>>> No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
>>> tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
>
>>Except that presumably that would forbid the moderators from embedding
>>the rejected post in a rejection letter, which I think is by far clearer
>>for the new user than sending the letter and the returned post separately.
>
>Appending a rejected article to a rejection note should not be
>considered as "editing" or "tampering" with the article. This
>is done every day by the moderators of moderated groups. I have
>no problem with this. My question is why the proponents limited
>their response to Ginger Glaser's request to _posted_ articles
>only and left NOT posted articles hanging in the air.
Because of the consideration that appending a rejected article should not
be considered "tampering" but snipping that appended article so it doesn't
crash someone's mailer would be considered "tampering."
>The robomoderator has not been sufficiently discussed because there
>are very few people here who know anything about it. Jon has said
>they are doing some practice runs with copies of articles from the
>group, but hasn't said anything about what those practice runs involve.
Basically, Jon is trying different criteria for the bot. Right now one
criteria for rejecting a "test" posting is that the body is less than 150
characters (not counting headers) and that it has test or testing in the
subject line but doesn't include the words help, where, how, ?, and so on.
Those results are being sent to volunteers among the moderation panel, to
see how many original posts and followups to those original posts are each
accepted or rejected.
>This is a rather important question. The impression I have is that they
>will allow everything to go through that they can't robomod. This means
>the group will still contain "garbage" for some time to come. I cannot
>discuss this question myself except in very general terms because I am
>not familiar with programming techniques. Plus, everything else I have
>tried to say has been misconstrued, so why bother saying anything about
>the robomod?
Any group contains some garbage. Using criteria like those above, in
order to allow through subject = test with a body that asks a question,
will help to create a better signal and less noise right away. Same for
the hello posts. Crossposts are easy to deal with. We will have the
ability to close threads, and to hand-moderate the posts of those who only
post "Check out my sex links page!" 15 times daily and nothing else.
Combined with the use of FAQs, rejection letters, and footers, along with
a higher incidence of on-group answers and less noise, I think we'll be
juuust fine.
kate.
Henrietta Thomas
jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
> Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>>jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
>>
>>>More specifically, I have been posting a *daily* pointer to the RFD,
>>>a copy of which is on my Web page, and to the discussion in news.groups.
>>
>>But you know that daily pointer is hard to find amongst the 1200 daily
>>posts. Btw, how many people retrieved the 2nd RFD and this 3rd RFD?
>Since 24 February, the 2nd RFD has received 109 hits.
>Since 9 March, the 3rd RFD has received 49 hits.
I think that is very good. A big improvement over the reaction to
the 1st RFD. It shows people are becoming more aware. I expect some
of them are lurking here right now, and I expect some of them will
vote on the CFV. That is good. We need the readers to be involved
in this.
>(I should note that many of these hits probably come from people who
>reached my Web page by way of the URL in my signature.)
I would agree with that. Your "ATTENTION" notice is only posted once
a day, whereas your .sig appears on every article you write. This is
also a good sign in general -- people are getting more interested in
your web page.
Kate the Short
In article <5gs3p1$hsl$1...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> wrote:
>jtb...@presby.edu (Jon Bell) wrote:
>
>>Since 24 February, the 2nd RFD has received 109 hits.
>>Since 9 March, the 3rd RFD has received 49 hits.
>
>I think that is very good. A big improvement over the reaction to
>the 1st RFD. It shows people are becoming more aware. I expect some
>of them are lurking here right now, and I expect some of them will
>vote on the CFV. That is good. We need the readers to be involved
>in this.
Woo! Total agreement here. This is *great* news!
>>(I should note that many of these hits probably come from people who
>>reached my Web page by way of the URL in my signature.)
>
>I would agree with that. Your "ATTENTION" notice is only posted once
>a day, whereas your .sig appears on every article you write. This is
>also a good sign in general -- people are getting more interested in
>your web page.
*nod* Yup, that's a good thing. And it gives me hope that the footers
will likewise get people's attention and get people interested in what ELSE
is out there.
kate.
happy as a clam.
Kate the Short -(ka...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu)- at the U. of Chicago
Read FAQs at: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/keweizel/faq.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Subscribe to news:news.announce.newgroups or news:rec.arts.comics.info
or email mailto:bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu and request a copy!
You must vote by MARCH 26, 1997.
Russ Allbery
Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
> There is no precedent for giving all power to the moderators to do as
> they please with a newsgroup.
To repeat yet again, for those who haven't yet realized that on this
subject Ms. Thomas doesn't know what she's talking about, this statement
is quite simply flat-out wrong.
The actual facts are that the overwhelming precedent for moderated groups
on Usenet has been to do precisely that. It is only recently that the
trend has been *away* from giving full control to the moderator and
towards tighter charters with more rules, provisions, administrivia, and
other details.
> Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights as those who have been
> here a while. They have the right to vote on this proposal, why don't
> they have the right to be involved in nnq's internal affairs?
They do not have a right to vote. No one has a right to vote. There are
no rights on Usenet.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@cs.stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Russ Allbery
Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> writes:
> I did say that I think self referential governing bodies is a buggy
> design. I continue to oppose for that reason.
Newsgroup moderators are not a "governing body." They're volunteers who
are working on keeping a newsgroup on-topic and useful.
Henrietta Thomas
ggl...@minn.net (Ginger Glaser) wrote:
Fear of a minority should not be used as an excuse to deprive the
majority of their right to be heard. It is the job of moderators and
helpers to explain to the "hello" posters why these kinds of threads
are not welcome in Usenet.
I recently posted such an article, "How NOT to say Hello in this
Newsgroup", and did not get a single complaint. Of course, I have no
way of knowing how many people read the article, but I will watch to
see if the "hello" postings drop off in any way.
Of course, this kind of thing can be overdone, too. If all the helpers
do is complain about clueless newbies making "hello" cascades in the
newsgroup, this will turn people off. I do not want to turn people off;
I want to turn them on and clue them in as to how Usenet works. Asking
them to express their opinions is an important part of this. It sets
the stage for dialog between the two sides. You cannot "educate" a
person without this dialog.
Atiya Hakeem
> at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu (Atiya Hakeem) wrote:
>
> >In article <5gpogq$1ap$2...@kirin.wwa.com>, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
> >wrote:
<snip>
> >While I agree that it might be hard for someone to completely rewrite
> >a post from memory, surely anyone can remember whether their post was
> >something like MMF, a test article, or a commercial ad! They could
> >send an appeal saying that the post returned was not the post sent.
> >If the moderation team started seeing this often, it would be obvious
> >that there was a rogue moderator involved.
>
> Yes, I know. Dennis Calhoun has already assured me the Board would
> react strongly to such an event. But it would not be a violation of
> the charter because the charter does not discuss rejected articles
> beyond saying they will be returned, _if_possible_, with a rejection
> note.
It is a charter violation for a moderator to intentionally reject an
on-topic article, whether or not they modify it afterwards.
>
> >Furthermore, why on earth would an evil moderator even bother to change
> >the article and return it rather than just making it vanish? By your
> >own reasoning this would prevent the poster from submitting their post
> >for appeal, since they would have no rejection letter and would not be
> >able to reconstitute the post.
>
> This particular scenario was really not my main concern, and I did
> not initially raise the question of tampering with articles submitted
> to nnq. You apparently did not read my response to t.r. mcloughlin a
> little further up this thread:
I did read your response, but wasn't entirely sure how it explained
why a moderator would have any reason to tamper with a _rejected_ post.
I can of course understand concerns about tampering with _posted_ posts.
However, rereading it I think I see what it is you think a moderator might
do.
--begin letter included by Henrietta Thomas--
<snip most of the included letter>
> Ethan says rejected articles "aren't our business any more." But that
> cannot be true. They will have to save the rejects in case appeals are
> filed. This means, to me, that steps should be taken to ensure that
> the rejects are retained in their original condition (and that nobody
> tampers with them) so that fair decisions can be made on the appeals
> if and when they occur. So it seems to me that _all_ articles, not
> just the _posted_ ones, ought to be included in the prohibition against
> content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
<snip rest of included letter>
--end letter included by Henrietta Thomas--
(I apologize for breaking in the middle of the paragraph, but I think
this part expresses a complete thought and I can't post if I have too much
quoted material)
If I understand this correctly, you're worried that the moderators will
keep an archive of all rejected material and that a rogue moderator could
tamper with messages before sending them to the archive to fool his/her
fellow moderators, then send the poster back either the real original
article or nothing at all so he/she would be blissfully unaware of the
contents of the moderators' archive.
While I cannot _possibly imagine_ this happening for a group with no
politically or emotionally sensitive topic, I suppose technically it
could. I believe a few moderated groups keep a web page of rejected
submissions. This would address this concern much better than a charter
change would, but personally I don't see much point in archiving oodles
of test and hello posts on the off chance that one of the moderators
has gone 'round the bend.
> >Really, this is getting a bit silly. As Russ Allbery said elsewhere in
> >this thread, either you trust the moderators not to do anything evil, or
> >you don't. Nitpicky charter provisions aren't going to restrain someone
> >with the gall to alter returned posts.
>
> If charters don't count, why is everybody put through this tortuous
> RFD/CFV process? Why doesn't group-advice just set up a panel of
> experts to approve group names and moderators? That would be so much
> simpler than pretending we are writing charters intended to be "an
> informal "contract" between the proponent (you) and the future readers
> of the group . . . ." (Source: How to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal).
Note the word "informal". The charter should _generally_ spell out
what the group can and should expect from the moderators. It is not
intended to be like a legal document, in which every detail must
be able to withstand a determined attack in court. If anything, I
think the currently proposed n.n.q charter is _too_ detailed.
> >> No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
> >> tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
>
> >Except that presumably that would forbid the moderators from embedding
> >the rejected post in a rejection letter, which I think is by far clearer
> >for the new user than sending the letter and the returned post separately.
>
> Appending a rejected article to a rejection note should not be
> considered as "editing" or "tampering" with the article. This
> is done every day by the moderators of moderated groups. I have
> no problem with this. My question is why the proponents limited
> their response to Ginger Glaser's request to _posted_ articles
> only and left NOT posted articles hanging in the air.
No, it _shouldn't_ be considered as "editing" or "tampering." But
technically, adding quote characters (like ">") around a message in a
rejection letter would be editing, and cutting out a large binary
would be "tampering". This is why the charter should not be
written or interpreted in such an exact, legalistic, way.
<snip>
--
Atiya Hakeem
at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu
Aardy R. DeVarque
>>: content modification. Not that I expect anybody to do any really weird
>>: things, but just to be on the safe side against potential abuse. We are
>
>>Why is this "on the safe side"? Altering rejected messages to add
>>invented reasons for rejecting them is so obviously unethical, that I
>>can't imagine why a person unethical enough to do this would be
>>constrained by something like a charter provision. I mean, do we have to
>>spell out in detail every possible grotesquely wrong thing which the
>>moderators shouldn't do?
>
>No, all we need is a clear statement that articles will not be
>tampered with in any manner, shape, or form. Period.
Why? Isn't that assumed, right up there with "The moderator(s) won't use a
pocket veto and send unliked messages to /dev/null", "The moderator(s) won't
spam poor little Netscape users with ads for Internet Explorer", and "The
moderators won't crosspost every post to alt.evil"?
Try turning Occam's Razor on your arguments about tampering with rejected
articles, or tampering with articles so that they will get rejected. That
takes a lot of work, relative to dumping the article in the circular file.
Also, if someone is unethical enough to try this, they're not going to let a
little thing like a line in the charter stop them. Unless one is needlessly
paranoid, it's *not* something to angst about unless it actually starts
happening--in which case you merely alert the *other* moderators to the
problem. That's one reason there's a team of 'em. If you actually think
the *entire* team will become hopelessly corrupt & evil someday, then I
suggest you just vote NO and have done with it.
Besides, with an amendable charter, this can always be added later, when it
actually becomes a problem. :)
Aardy R. DeVarque
Feudalism: Serf & Turf
Henrietta Thomas
Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Rhythm junkie <dr...@dream.season.com> writes:
>> I did say that I think self referential governing bodies is a buggy
>> design. I continue to oppose for that reason.
>Newsgroup moderators are not a "governing body." They're volunteers who
>are working on keeping a newsgroup on-topic and useful.
In this particular instance, the Moderation Board _is_ a governing
body. Ask anyone who was involved in the discussions on the nnq-workers
list, and if they are honest, they will tell you that we spent a great
deal of time discussing "governance".
Henrietta Thomas
kewe...@midway.uchicago.edu (Kate the Short) wrote:
>In article <5gqn10$o7s$3...@kirin.wwa.com>, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com>
>wrote:
[snip]....
>If the moderators are going to archive rejected postings, they are NOT
>going to have limitless space. If it's a 2000-line binary posting, I
>would MUCH rather see that "altered" so that the full headers and the
>first 20 lines of the binary are archived, with a note at the bottom
>saying [1796 remaining lines of binary post snipped].
And that, as you note below, would be "tampering" with the article.
So if anything is saved, it would have to be saved in full.
>Therefore, I would NOT put such a restriction into the charter, because
>it would impose on space considerations.
The proposed charter does not require the Board to save rejected posts.
I never raised the question because I assumed such posts _would_ be
saved for the purpose of deciding appeals.
>Additionally, if the moderators were to return posts for appeals, would
>the newbie want to receive a 2000-line quoted binary in HIS email? I
>don't think so.
Why not? Didn't said newbie send the 2000-line binary to the nnq
mailbox? My current practice on binaries I find in the group is to
return _in_full_ with a note asking the poster to use alt.binaries
instead. Nobody ever complained to me that I was crashing his mailbox.
>I would much rather have the post snipped, and returned
>with an explanation for the rejection, the appeals address, and the full
>headers and the first 20 lines of the binary quoted at the bottom, with
>the same note at the bottom saying [1796 remaining lines of binary post
>snipped].
But again, as you note below, that would be "tampering".
>Again, because of this, I would NOT put such a restriction into the
>charter, because it would prevent the moderators from doing their jobs
>in an efficient manner.
But if you don't save any rejects, you'll have problems dealing with
appeals. There will be no way for you to double check anything; the
article has already been permanently "dropped on the floor".
[snip]...
>>Appending a rejected article to a rejection note should not be
>>considered as "editing" or "tampering" with the article. This
>>is done every day by the moderators of moderated groups. I have
>>no problem with this. My question is why the proponents limited
>>their response to Ginger Glaser's request to _posted_ articles
>>only and left NOT posted articles hanging in the air.
>Because of the consideration that appending a rejected article should not
>be considered "tampering" but snipping that appended article so it doesn't
>crash someone's mailer would be considered "tampering."
I do not recommend "snipping" long articles sent back to the person
who posted them unless you are going to convert nnq into a test group.
Then, it would be permissible to snip the same way misc.test does.
It is too late now, but if I had my druthers, I would save all rejects
_intact_ in a safe place 15 days, and make it very clear in the reject
letter and in the Administrative Statement that questions about UNposted
articles must be sent to the appeals address _within_ 15 days or the
article will be deleted from the archive. I would also save and delete
'bounced' letters in the same manner. This, I think is only way to show
new users that this Board intends to be fair.
Good luck testing the robomod.
Henrietta Thomas
Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>> In this particular instance, the Moderation Board _is_ a governing
>> body. Ask anyone who was involved in the discussions on the nnq-workers
>> list, and if they are honest, they will tell you that we spent a great
>> deal of time discussing "governance".
>Yes, we did discuss "governance" at length, but it was in the context
>of how the head moderator would be regulated (or governed) by the
>board.
I think it was a little more than that. Would you have any objection
to my posting some chapter and verse from the nnq-workers list? Or
maybe you would like to post it yourself......
Henrietta Thomas
bogey <bogey@sprint_mail.com> wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas wrote:
>> Newcomers to Usenet should have the same rights
>> as those who have been here a while. They have the right to vote on
>> this proposal, why don't they have the right to be involved in nnq's
>> internal affairs?
>>
>> Henrietta
>Well, suitable posts about the RFD have been made.
>Quite frankly, most of the posts by new users are trivial, and only
>made to test.
But some are made to ask questions, as you well know, because you
have been answering them. :-)
The purpose of the moderation is to move the Truly Trivial posts
out of the way so that you will have a better chance to see the
Real Questions.
>Otherwise, you would see them here...
Perhaps they are quietly lurking. I hope so. Jon Bell says 109
people picked up the 2nd RFD, and 49 picked up the 3rd RFD from
his web site. That is not a lot, I know, but it's better than
nothing considering the level of traffic in the group.
Henrietta Thomas
at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu (Atiya Hakeem) wrote:
>In article <5gqn10$o7s$3...@kirin.wwa.com>, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
>wrote:
>> at...@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu (Atiya Hakeem) wrote:
[snip]...
>> >Furthermore, why on earth would an evil moderator even bother to change
>> >the article and return it rather than just making it vanish? By your
>> >own reasoning this would prevent the poster from submitting their post
>> >for appeal, since they would have no rejection letter and would not be
>> >able to reconstitute the post.
>>
>> This particular scenario was really not my main concern, and I did
>> not initially raise the question of tampering with articles submitted
>> to nnq. You apparently did not read my response to t.r. mcloughlin a
>> little further up this thread:
>I did read your response, but wasn't entirely sure how it explained
>why a moderator would have any reason to tamper with a _rejected_ post.
>I can of course understand concerns about tampering with _posted_ posts.
>However, rereading it I think I see what it is you think a moderator
>might do.
[snip]... citation from previous article
>If I understand this correctly, you're worried that the moderators will
>keep an archive of all rejected material and that a rogue moderator could
>tamper with messages before sending them to the archive to fool his/her
>fellow moderators, then send the poster back either the real original
>article or nothing at all so he/she would be blissfully unaware of the
>contents of the moderators' archive.
That is possible. Or, the moderator assigned to decide an appeal
could modify the archived message to cover for a friend. Consider
Murphy's law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong - and plan
accordingly. Not that you _expect_ these kinds of things to happen,
but that it is possible.
>While I cannot _possibly imagine_ this happening for a group with no
>politically or emotionally sensitive topic, I suppose technically it
>could. I believe a few moderated groups keep a web page of rejected
>submissions. This would address this concern much better than a charter
>change would, but personally I don't see much point in archiving oodles
>of test and hello posts on the off chance that one of the moderators
>has gone 'round the bend.
The only purpose for keeping rejected posts in nnq would be to decide
appeals. See my response to Kate Weizel above, where I suggest they
could be retained only for 15 days. Posting them on a web site would
serve no purpose, as they have no real entertainment value for people
who like to read rejected posts.
[snip]...
>> If charters don't count, why is everybody put through this tortuous
>> RFD/CFV process? Why doesn't group-advice just set up a panel of
>> experts to approve group names and moderators? That would be so much
>> simpler than pretending we are writing charters intended to be "an
>> informal "contract" between the proponent (you) and the future readers
>> of the group . . . ." (Source: How to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal).
>Note the word "informal". The charter should _generally_ spell out
>what the group can and should expect from the moderators. It is not
>intended to be like a legal document, in which every detail must
>be able to withstand a determined attack in court. If anything, I
>think the currently proposed n.n.q charter is _too_ detailed.
Yes, the current proposed nnq charter is too detailed for news.groups.
But I do not think it is too detailed for the intended audience of
new users. It tells them upfront the purpose of the group, the types
of articles that will be rejected, the way the robomoderator will be
operated, that cancels will not be permitted except under certain
specific conditions, that they have the right of appeal, and that they
should look for further information in the Administrative Statement.
All of this "administrivia", or whatever you want to call it, is very
important to new users who are blindly pre-subscribed to this newsgroup
and do not even know what Usenet is.
[snip]....
>> Appending a rejected article to a rejection note should not be
>> considered as "editing" or "tampering" with the article. This
>> is done every day by the moderators of moderated groups. I have
>> no problem with this. My question is why the proponents limited
>> their response to Ginger Glaser's request to _posted_ articles
>> only and left NOT posted articles hanging in the air.
>No, it _shouldn't_ be considered as "editing" or "tampering." But
>technically, adding quote characters (like ">") around a message in a
>rejection letter would be editing, and cutting out a large binary
>would be "tampering". This is why the charter should not be
>written or interpreted in such an exact, legalistic, way.
Nevertheless, it must be clearly written so that the intended
audience will know what to expect.
Henrietta
Rhythm junkie
+---- jtb...@presby.edu wrote (Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:24:20 GMT):
| So I wouldn't expect a major overhaul of the "rules" for moderated
| newsgroups unless some crisis explicitly points up the need for it.
OK, I'll just vote no and hope I never
have to say "I told you so".
What I find interesting is that n.n.q
seems to overhaul the rules. Charter
modification and procedures for
moderator control. For the few anyway.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Rhythm junkie
+---- eth...@phys.washington.edu wrote (20 Mar 1997 10:19:33 -0800):
| In the moderated groups that you like and prefer, there is one
| moderator chosen at RFD time. He has absolute control over the
| (effective) charter and absolute control over his successor. There is
| no requirement that he follow any procedure for choosing a successor
| or describing changes in the effective charter.
Yes, which is a bug. Or a horse, depending.
| It seems to me that our group has many more protections than the
| traditional moderated groups. If you're keen for changing precedents
| to provide more protection for the users, it seems like you should be
| supporting this, not opposing it.
+----
When given the chance to vote on whether or not I can
vote in the future odds are very high that I will vote
for voting.
Which, to me, means NO on n.n.q.
--
Gary Johnson
dr...@season.com
Ken Arromdee
Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> I did say that I think self referential governing bodies is a buggy
>> design. I continue to oppose for that reason.
>Newsgroup moderators are not a "governing body." They're volunteers who
>are working on keeping a newsgroup on-topic and useful.
Being a governing body, and being volunteers who work, are perfectly
compatible.
--
Ken Arromdee (arro...@randomc.com, karr...@nyx.nyx.net,
http://www.randomc.com/~arromdee)
"2000 members of the vegetable kingdom and I have to work with _tomatoes_!"
Ethan Bradford
h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
> Ethan Bradford <eth...@phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> >h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
>
> >> In this particular instance, the Moderation Board _is_ a governing
> >> body. Ask anyone who was involved in the discussions on the nnq-workers
> >> list, and if they are honest, they will tell you that we spent a great
> >> deal of time discussing "governance".
>
> >Yes, we did discuss "governance" at length, but it was in the context
> >of how the head moderator would be regulated (or governed) by the
> >board.
>
> I think it was a little more than that.
Yes, the topic also expanded into how the board would regulate it's
own membership and how and whether the charter should be modified.
> Would you have any objection to my posting some chapter and verse
> from the nnq-workers list? Or maybe you would like to post it
> yourself......
Please don't. It is a trivial point and we've wasted enough bandwidth
on trivial points already.
I cancelled that post you quoted just after I sent it because I
realized I was just adding to the noise, but I guess it made it to you
before my cancel message.
-- Ethan