Re: sci.math.moderated Guidelines
Aatu Koskensilta
> pubkeybreaker <pubkey...@aol.com> writes:
>
>> I am guilty of not making myslf clear. I was asking whether we
>> should allow posts from such people under e.g. the 'repetitive'rule.
>> (repeating nonsense)
>
> If they post repetitive non-sense, and if a rule is adopted that
> repetitive non-sense will be rejected, then certainly their repetitive
> non-sense posts should be rejected. It is probably best to leave such
> things to the moderators' discretion. Some tedious lawyering about
> such issues is inevitable, but can for most part be postponed to such
> a time we actually have something to lawyer about.
>
> I believe the moderation policy should be as simple as
> possible. Should the group be created, we will in any case be at the
> mercy of the moderators, and it's best to give them some maneuvering
> room. The tone of the new group will emerge over time, and it's futile
> to try and anticipate every possible problem, every possible form of
> non-sense that someone might come up with. What we /can/ do at this
> time is make sure the moderators are reasonable people with sufficient
> general knowledge of mathematics, people we trust to make sensible
> decisions about when to terminate a thread, declare some beat horse
> dead, and so on.
>
> I have once again added news.groups to the Newsgroups-line. I'll also
> once again voice the sentiment a moderated group is not really needed:
> I don't think a moderated group is really needed.
This time I added news.groups for real! There.
--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.kos...@uta.fi)
"Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>> ... I'll also
>> once again voice the sentiment a moderated group is not really needed:
>> I don't think a moderated group is really needed.
Everybody who is excited about creating a moderated newsgroup should
read Russ Allbery's article a couple of times:
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/mod-pitfalls.html>
The short story, as I tell it, is that a moderated newsgroup isn't
like an unmoderated group with all of the noise subtracted. Something
changes and it makes a real difference.
I can't say in the abstract whether the costs outweigh the benefits.
I'm moderator for a couple of moderated groups and I read a couple.
I have an old page of thoughts about Usenet that includes some
advice about how to handle trolls and some links about how to
use filters:
http://moleski.net/newsgroups/notes.htm
Someone has a sci.math FAQ; unfortunately, it seems to be
about math:
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/math-faq.html
And it seems to be eleven years old:
"The translation was initiated by Alex Lopez-Ortiz on
Mon Feb 23 16:26:48 EST 1998."
Upside: it is very widely distributed.
Those who enjoy sci.math as it is and who know how to
filter may want to set up a sci.math Filter FAQ. It
might help make the existing group more pleasant.
I've watched a couple of unmoderated newsgroups become
practically dry wells because so many people preferred
web-based forums (fora for the classicists) to the
problems of filtering out noise.
People have claimed that having a moderated companion
group can sometimes help the unmoderated group. I
don't know whether that is true. If I had to bet,
I guess I would bet against the proposition.
If there is a nucleus of 8 to 12 folks in favor of
a moderated group who plan to contribute to it,
then I would vote for the proposal. If the experiment
works, great; if it fails, then we can ask to have
the group removed. Not all news servers will comply
with the request to create the group; not all will
comply with the request to close a group--that's
part of the problem in the Usenet milieu.
Marty
--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.
Aatu Koskensilta
> If there is a nucleus of 8 to 12 folks in favor of a moderated group
> who plan to contribute to it, then I would vote for the proposal.
I don't have a vote, but my support is conditional on there being a
sizable number of regulars of sci.math of good standing willing to
contribute, and on the proposed moderators being recognisable as
reasonable, knowledgeable people. If these two conditions are not met, I
doubt a new moderated group would be of any use whatever. And as noted,
sci.math is by no means in an unusable state, except perhaps for the
more sensitive MathForum users and Google groupies.
As always, a large part of the perceived problem has to do with
otherwise quite sane people who for some unfathomable reason feel an
irresistible urge to respond to any and every piece of inanity they
stumble upon. (Case in point, a few irritated MathForum users have
decided it's absolutely necessary for them to shout insults at Musatov
whenever he posts, which, allowing for some pointless hyperbole, not
quite but almost doubles the amount of pointless drivel on sci.math.)
It does seem a number of notable names on sci.math are in favour of a
moderated group. If so, our first order of business should be to
scrutinise the proposed moderators, software setup, moderation
policy. Everything should be kept as simple as possible, allowing the
(hopefully reasonable) moderators shape the group in their (hopefully
reasonable) image. The tone of the new group will emerge from their
decisions, after all, and any extraneous bureaucracy will serve nothing
but the untimely death of the (currently hypothetical) new group.
Aatu Koskensilta
(news.groups added once again...)
David Bernier <davi...@videotron.ca> writes:
> I get the impression that new posting handles are appearing in
> sci.math, with mathematical questions, at a higher rate than once was
> the case. By the look of their user names or signatures, e.g.
> Prof. whatever from France, so-and-so, CEO of ... , I'd say some are
> trolls ...
Some may well be, some may just have an odd sense of humour when it
comes to pseudonyms. I don't much care about what people call themselves
in news. It is usually apparent after just a couple of posts whether
it's worth reading their posts, and if it's not (or if it is, for that
matter) there's not much point to obsessing over the contents of their
From-header or .sig. It would be entirely sufficient to include
something to the effect moderators will use their best judgment and good
sense to determine when a post is a deliberate attempt to disrupt --
e.g. someone posting the same tired old stuff under several identities
-- in the moderation policy of the proposed group.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>As always, a large part of the perceived problem has to do with
>otherwise quite sane people who for some unfathomable reason feel an
>irresistible urge to respond to any and every piece of inanity they
>stumble upon. (Case in point, a few irritated MathForum users have
>decided it's absolutely necessary for them to shout insults at Musatov
>whenever he posts, which, allowing for some pointless hyperbole, not
>quite but almost doubles the amount of pointless drivel on sci.math.)
Yes. I've seen that happen in the two groups I mentioned that
have shriveled up.
>It does seem a number of notable names on sci.math are in favour of a
>moderated group. If so, our first order of business should be to
>scrutinise the proposed moderators, software setup, moderation
>policy. Everything should be kept as simple as possible, allowing the
>(hopefully reasonable) moderators shape the group in their (hopefully
>reasonable) image. The tone of the new group will emerge from their
>decisions, after all, and any extraneous bureaucracy will serve nothing
>but the untimely death of the (currently hypothetical) new group.
And, potentially, a weakening of an existing group that does have
SOME good content, despite the background noise.
Any way to filter the stuff going into and coming out of MathForum?
Aatu Koskensilta
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:05:51 +0300, Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.kos...@uta.fi> wrote in <87tz00n...@alatheia.truth.invalid>:
>
>>(Case in point, a few irritated MathForum users have decided it's
>>absolutely necessary for them to shout insults at Musatov whenever he
>>posts, which, allowing for some pointless hyperbole, not quite but
>>almost doubles the amount of pointless drivel on sci.math.)
>
> Yes. I've seen that happen in the two groups I mentioned that
> have shriveled up.
The human mind is a strange and wondrous thing. On sci.math some people
also feel it incumbent on them to reply to random posts from MathForum
with a helpful "You MathForum idiot! Die! Die!" or two. It goes without
saying -- a turn of phrase not infrequently going with the saying of
what goes without saying -- this too is not appreciated by anyone in
their right mind.
> Any way to filter the stuff going into and coming out of MathForum?
Filtering stuff going into MathForum is up to the MathForum
administration, obviously. Equally obviously, stuff coming out of
MathForum can be filtered by anyone with a decent newsreader -- though
many who post through MathForum are perfectly amicable and
agreeable. I'm not really sure what you're asking.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
> ... Filtering stuff going into MathForum is up to the MathForum
>administration, obviously. ...
OK. Someone might volunteer to moderate the incoming Usenet
stuff for MathForum.
Less trash in = less trash generated by impatient MathForum users.
Maybe.
>Equally obviously, stuff coming out of
>MathForum can be filtered by anyone with a decent newsreader -- though
>many who post through MathForum are perfectly amicable and
>agreeable.
If MathForum were moderated for input from web users, then
less trash would leave it for Usenet.
That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
Aatu Koskensilta
> If MathForum were moderated for input from web users, then less trash
> would leave it for Usenet.
>
> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
It's probably best if we think of MathForum as the mathematical
equivalent of Google Groups for purposes of this discussion. Alas, the
notion of getting Google or MathForum to actively rein even their most
net.abusive users is a pipe dream, such as might result from smoking
some potent herb.
David Bernier
> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>
>> If MathForum were moderated for input from web users, then less trash
>> would leave it for Usenet.
>>
>> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
>
> It's probably best if we think of MathForum as the mathematical
> equivalent of Google Groups for purposes of this discussion. Alas, the
> notion of getting Google or MathForum to actively rein even their most
> net.abusive users is a pipe dream, such as might result from smoking
> some potent herb.
>
I've arranged things so I have two Usenet accounts, connected
to different servers. The first is a server where I can post,
and for sci.math I've put a lot of filters.
The second is a server where I can read but not post.
On that second account, sci.math is set up with few
if any filters ( I haven't checked recently ).
The first account, for sci.math, will filter out
some marginally interesting messages, and will let
through posts from many well-known, sensible posters.
[ sort of like a self-moderated version of sci.math ]
The second won't filter out interesting or marginally
interesting posts, but will let through much more junk.
[ sort of like sci.math with a few filters that catch
Chinese spammer posts, and a bit more.]
David Bernier
Transfer Principle
> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mole...@canisius.edu> writes:
> > Yes. I've seen that happen in the two groups I mentioned that
> > have shriveled up.
> The human mind is a strange and wondrous thing. On sci.math some people
> also feel it incumbent on them to reply to random posts from MathForum
> with a helpful "You MathForum idiot! Die! Die!" or two.
Speaking of those who post "You MathForum (or Google)
idiot," I've noticed that in the past few weeks, such
posters have found a new target besides free Web-based
access to attack -- namely one's email address. So the
newest posts are of the form "You AOL idiot!"
We know that Google and MathForum make us the the less
prestigious news access, while the 1980's style NNTP
newsreaders are more prestigious. But what are the more
prestigious email addies? We see that aol.com is
obviously less prestigious, but what are the more
prestigious emails? What email address won't result in
one saying "You (insert email addy) idiot!" Does it
have anything to do with any monthly fee that one must
pay in order to use the email?
It would be more much more constructive if these posters
would just say "You MathForum/Google idiot! Get a real
NNTP newsreader!" or "You AOL idiot! Get (the right type
of) email!"
Transfer Principle
> It would be more much more constructive if these posters
> would just say "You MathForum/Google idiot! Get a real
> NNTP newsreader!" or "You AOL idiot! Get (the right type
> of) email!"
Case in point. Here's a recent post by "Inverse Examiner":
"How can so much idiocy be crammed into a
tiny AOL-using Google-posting microbrain?"
The "Google-posting" part has already been explained, but
what about the "AOL-using" part. What email would someone
like Inverse Examiner find more respectable than AOL?
Aatu Koskensilta
> Speaking of those who post "You MathForum (or Google) idiot," I've
> noticed that in the past few weeks, such posters have found a new
> target besides free Web-based access to attack -- namely one's email
> address. So the newest posts are of the form "You AOL idiot!"
Will the horrors never cease!?? Won't anyone stand up for the poor
downtrodden non-standard theorists with AOL e-mail accounts?!?!
> We know that Google and MathForum make us the the less prestigious
> news access, while the 1980's style NNTP newsreaders are more
> prestigious. But what are the more prestigious email addies? We see
> that aol.com is obviously less prestigious, but what are the more
> prestigious emails? What email address won't result in one saying "You
> (insert email addy) idiot!" Does it have anything to do with any
> monthly fee that one must pay in order to use the email?
Yes. Everyone who pays less than 73251,45 euros a month for e-mail is
considered less prestigious and will be treated with utter contempt --
for surely they must be very non-standard indeed.
> It would be more much more constructive if these posters would just
> say "You MathForum/Google idiot! Get a real NNTP newsreader!" or "You
> AOL idiot! Get (the right type of) email!"
It would be much more constructive if you stopped obsessing about such
things and abandoned your bizarre fantasies.
Aatu Koskensilta
> Case in point. Here's a recent post by "Inverse Examiner":
>
> "How can so much idiocy be crammed into a
> tiny AOL-using Google-posting microbrain?"
>
> The "Google-posting" part has already been explained, but what about
> the "AOL-using" part. What email would someone like Inverse Examiner
> find more respectable than AOL?
Why should anyone care at all about what someone like "Inverse Examiner"
finds respectable?
Herman Jurjus
> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>
>> If there is a nucleus of 8 to 12 folks in favor of a moderated group
>> who plan to contribute to it, then I would vote for the proposal.
>
> I don't have a vote, but my support is conditional on there being a
> sizable number of regulars of sci.math of good standing willing to
> contribute, and on the proposed moderators being recognisable as
> reasonable, knowledgeable people. If these two conditions are not met, I
> doubt a new moderated group would be of any use whatever. And as noted,
> sci.math is by no means in an unusable state, except perhaps for the
> more sensitive MathForum users and Google groupies.
>
> As always, a large part of the perceived problem has to do with
> otherwise quite sane people who for some unfathomable reason feel an
> irresistible urge to respond to any and every piece of inanity they
> stumble upon. (Case in point, a few irritated MathForum users have
> decided it's absolutely necessary for them to shout insults at Musatov
> whenever he posts, which, allowing for some pointless hyperbole, not
> quite but almost doubles the amount of pointless drivel on sci.math.)
In quantity: quite so. In quality: i'd prefer a 2000+ WM thread anytime
(and believe me: that says a lot.)
On the other hand: the new drivel seems to have ended all other nonsense
on the ng. Or is that a visual illusion on my side?
> It does seem a number of notable names on sci.math are in favour of a
> moderated group. If so, our first order of business should be to
> scrutinise the proposed moderators, software setup, moderation
> policy. Everything should be kept as simple as possible, allowing the
> (hopefully reasonable) moderators shape the group in their (hopefully
> reasonable) image. The tone of the new group will emerge from their
> decisions, after all, and any extraneous bureaucracy will serve nothing
> but the untimely death of the (currently hypothetical) new group.
Nothing snipped - complete agreement. If the moderators are the right
kind of people, you don't need precautions, and if not, no precautions
will help.
--
Cheers,
Herman Jurjus
Phil Carmody
>
>> ... Filtering stuff going into MathForum is up to the MathForum
>>administration, obviously. ...
>
> OK. Someone might volunteer to moderate the incoming Usenet
> stuff for MathForum.
>
> Less trash in = less trash generated by impatient MathForum users.
>
> Maybe.
>
>>Equally obviously, stuff coming out of
>>MathForum can be filtered by anyone with a decent newsreader -- though
>>many who post through MathForum are perfectly amicable and
>>agreeable.
>
> If MathForum were moderated for input from web users, then
> less trash would leave it for Usenet.
>
> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
...
("message-id"
(".googlegroups.com>" -1000 nil s))
("head"
("X-Complaints-To: ab...@aioe.org" -1000 733641 s)
("Organization: The Math Forum" -1000 nil s)))
What problem?
sci.math is in great shape - I have a good chisel!
Phil
--
If GML was an infant, SGML is the bright youngster far exceeds
expectations and made its parents too proud, but XML is the
drug-addicted gang member who had committed his first murder
before he had sex, which was rape. -- Erik Naggum (1965-2009)
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<87skfkn...@kilospaz.fatphil.org>:
>> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
>...
> ("message-id"
> (".googlegroups.com>" -1000 nil s))
> ("head"
> ("X-Complaints-To: ab...@aioe.org" -1000 733641 s)
> ("Organization: The Math Forum" -1000 nil s)))
Nice filter!
>sci.math is in great shape - I have a good chisel!
That's the kind of thing you might write up in slightly
expanded detail so that those who want to follow your
lead may have clearer trail markers ...
Peter J Ross
<aatu.kos...@uta.fi> wrote:
> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" <mol...@canisius.edu> writes:
>
>> If there is a nucleus of 8 to 12 folks in favor of a moderated group
>> who plan to contribute to it, then I would vote for the proposal.
>
> I don't have a vote, but my support is conditional on there being a
> sizable number of regulars of sci.math of good standing willing to
> contribute, and on the proposed moderators being recognisable as
> reasonable, knowledgeable people.
There may be plenty of useful contributors and sane moderators, but
the new group may still be a bad idea.
> If these two conditions are not met, I
> doubt a new moderated group would be of any use whatever. And as noted,
> sci.math is by no means in an unusable state, except perhaps for the
> more sensitive MathForum users and Google groupies.
sci.math will inevitably be in a less usable state if a successful
moderated alternative is created.
> As always, a large part of the perceived problem has to do with
> otherwise quite sane people who for some unfathomable reason feel an
> irresistible urge to respond to any and every piece of inanity they
> stumble upon.
It's like the way you and I often respond to each other. :-)
Off-Topic: I saw an amusing signature on Slashdot recently:
"If my imaginary friends multiplied, there would be a negative
result."
It's probably not new to sci.math, but it was new to me.
--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader v0.9.9p1: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator
Peter J Ross
SJ <mol...@canisius.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:30:31 +0300, Phil Carmody <thefatphi...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> <87skfkn...@kilospaz.fatphil.org>:
>
>>> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
>
>>...
>> ("message-id"
>> (".googlegroups.com>" -1000 nil s))
>> ("head"
>> ("X-Complaints-To: ab...@aioe.org" -1000 733641 s)
>> ("Organization: The Math Forum" -1000 nil s)))
>
> Nice filter!
What's nice about it? It seems rather clumsy to me. Do *all* users of
GG, aioe and MathForum deserve to be ignored?
<...>
Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
Usenet works less well when "everybody else" is spoonfed by moderators
with the kind of stuff that "everybody else" is presumed to want to
read.
I could prove this, if the margin of this post were big enough.
Bart Goddard
news:slrnh95rv...@pjr.gotdns.org:
> Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
> has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
This statement is false. I can think of one obvious counterexample.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Peter J Ross
<godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote in
> news:slrnh95rv...@pjr.gotdns.org:
>
>> Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
>> has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
>
> This statement is false. I can think of one obvious counterexample.
Go on then. Tell me more about your counterexample.
Bart Goddard
> In news.groups on 24 Aug 2009 20:42:46 GMT, Bart Goddard
> <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
>> Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote in
>> news:slrnh95rv...@pjr.gotdns.org:
>>
>>> Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
>>> has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
>>
>> This statement is false. I can think of one obvious counterexample.
>
> Go on then. Tell me more about your counterexample.
Try alt.talk.origins
See if you make a filter for THAT mess. And "*.*" doesn't
count.
Kathy Morgan
> Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
> has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
>
> Usenet works less well when "everybody else" is spoonfed by moderators
> with the kind of stuff that "everybody else" is presumed to want to
> read.
>
> I could prove this, if the margin of this post were big enough.
Good one!
--
Kathy
Transfer Principle
> Transfer Principle <lwal...@lausd.net> writes:
> > The "Google-posting" part has already been explained, but what about
> > the "AOL-using" part. What email would someone like Inverse Examiner
> > find more respectable than AOL?
> Why should anyone care at all about what someone like "Inverse Examiner"
> finds respectable?
OK, so a list of respectable email addies isn't forthcoming. So
in this post I will make an educated guess (_not_ a bizarre
fantasy, but an _educated_ guess) about which email addies are
more respectable than others. And I looked up a list of _free_
email accounts, so let's end the debate about money spent right
now, before it starts.
Speaking of educated, there's one obvious type of email that's
definitely prestigious -- .edu. Posters who have .edu accounts
are likely to be professors or at least students of math, and
of course professors are respected here. I can't imagine anyone
ever posting "How can so much idiocy be crammed into a tiny
harvard.edu-using microbrain?" (Well, maybe a Yalie might, but
that's another issue altogether.)
But what if one isn't a professor? I did a search for free
email accounts. The website about.com gave the results (under
"Top 18 Free Email Services"):
1. gmail.com
2. aol.com
3. gmx.com
4. yahoo.com
The first result is Google -- and we already know how much
Google is despised here. In another sci.math.mod thread there
is another discussion about gmail vs. Google Groups, and how
they aren't necessarily the same. The second result is AOL,
which we already know is not respected.
The third result is GMX. I've never heard of GMX until I
searched for this list. Of course, simply being rare is good
since at least there are no posts about GMX-using microbrains
or anything like that.
The fourth result is Yahoo. This is, of course, a fairly
popular type of email. Yet as of now, no one has been made
fun of for using Yahoo.
So the recommendation therefore would be to use Yahoo or GMX
if one isn't a professor with an .edu account. Of course, the
best person to ask is Inverse Examiner himself, but he won't
answer my questions since I post on Google.
Of course, that same sci.math.mod discussion thread I made a
reference to above pointed out that on Usenet, anyone could
make up an email address. So maybe all posters belittled due
to their email address ought to make up such an account (as
Musatov has done many times) with an .edu addy and avoid all
insults due to inferior email (except, as I said before, from
posters affilated with rival universities).
Transfer Principle
> In news.groups on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:26:57 -0400, Martin X. Moleski,
> > On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:30:31 +0300, Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demun...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> > <87skfknnso....@kilospaz.fatphil.org>:
> What's nice about it? It seems rather clumsy to me.
aioe? I wasn't sure what aioe was, so I decided to type in
www.aioe.org into my browser. The resulting website had a
table whose first entry (under "Host" is):
news://nntp.aioe.org
So aioe is, apparently, an _NNTP_ newsreader. And so we
see that, in addition to Google and Mathforum, not even
having a NNTP newsreader is sufficient to being killfiled
on account of one's newsreader!
Of course, this is Carmody we're talking about. We already
know that Carmody is more severe than any other sci.math
poster when it comes to blanket killfilings based on the
choice of newsreader.
> Do *all* users of GG, aioe and MathForum deserve to be ignored?
To Carmody they do -- with a few handpicked exceptions, as
he often points out. The real question is, what newsreaders
does Carmody _not_ killfile? I don't want to have to
mention price again, but I can't see what else would
distinguish aioe.org from the newsreaders Carmody accepts.
Adam H. Kerman
>aioe? I wasn't sure what aioe was, so I decided to type in
>www.aioe.org into my browser. The resulting website had a
>table whose first entry (under "Host" is):
>news://nntp.aioe.org
>So aioe is, apparently, an _NNTP_ newsreader.
News server, not newsreader (client)
Bart Goddard
news:vc2dnbxT1t3htxLX...@supernews.com:
> Those who enjoy sci.math as it is and who know how to
> filter may want to set up a sci.math Filter FAQ. It
> might help make the existing group more pleasant.
Perhaps. But I think there's a handful of guys whom I
would like to have posting who either don't know how to
filter, or don't think it's worth the bother. I'm
hoping our experiment is successful in attracting them
back to our discussions.
The proposal isn't just about making the current
complainers happy, but also about making more
happy posters.
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<Xns9C73E5A11F1A4go...@74.209.136.94>:
sci.math won't be closed if sci.math.moderated gets
created.
There may still be a use for a filter FAQ if the
denizens of sci.math want to go that route in
helping to develop happy posters in that group.
I've served as part of a moderation team for eleven
years. Moderation "solved" the problems of the
unmoderated group for me because I unsubscribed from
it and stuck with the moderated group. But I noticed
that very few of the 200+ people who voted for the
group ever posted to it. We are a very small and
quiet group. It's not dead but it doesn't have
the same traffic as the old group minus the trash.
It's much less than that.
Having said that, I am not opposed to the RFD.
I'm just trying to persuade the proponents to have
a realistic view of the costs and benefits. It
sounds to me as though many of you have given
the filter approach a good trial and still found
it unsatisfactory. Maybe sci.math.mod will hit
the spot.
Dave Sill
>
> Perhaps. But I think there's a handful of guys whom I
> would like to have posting who either don't know how to
> filter, or don't think it's worth the bother. I'm
> hoping our experiment is successful in attracting them
> back to our discussions.
Have you considered asking them if they'd be likely to participate in a
moderated group?
-Dave
Bart Goddard
Not really. For one, the group is a bit hypothetical. I have a
couple of names in mind, but I'm really thinking here of people
like the ones I have in mind, only the next generation.
Second, it's a tough survey question to design. If I say "would
you be likely to participate in a moderated group", the word
"moderated" might turn them off and I'd get a bunch of "no's",
when if fact, they'd be delighted with the reality. I don't
think such a survey would be useful until the final product
is available.
Adam H. Kerman
These days, most sites that create new Big 8 newsgroups create new groups
in those hierarchies only if a user requests that the group be created. Few
sites create groups due to the newgroup message or checkgroups having
been sent.
So your analogy to a final product that would be available to what you
believe is an audience of former Usenet users who no longer lurk in
sci.math due to unwillingness to use kill files isn't valid either.
Generally, new groups are created at specific sites only if those sites
have users who are specifically motivated to post to the newsgroup AND
to request its creation. Your presumed audience for the proposed group
cannot possibly come from this set of unmotivated and disenchanted former
subscribers. They won't be motivated enough to request creation of the
group. If they're not current Usenet users discussing the topic on Usenet,
you can't reach 'em with promotion you intend to work hard at for the
next six months.
Let me repeat that starting a new group requires consistent effort at
promotion for at least the next six months. No one bothered to mention
that yet.
A better option is to stop using a newsreader that doesn't meet your
needs and to start using one that does meet your needs. You need a
newsreader whose kill filing abilities are flexible enough to look at
any header and any text in a message, not just From or Subject.
For instance, if someone whose messages you don't care to read morphs
frequently, kill filing based on From is useless, so stop claiming you
have to write new kill file entries based on new pseudonyms. You've
learned that it's ineffective and takes excessive processing time.
Morphing doesn't mean that they are hiding and many of their messages
can be killed based on any common text, such as a header the server adds
to their messages or a header or a preloaded path the author himself adds
to all messages. Writing styles tend not to be terribly clever, so
that's another way to kill messages.
If you don't like kill filing, perhaps you'd like newsreaders that
implement scoring techniques better.
With proper use of scoring techniques, upon entering the newsgroup, your
newsreader has already selected messages you would wish to read based on
Subject or followups to useful messages or certain key words. You read
those messages and glance at the authors and subjects of the rest on an
index screen and if there's nothing of interest, junk the rest. Scoring
can also be used to select messages for junking.
There are good options available to make a newsgroup readable that has
too much noise in it. They are superior to moderation.
You want to save the newsgroup? Post on topic. Post what you want to
read. Post followups to interesting messages.
Do not, repeat, do not, repeat, do not try to save the newsgroup by
posting troll alerts. If somebody tries to troll, do not post a
followup. If somebody feeds a troll, do not post a troll alert informing
him that he's feeding a troll. He already knows that, jeeze.
Troll alerts are exactly the same as troll feeding, get it? A troll
alert is noise, so by posting it in lieu of posting on topic, you're
harming the group while pretending to save it.
I cannot emphasize enough: If you want to save the newsgroup, post on
topic and post nothing but on topic messages. Do not feed trolls and do
not post troll alerts. Set a good example and hope others will follow.
Bart Goddard
september.org:
> Generally, new groups are created at specific sites only if those sites
> have users who are specifically motivated to post to the newsgroup AND
> to request its creation. Your presumed audience for the proposed group
> cannot possibly come from this set of unmotivated and disenchanted former
> subscribers. They won't be motivated enough to request creation of the
> group.
My presumed audience is mostly math profs and students, who would
have access through their schools. While there are some who wouldn't
know to request the group, I assume there will be colleagues who do,
thereby giving them access for no additional effort.
I can't guarantee this will happen, but my intuition is that it will.
Bart
Peter J Ross
<godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
> Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote in
> news:slrnh9622...@pjr.gotdns.org:
>
>> In news.groups on 24 Aug 2009 20:42:46 GMT, Bart Goddard
>> <godd...@netscape.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote in
>>> news:slrnh95rv...@pjr.gotdns.org:
>>>
>>>> Usenet works well when anybody can post anything, and everybody else
>>>> has the option of ignoring what anybody posted.
>>>
>>> This statement is false. I can think of one obvious counterexample.
>>
>> Go on then. Tell me more about your counterexample.
>
> Try alt.talk.origins
I can't find any such group. Do you mean talk.origins? If so, you're
referring to a moderated group. IIRC, the moderation consists of
little more than automatic restrictions on crossposting.
In talk.origins, the amount of noise is a result of the nature of the
topic. A lot of the people who use the group seem to be unaware that
their posts look like noise to the rest of us.
> See if you make a filter for THAT mess. And "*.*" doesn't
> count.
[*]
Score: =-9999
Newsgroups: talk\.origins
would work for me, but if I were either a creationist or one of Prof.
Dawkins's most enthusiastic supporters I might think differently.
Peter J Ross
Principle <lwa...@lausd.net> wrote:
> On Aug 24, 12:54 pm, Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote:
>> In news.groups on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:26:57 -0400, Martin X. Moleski,
>> SJ <mole...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>> > On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:30:31 +0300, Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demun...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
>> > <87skfknnso....@kilospaz.fatphil.org>:
>> >> ("X-Complaints-To: ab...@aioe.org" -1000 733641 s)
>> > Nice filter!
>> What's nice about it? It seems rather clumsy to me.
>
> aioe? I wasn't sure what aioe was, so I decided to type in
> www.aioe.org into my browser. The resulting website had a
> table whose first entry (under "Host" is):
>
> news://nntp.aioe.org
>
> So aioe is, apparently, an _NNTP_ newsreader.
It's a news server that can be used by anybody who has the requisite
software to connect to it. It uses the NNTP protocol because almost
all news servers nowadays do.
> And so we
> see that, in addition to Google and Mathforum, not even
> having a NNTP newsreader is sufficient to being killfiled
> on account of one's newsreader!
Anybody is free to killfile anybody else, no matter how absurd the
reason.
One point about killfiles is that they're optional, and can be tweaked
to suit every individual's tolerance of what they're willing to read.
Another point about killfiles is that they don't restrict anybody
else's liberty to read and write what they want.
> Of course, this is Carmody we're talking about.
I'm not talking about Carmody, and I don't want to. I'd rather talk
about the advantages and disadvantages of a sc.math.moderated
newsgroup.
<...>
Adam H. Kerman
>"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Generally, new groups are created at specific sites only if those sites
>>have users who are specifically motivated to post to the newsgroup AND
>>to request its creation. Your presumed audience for the proposed group
>>cannot possibly come from this set of unmotivated and disenchanted former
>>subscribers. They won't be motivated enough to request creation of the
>>group.
>My presumed audience is mostly math profs and students, who would
>have access through their schools. While there are some who wouldn't
>know to request the group, I assume there will be colleagues who do,
>thereby giving them access for no additional effort.
>I can't guarantee this will happen, but my intuition is that it will.
You're still missing the bit that you have to reach people in order to
promote the group to them. Motivating people to post to the group as
opposed to motivating people to request the group's creation and then
post to it, is the same type of promotion. You've got to be able to
reach people interested in the group's topic on Usenet.
Non Usenet users (most students) aren't in the audience at all. A
professor not interested in the group might request its creation on
behalf of a student unfamiliar with Usenet is unlikely.
Phil Carmody
> In news.groups on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:26:57 -0400, Martin X. Moleski,
> SJ <mol...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:30:31 +0300, Phil Carmody <thefatphi...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
>> <87skfkn...@kilospaz.fatphil.org>:
>>
>>>> That wouldn't solve the Google Groups problem ...
>>
>>>...
>>> ("message-id"
>>> (".googlegroups.com>" -1000 nil s))
>>> ("head"
>>> ("X-Complaints-To: ab...@aioe.org" -1000 733641 s)
>>> ("Organization: The Math Forum" -1000 nil s)))
>>
>> Nice filter!
>
> What's nice about it? It seems rather clumsy to me. Do *all* users of
> GG, aioe and MathForum deserve to be ignored?
No. That's why they invented positive numbers. However, with the
power vested in me as god of my own killfile, I fully support the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah if only 10 righteous posters can
be found.
Peter J Ross
<kmo...@spamcop.net> wrote:
Tnx. I try to make my jokes appeal to the available audience. But you
alone noticed the Fermat reference.
But only my last sentence was a joke. I'm seriously hoping to persuade
the mathematicians and you Bambies that this SMM idea is a bad one.
Aatu Koskensilta
> Tnx. I try to make my jokes appeal to the available audience. But
> you alone noticed the Fermat reference.
On sci.math Fermat references are dime a dozen, par for the
course. But did you know there's a rodent infestation in higher set
theory? In the core model program we meet the universal weasel,
premice, and other queer critters protected by various mystical
weapons such as the zero-hand-grenade and the zero-dagger. These
creatures mingle with large large cardinals of various kinds. We have
ineffable, inaccessible, measurable, subtle, extendible, weakly
compact, unfoldable, remarkable -- the list goes on -- cardinals. The
largest possible large large cardinal -- the critical point of a
non-trivial elementary embedding of the universe into itself -- is so
large it doesn't even exist (at least if we have any choice).
> But only my last sentence was a joke. I'm seriously hoping to persuade
> the mathematicians and you Bambies that this SMM idea is a bad one.
Unlike the other SMM idea?
--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.kos...@uta.fi)
"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"
Adam H. Kerman
>Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> writes:
>>But only my last sentence was a joke. I'm seriously hoping to persuade
>>the mathematicians and you Bambies that this SMM idea is a bad one.
>Unlike the other SMM idea?
I've been thinking the same thing too. Why are we discussing herding
socmen again?
Aatu Koskensilta
> These creatures mingle with large large cardinals of various kinds. We
> have ineffable, inaccessible, measurable, subtle, extendible, weakly
> compact, unfoldable, remarkable -- the list goes on -- cardinals.
My apologies. Not all of these large cardinal properties are large large
cardinal properties, in the sense that existence of a cardinal with the
property is consistent with the axiom of constructibility. (Inaccessibility,
weak compactness, unfoldability, subtlety and remarkableness aren't, if my
memory doesn't play me false). To the list we may add superstrong cardinals,
which are necessarily large large cardinals.
--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.kos...@uta.fi)
"Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"