CFV: moderate talk.origins
David Bostwick
FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
Newsgroups line:
talk.origins Evolution versus creationism (sometimes hot!). (Moderated)
Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 3 May 1997.
This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about
the proposed group should be directed to one of the proponents.
Proponent: David Iain Greig <gr...@ediacara.org>
Proponent: James Lippard <lip...@ediacara.org>
Votetaker: David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu>
RATIONALE: talk.origins
The newsgroup talk.origins (formerly net.origins) has of late seen a
considerable increase in the amount of traffic crossposted to/from
unrelated newsgroups, and also crossposts made to groups in a clear
attempt to cause excessive amounts of flaming and off-charter discussion
on the group (i.e., alt.christnet.*, alt.politics.*, alt.postmodernism,
among many others).
In order to reduce the amount of non-origins related traffic on the
newsgroup, and to specifically target widely crossposted threads,
it is proposed to (robo)moderate talk.origins so as to prohibit any
article being posted to talk.origins that is posted to more than three
other newsgroups (i.e., 4 including talk.origins).
It is to be stressed that no content-based moderation is proposed
or advocated in this RFD. Cancellation of articles, with forged
'Approved:' lines, by the moderator will be permitted, however, where
the articles violate the crosspost-limitation guidelines.
CHARTER: talk.origins
No copy of the original charter of talk.origins is currently available.
(Apparently a formal charter was never issued.)
The newsgroup talk.origins is meant as a venue for discussion of the
scientific, religious, and political issues pertaining to various
theories of the origins and development of life and the universe. Within
such basic guidelines, wide-ranging discussions over a large number of
topics are covered, all relating back to the main purpose of the group.
Given the sometimes contentious nature of such discussions, a moderation
policy has been selected to permit unrestricted discussions, but to limit
crossposting to/from talk.origins. No crossposts to more than three other
groups are permitted. No content-based considerations are to be made in
evaluating articles for the group, only the number of groups crossposted
to. Any article submitted to talk.origins that is posted to greater than
four (4) newsgroups in either the Newsgroups: or Followup-To: headers shall
be returned to the sender with an explanation of the crosspost policy of the
group. No alteration of either the Newsgroups: or Followup-To: header is
to be performed; either a post passes the crosspost-limit or is rejected.
Articles received my the moderator will be examined to check if there are
other moderated newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups: line. Should there
be another moderated newsgroup so listed, the article will be forwarded to
the moderator of the other newsgroup for approval. Should all other
moderated newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups: line already have been
approved, then the moderator shall post the article, if it passes the
moderation guidelines. If the article does not pass the moderation
guidelines, it should be sent back to one of the moderators of the
other newsgroups, stating why the article has been rejected. The
article should also be returned to the original poster where practicable.
A copy of the scripts used for moderation is to be kept on a publicly-
accessible web site for inspection, the location of which will be
announced on a regular basis on the newsgroup.
The moderator is permitted to cancel any unapproved posting to the newsgroup,
if (and only if) the posting violates the crosspost-limitation guidelines.
To specifically allow posting of relevant RFDs and CFVs, articles with prior
approval by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups and *.answers will be
approved for posting, even where they violate the cross-post moderation
guidelines.
Cancellation, by third parties, of articles containing binary data
(bincancels) and posts that are considered 'spam' (spamcancels) or
excessive crossposting (ECPcancels) is not prohibited by this charter,
even where the post to be cancelled has been approved by the moderator
of talk.origins.
Six (6) months after such time as the moderation policy given above shall
come into effect (by public declaration of the moderator of talk.origins on
talk.origins and news.groups), a revote on the moderation status of
talk.origins is to be conducted by a neutral vote-taker in the manner of a
normal RFD/CFV. Note that this revote does not depend on the wishes of
the moderator of either talk.origins or any other newsgroup. Should the
proposal to unmoderate the group pass, the group should revert to
unmoderated status as soon thereafter is practicable. Should either the
moderator of talk.origins or any other newsgroup refuse to permit or
conduct the revote so as to prevent it from taking place, then the
revote shall be assumed to have passed, and the newsgroup shall
immediately revert to an unmoderated status. (Once the revote
has been conducted and the results are final, this paragraph shall be
of no further effect and may be removed from the charter.)
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: talk.origins
Moderator: gr...@ediacara.org (David Iain Greig)
Moderator: lip...@ediacara.org (James Lippard)
Administrative contact address: talk-origi...@ediacara.org
Article submission address: talk-o...@ediacara.org
END MODERATOR INFO.
DISTRIBUTION:
This CFV was posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups
talk.origins
HOW TO VOTE
Delete everything above the top "-=-=-" line and delete everything below
the bottom -=-=-" line. Do not change anything between these lines,
except to add your name and vote.
Give your name on the line that asks for it. For each group, put your
vote in the brackets next to the group name. Valid entries are ABSTAIN,
CANCEL, NO, and YES. Anything else may generate an invalid vote. Don't
worry about changes in spacing or any quote characters (">") that your
reply may insert.
Mail the ballot to <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu>. Just replying
to this should work, but check the "To:" line. Votes must be mailed
directly from the voter to the votetaker. Distributing pre-marked or
otherwise edited ballots is considered vote fraud.
Only one vote is allowed per person or per account. Votes will be
acknowleged by e-mail. If you have not received an acknowledgement
within a few days, contact the votetaker. It is your responsibility to be
certain your vote has been recorded correctly. If you want to change your
vote, you may vote again, but only the latest vote will be counted.
Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final vote ack.
The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of
people who would read a proposed newsgroup. Soliciting votes from
uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Please do not distribute this
CFV. If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted in
news.groups. When in doubt, ask the votetaker.
This ballot is available only from postings by the votetaker or by e-mail
from the votetaker. It is distributed blank. Votes are counted by
computer, and failure to use the ballot below increases the possibility that
the software will be unable to process your vote properly. Do not edit
the ballot except to add your name and indicate your vote.
These are examples of how to mark the ballot. Do not vote here.
[ YES ] example.yes.vote
[ NO ] example.no.vote
[ ABSTAIN ] example.abstain.vote
[ CANCEL ] example.cancel.vote
The placement of the word within the brackets is not important, but use the
complete word, not just one letter.
-=-=- BEGINNING OF BALLOT: DELETE EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE =-=-=-=-=-=-=
===================================
| FIRST CALL FOR VOTES |
| talk.origins | Do not remove or edit this marker
| <TO-0001> |
===================================
Give your real name here:
If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.
Your Vote Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] talk.origins (moderates talk.origins)
-=-=-=-= END OF BALLOT: DELETE EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE =-=-=-=-=-=-=
Christopher B. Stone
I have considered the arguments, and I nonetheless have concluded that
moderation, even pure robomoderation, is out of place in talk.*.
Therefore, I have voted NO and urge others to do likewise.
--
Chris Stone * cbs...@princeton.edu * http://www.princeton.edu/~cbstone
"Isolationism must become a thing of the past." -Harry Truman
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
> FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
As I've said before, I'm voting NO on this because I don't believe in
moderated talk.* groups. I would grudgingly accept
talk.origins.moderated as a new newsgroup; talk.moderated.origins would
be better; sci.*.origins (or something similar) would be best.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
gfarber: Thank God, or the belief system of your choice.
pddb: Does human perversity count as a belief system?
Jani Patokallio
Mean Green Dancing Machine (aa...@netcom.com) wrote:
: In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
: David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
: > FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
: > moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
: As I've said before, I'm voting NO on this because I don't believe in
: moderated talk.* groups. I would grudgingly accept
: talk.origins.moderated as a new newsgroup; talk.moderated.origins would
: be better; sci.*.origins (or something similar) would be best.
Did you read the CFV? The moderation they're proposing is purely robot
anti-crosspost, with no content-based moderation whatsoever, and plenty
of elaborate safeguards built in to keep it that way. If it were
content-based, I'd be voting against it too, but I don't see what's
wrong with anti-crosspost robomoderation.
Cheers,
not the t.o votetaker
--
Jani Patokallio >O._, kvaa. >O._, everything is beautiful forever
jpat...@alpha.hut.fi `..' `..' http://www.hut.fi/~jpatokal/
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5iqu3r$g...@nntp.hut.fi>,
>: moderated talk.* groups. I would grudgingly accept
>: talk.origins.moderated as a new newsgroup; talk.moderated.origins would
>: be better; sci.*.origins (or something similar) would be best.
>
>Did you read the CFV? The moderation they're proposing is purely robot
>anti-crosspost, with no content-based moderation whatsoever, and plenty
>of elaborate safeguards built in to keep it that way. If it were
>content-based, I'd be voting against it too, but I don't see what's
>wrong with anti-crosspost robomoderation.
Yes, I read the CFV, in addition to sporadically participating in the
pre-CFV discussion. I'm just a talk.* purist; however, I'm willing to
live with the exceptions listed above.
Wesley R. Elsberry
In article <5ip1u5$m8v$1...@cnn.princeton.edu>,
Christopher B. Stone <cbs...@flagstaff.princeton.edu> wrote:
CBS>I have considered the arguments, and I nonetheless have concluded that
CBS>moderation, even pure robomoderation, is out of place in talk.*.
CBS>Therefore, I have voted NO and urge others to do likewise.
I looked on Deja News for cbs...@flagstaff.princeton.edu, and the
author profile showed 838 unique articles. The top five items were in
news.*, rec.*, soc.*, and bit.*. Chris' total reported posts to
talk.*? Two posts. This one that I'm replying to makes it three.
Does Chris Stone have a clue what is or is not "out of place" in
talk.*? Maybe, but perhaps not. Does Chris Stone have a clue what is
"out of place" in talk.origins? I seriously doubt it.
Now, Deja News reports 592 unique posts for me, and 455 of those are
in talk.origins. I've been participating here since 1991. I'm
telling you that the system is broken. Grieg's proposal is arguably
not perfect, but it looks like a heck of an improvement to me. I'm
voting YES and I urge others to do likewise.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, 6070 Sea Isle, Galveston TX 77554. Information sent to any
of my email addresses is my personal property, to be published as I see fit.
Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry
"to hell with anything unrefined has always been my motto" - mehitabel
A. Deckers
In <aahzE8L...@netcom.com>,
Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
> ... I'm just a talk.* purist; ...
Considering your DejaNews profile doesn't include any talk.* groups, I
find this statement rather odd. (Or do you post with "X-No-Archive: yes"
headers in talk.* but nowhere else?)
I've participated in talk.origins sporadically, though I mainly lurk.
Based on my experience of the group, I consider this CFV a good thing,
and I've voted YES.
Cheers,
Alain
piranha
> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
completely unmoderated group should something down the
line go awry with this one. i am not dead set against
moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
in talk.*; i don't participate in the group and i am sure
its readers have plenty of reason to want to keep out
extraneous noise, but i do wish the proponents had had the
consideration to keep the namespace free for an alterna-
tive.
this action is the only reason why i'll very likely vote
against it. i do not like that option being closed off.
yes, i've read the proposal and how little moderation the
modbot will impose. i am co-admin of a group that does
much the same. but we didn't take the unmoderated group
away from people who, despite the noise, wanted it that
way. the power inherent in a modbot, whether or not it's
currently used with integrity, makes me not wish to see
this group pass without its name reflecting that it is
moderated, and keeping a spot open for a group that isn't
at all moderated.
-alix
Christopher B. Stone
>Did you read the CFV? The moderation they're proposing is purely robot
>anti-crosspost, with no content-based moderation whatsoever, and plenty
>of elaborate safeguards built in to keep it that way. If it were
>content-based, I'd be voting against it too, but I don't see what's
>wrong with anti-crosspost robomoderation.
I did read the CFV, and I understand that they are proposing to nix only
crossposts. I still vigorously oppose the idea of any moderation, even
robomoderation, in talk.*, for two reasons.
First comes the idea of the slippery slope. Newsgroup proponents are not
known for their appreciation of the finer points of naming policy. I
don't mean this comment as a slam against newbies; it's merely a
recognition that the vast majority of Usenet does not follow news.groups
and has no desire to do so.
Now, if we approve robomoderation for talk.origins, I fear that in several
months, some proponent will come along and ask for a human-moderated
talk.* group. This proponents will argue that he merely wants to "talk"
about something in a lighthearted way, and that hence his group is
appropriate for talk.*, but that he does want to get rid of off-topic
messages and spam. The ensuing conversation will go something like this:
News.groupies: "you can't have a moderated group in talk.*; talk.*
was intended as a hierarchy for flamewars."
Proponent: "says who? Talk.origins is moderated."
News.groupies: "yes, but it is *robomoderated*, not human
moderated. When we passed talk.origins' request for robomoderation, we
did so with the understanding that full human moderation would never
appear in talk.*. We certainly did not intend to set a precdent with
talk.origins."
Proponent: "aw, you people are so officious. All you are is a
bunch of know-it-all Cabalists who want to nitpick. I'm going to propose
what I damn well please, get all of my friends to spread the word when the
CFV comes around, and pass the group despite your objections."
And our proponent would stand an excellent chance of succeeding. After
all, from his point of view, we *are* nitpicking; these policy issues
matter only after you've read news.groups for a while. Worse, numerous
votes over the past year or two have demonstrated that news.groups is a
paper tiger. Under the current system, we lack the means to prevent such
misunderstandings, or to block ill-thought out newsgroups.
Hence, I don't want to travel down the slipperly slope to being with. I
don't want future proponents to get any sort of misimpression about
moderation in talk.*. I don't want to set a precedent that could get
expanded, little by little, until the distinction between talk.* and the
rest of the Big 8 becomes a meaningless blur.
This point leads me to my second reason for opposing moderation in talk.*.
By definition, I consider talk.* an unmoderated hierarchy. Moderated
groups in talk.* ought to be a contradiction in terms; moderation is not
in the nature of the hierarchy.
Now, I am a big proponent of moderated groups; they are the only way to
prevent Usenet from sliding into a morass of idiocy. That said, I think
it best if we maintain talk.* as a "nature preserve" of unmoderated
groups. Why? Too many people still argue that moderation is bad, that
moderation is censorship. We need to show them a true-blue example of
what happens with wholly unmoderated groups. Talk.*, with all its
ugliness, *is* that example.
Right now, when someone argues that moderation is censorship, we can
always temper their arguments by recommending an unmoderated companion
group in talk.*. I and several others are making precisely this
recommendation now, in the soc.culture.nordic debate.
If we introduce moderation of *any* kind into talk.*, we lose that tool.
Fewer soc.* groups will get moderated -- and soc.* groups are legitimate
candidates for moderation -- because we will not be able to tell people
like Jorma that talk.* is canonically for unmoderated groups. Eventually
the distinction between talk.* and soc.* would grow meaningless.
In sum, any sort of moderation contradicts the fundamental nature of
talk.*; and worse, it will lead us down a slippery slope. Therefore I
recommend we nip this idea in the bud with a NO ballot.
Christopher B. Stone
In article <5iraup$e...@news.tamu.edu>,
Wesley R. Elsberry <wels...@orca.tamu.edu> wrote:
>I looked on Deja News for cbs...@flagstaff.princeton.edu, and the
>author profile showed 838 unique articles. The top five items were in
>news.*, rec.*, soc.*, and bit.*. Chris' total reported posts to
>talk.*? Two posts. This one that I'm replying to makes it three.
>Does Chris Stone have a clue what is or is not "out of place" in
>talk.*? Maybe, but perhaps not. Does Chris Stone have a clue what is
>"out of place" in talk.origins? I seriously doubt it.
Excuse me, but I am a regular reader of news.groups. We make it our
business to know what is out of place in given hierarchies -- and for
reasons I discuss in an earlier post, I adamently maintain that
moderation is out of place in talk.*. Yes, I know that talk.* usually
unreadable. That is in the nature of talk.*, as again I discuss at length
in an earlier post.
Now, I want to bring a key point in this post to the attention of
news.groupies. In my earlier post, I discuss the possibility that we are
embarking on a slippery slop by moderating talk.origins. Future
proponents will not appreciate the distinction between robomoderation and
human moderation.
Eventually, someone will propose human moderation in talk.*, citing the
talk.origins precedent. We news.groupies will object on the grounds that
we never intended full human moderation in talk.*, but the proponent will
thumb his nose at us. He will say, "you Cabal guys never post to talk.*,
and you have no clue as to what is out of place in talk.*."
In other words, WESLEY'S POST ILLUSTRATES MY POINT IMPECCABLY.
Wesley's flaming me on the grounds I never post to talk.*, and that I
should therefore stay out of the affairs of talk.*. Basically, his post
translates into this: news.groupies should not have a say in the affairs
of groups we don't read.
Yet if we are to maintain sound naming policy on Usenet, news.groupies
MUST have some say in the affairs of groups we don't read. Of course, we
should cooperate with the readership of existing newsgroups and genuinely
listen to what outsiders have to say. Yet news.groupies are also
concerned with the future of Usenet as a whole, which is why lobbyists
for a particular group should not get veto power.
Several months from now, someone WILL propose a human moderated talk.*
group. (Look at the talk.religion.taoism proposal, if you don't believe
me.) This person will have the weight of the talk.* origins precedent
behind his call for moderation in talk.*, even if he has misconstrued the
nature of that precedent.
In the here and now, we are debating the seemingly innocuous question of
robomoderation in talk.*. In the here and now, Wesley chooses to flame a
news.groupie who dares to give some recommendations about talk.*.
Does anyone seriously believe that future proponents will calmly listen to
news.groupies expound upon the distinction between robomoderation and
human moderation? Of course not. Wesley doesn't want my input as things
stand -- and his ilk aren't going to want our input when the issues at
stake are even more picayune.
Nor will his ilk want out input when they can erroneously cite
talk.origins as an precedent for moderation in talk.*.
We are heading down a slippery slope here, folks. Don't make news.groups
even more of a paper tiger than it already is. Vote NO.
Bruce Baugh
In article <5ip1u5$m8v$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, cbs...@flagstaff.princeton.edu (Christopher B. Stone) wrote:
>I have considered the arguments, and I nonetheless have concluded that
>moderation, even pure robomoderation, is out of place in talk.*.
>Therefore, I have voted NO and urge others to do likewise.
I've done the same, for the same reasons. I think it important to have a
hierarchy in which no moderation of any kind exists. A counterpart to
talk.origins with robomoderation to nuke crossposts belongs somewhere
else - sci, I think.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> http://www.phix.com
Moderator, comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated
List manager, Christlib, Christian/libertarian mailing list
Host, new sf by S.M. Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Bruce Baugh
>news.*, rec.*, soc.*, and bit.*. Chris' total reported posts to
>talk.*? Two posts. This one that I'm replying to makes it three.
>Does Chris Stone have a clue what is or is not "out of place" in
>talk.*? Maybe, but perhaps not. Does Chris Stone have a clue what is
>"out of place" in talk.origins? I seriously doubt it.
You are neglecting the possibility that Chris, like me, may sometimes
read talk groups and not participate because it's a cesspool. But talk
is a conceptually important cesspool.
(By the way, if you want to profile me, you'll need to check
bru...@teleport.com, br...@arancet.com, and br...@kenosis.com.)
Chris McFarlane
| FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
| moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
There are numerous significant problems with this proposal, as was
extensively discussed during the RFD. Those interested in making a
fully informed decision, and who are unacquainted with that
discussion, might consider delaying their vote until a full
summary of these problems is reposted, within the next few days.
An alternative, and generally agreed to be superior solution, "G5",
has been proposed, submitted, and is being formally worked through
with David Lawrence, within the next few months. Usenet's well being
and simple, efficient, effective use will benefit from your NO vote
in this CFV and a little patience, with the resulting rewards for
all, of a "G5" solution to ECP. I urge you to vote NO on this
proposal, and YES on the "G5" proposal when we have completed it's
processing. The summary will offer further basis for your NO vote
in this CFV, if you feel that to be desirable. Let us positively
act to keep Usenet usable, vote NO.
bye for now,
Chris
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <slrn5l2ma4.l3p...@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>,
A. Deckers <Alain....@man.ac.uk> wrote:
>In <aahzE8L...@netcom.com>,
> Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> ... I'm just a talk.* purist; ...
>
>Considering your DejaNews profile doesn't include any talk.* groups, I
>find this statement rather odd. (Or do you post with "X-No-Archive: yes"
>headers in talk.* but nowhere else?)
No, actually, I'm just a net.cop. Before any of you people in
talk.origins respond to this, I strongly suggest that you look up the
article titled "news.groups: A Survival Guide [FAQ]". To summarize, the
regulars in news.groups have an interest in maintaining the general
namespace of Usenet as a whole; as a semi-regular on news.groups, I am
employing my powers of persuasion toward an end that I see as desirable
for Usenet as a whole.
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:
>In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
>David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
>
> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
> completely unmoderated group should something down the
> line go awry with this one. i am not dead set against
> moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
> in talk.*; i don't participate in the group and i am sure
> its readers have plenty of reason to want to keep out
> extraneous noise, but i do wish the proponents had had the
> consideration to keep the namespace free for an alterna-
> tive.
The name space idea was considered. There are arguments either way and
this was the way chosen.
> this action is the only reason why i'll very likely vote
> against it. i do not like that option being closed off.
>
> yes, i've read the proposal and how little moderation the
> modbot will impose. i am co-admin of a group that does
> much the same. but we didn't take the unmoderated group
> away from people who, despite the noise, wanted it that
> way. the power inherent in a modbot, whether or not it's
> currently used with integrity, makes me not wish to see
> this group pass without its name reflecting that it is
> moderated, and keeping a spot open for a group that isn't
> at all moderated.
The bulk of the objections to the change came from "outside" the
group. I have no idea if this is a normal pattern or not. In general,
the people in the group seemed to prefer the change.
Matt Silberstein
----------------------------------------------
CAUCHON. And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?
JOAN. What other judment can I judge by but my own?
_Saint Joan_ by GBS, Scene VI
Wesley R. Elsberry
In article <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
piranha <pir...@pobox.com> wrote:
>In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
>David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
P> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
P> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
P> completely unmoderated group should something down the
P> line go awry with this one. i am not dead set against
P> moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
P> in talk.*; i don't participate in the group and i am sure
P> its readers have plenty of reason to want to keep out
P> extraneous noise, but i do wish the proponents had had the
P> consideration to keep the namespace free for an alterna-
P> tive.
P> this action is the only reason why i'll very likely vote
P> against it. i do not like that option being closed off.
P> yes, i've read the proposal and how little moderation the
P> modbot will impose. i am co-admin of a group that does
P> much the same. but we didn't take the unmoderated group
P> away from people who, despite the noise, wanted it that
P> way. the power inherent in a modbot, whether or not it's
P> currently used with integrity, makes me not wish to see
P> this group pass without its name reflecting that it is
P> moderated, and keeping a spot open for a group that isn't
P> at all moderated.
Piranha thinks that the proposal is inconsiderate. Well, I
think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
the sort that I would want to be associated with. Deja News
author profile reveals that of 432 unique articles, *0* were posted
by Piranha to the talk.* hierarchy. This article to which I am
replying marks his first foray into this territory.
The vote should determine whether we are "taking the group" away from
those who wish for no moderation at all or not. At least, I thought
that that purpose was, broadly speaking, what the vote was for. The
vote should be about what is best for the readership of the group. I
find the sweeping statements and opinions by people who not only don't
participate in this group (t.o.), but also not in any talk.* group, to
be annoying. Long live free speech, and with it my right to point
out apparent high weirdness in others' thought processes. This
doesn't imply the right to clutter 5 or more newsgroups with that
message.
A recent thread started by TFarnon bemoaned the loss of the old t.o.,
where the number of scientists posting was fairly high and constant.
A respondent attributed the decline in proportion of scientists
posting to the changing demographics of the Internet. There's
probably some truth to that, but another factor is the noise level
introduced by the upsurge in massively crossposted junk in t.o. A
scientist new to the group *then* saw perhaps a minority of posts but
a sizable fraction which were well-written, informative, and on topic.
Today, the numbers of such posts may not have declined drastically,
but the ratio has. With only so many hours in the day, many more
potential good participants will simply give up rather than sift
the wheat from the chaff.
Some discussions in the RFC period simply assumed that since t.o. was
a talk.* group, that really nothing useful happened there anyway, and
the attitude of some saw any talk.* group as serving the role of a
verbal cloaca, where any sphincter restricting the flow would be a bad
thing. Pretty uniformly, these opinions were made in the absence of
any appreciable experience in reading or writing to talk.origins.
Those people were wrong about t.o. in the past, but sadly may be
fostering the conditions for making t.o. so in the future.
The system is broken. The proposal may not be perfect, but it
represents a big improvement over the current situation. I've voted
YES, and I encourage others to do so as well.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, 6070 Sea Isle, Galveston TX 77554. Information sent to any
of my email addresses is my personal property, to be published as I see fit.
Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry
"absurdities have only too often lodged in the crinkles of the human cerebrum"
Jay Denebeim
In article <3352abf9....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>The bulk of the objections to the change came from "outside" the
>group. I have no idea if this is a normal pattern or not. In general,
>the people in the group seemed to prefer the change.
I figured that. Well, FWIW, I normally don't vote for groups I have
no interest in, however due to the 'NO' campaigning here, I ended up
voting YES for your group.
Jay
--
* Jay Denebeim, Moderator, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated *
* newsgroup submission address: b5...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
* moderator contact address: b5mod-...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
* personal contact address: dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
Jay Denebeim
In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>,
>think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
>the sort that I would want to be associated with. Deja News
>author profile reveals that of 432 unique articles, *0* were posted
>by Piranha to the talk.* hierarchy. This article to which I am
>replying marks his first foray into this territory.
Wesley, shut up. You're not winning any points by doing these posts.
The people you've been yapping about are all news.groups more-or-less
regulars. As such, they're concerned with usenet as a whole. Talk
was set up to be unmoderated, that was its intent. There's nothing
wrong for a usenet oriented person to vote 'NO' to moderating a talk
group. It is a *big* change.
Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
called for.
Jonathan Stone
In article <5isjts$i...@marvin.deepthot.cary.nc.us>, dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay Denebeim) writes:
>There's nothing
>wrong for a usenet oriented person to vote 'NO' to moderating a talk
>group. It is a *big* change.
They can vote 'NO', but they should they know they're killing
talk.origins as an effective talk group. If the regulars *there* give
up, then all the material that properly belongs on talk.origins will
get spammed to the four winds. And recruitment of new, clueful t.o
regulars may already have fallen below replacement rate.
> Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
> 'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
> see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
> called for.
I think that puts it in a nutshell. Either Usenet evolves in response
to the exponential growth of newbies and spammers, or it dies. Maybe
a crosspost-moderated talk.origins will work. Maybe the G5 proposal
will pass, *and be deployed*, soon enough to make a difference.
Personally, I plan to vote for both.
Namespace sanity *is* a Good Thing. But does namespace purity
actually *work* in a world where the majority of those on Usenet are
as tenacious as, oh, say, Mark Ethan Smith, but either don't know, or
don't care (or even revel) that they're crossposting to 14 different
newsgroups?
Simon Lyall
This is interesting this bit. I assume Tale noticed it or he could be in
an interesting situation if he refused to allow the CFV to be posted to
n.a.n.
David Bostwick (bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu) wrote:
>Six (6) months after such time as the moderation policy given above shall
>come into effect (by public declaration of the moderator of talk.origins on
>talk.origins and news.groups), a revote on the moderation status of
>talk.origins is to be conducted by a neutral vote-taker in the manner of a
>normal RFD/CFV. Note that this revote does not depend on the wishes of
>the moderator of either talk.origins or any other newsgroup. Should the
>proposal to unmoderate the group pass, the group should revert to
>unmoderated status as soon thereafter is practicable. Should either the
>moderator of talk.origins or any other newsgroup refuse to permit or
>conduct the revote so as to prevent it from taking place, then the
>revote shall be assumed to have passed, and the newsgroup shall
>immediately revert to an unmoderated status. (Once the revote
>has been conducted and the results are final, this paragraph shall be
>of no further effect and may be removed from the charter.)
--
Simon Lyall. | Looking for Work | Mail: si...@darkmere.gen.nz
"Inside me Im Screaming, Nobody pays any attention." | MT.
piranha
>P> moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
>P> in talk.*; i don't participate in the group
>
>think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
>the sort that I would want to be associated with. Deja News
>author profile reveals that of 432 unique articles, *0* were posted
>by Piranha to the talk.* hierarchy.
you didn't have to bother with dejanews for that, i kept
the relevant text from my reply included.
but while you were checking, did you happen to notice the
number of articles i posted to news.groups? that is where
this thread is crossposted, because we are talking about a
change to a usenet newsgroup. talk.origins in specific is
not one of my interests, usenet in general is. sorry if
that wasn't clear to people who don't read news.groups. i
do not post to alt.sex either, but i am quite concerned
that people who do can maintain a viable forum for their
interests -- don't tell me that you can't conceive of some-
body having concerns outside their own personal interests?
>The vote should determine whether we are "taking the group" away from
>those who wish for no moderation at all or not. At least, I thought
>that that purpose was, broadly speaking, what the vote was for. The
>vote should be about what is best for the readership of the group.
the ostensible purpose of a usenet vote is to show the level
of interest in a particular proposal, nothing more, nothing
less.
the current readers of a group are not the only people con-
cerned, nor should they be. news administrators are also
concerned with changes to usenet. as are people who are in
general interested in usenet organization.
i fit into the latter two categories. the CFV process does
not distinguish between me and you, nor does it care whether
other people who vote fit any of those categories at all, or
are just out for their own agenda (see "wet blanket vote").
questioning whether that is a good thing is another subject.
this is simply the way it is (for the record: i am _not_ an
enthusiastic fan of the current system, and you might be
surprised that i think the active readership of a group does
not currently have as much say as i'd like them to have).
>I find the sweeping statements and opinions by people who not only don't
>participate in this group (t.o.), but also not in any talk.* group, to
>be annoying.
since posting to a newsgroup isn't the only action one can
take in regard to usenet, you might want to turn down your
annoyance meter. running the systems on which your posts
are stored and thru which they are propagated is a fairly
important aspect too, since without that there would be no
newsgroup for you to participate in. preserving options
for people who do not believe moderation is the appropriate
step in an otherwise unmoderated hierarchy is also a con-
cern for people who believe in usenet as a forum for all
speech.
they may not be your concerns, but they're valid ones, and
not made less valid by lack of participation in this one
particular newsgroup, since they're concerns on an organi-
zational level above this particular newsgroup. talk.ori-
gins isn't an island, unconnected to the rest of the use-
net world.
>Some discussions in the RFC period simply assumed that since t.o. was
>a talk.* group, that really nothing useful happened there anyway, and
>the attitude of some saw any talk.* group as serving the role of a
>verbal cloaca, where any sphincter restricting the flow would be a bad
>thing.
you will have a hard time pointing to any article from _me_
that said anything of the kind. its far from anything i
believe.
my disagreement is not with the desire to have a moderated
forum for origin discussions. my disagreement is with what
essentially amounts to a removal of the space that talk.ori-
gins represents now, however much many of the participants
may have grown tired of it. i would prefer it for philo-
sophical reasons if instead you created a sibling group as
talk.origins.moderated, which would do both; give you the
forum you want, _and_ keep the present forum, in whatever
disagreeable state it is in, for people who cannot abide the
idea of moderation.
>The system is broken. The proposal may not be perfect, but it
>represents a big improvement over the current situation. I've voted
>YES, and I encourage others to do so as well.
it represents an improvement only for those who approve of
it. what about the ones (a potential minority, yes) who do
not? this proposal takes their outlet away. now, you may
not have a high opinion of those people, and i am sure you
have your share of kooks. but i look at it from a much more
general viewpoint -- i like there to be as many outlets as
possible for discussion. moderated ones for those who would
prefer some semblance of a sphincter (*grin*), _and_ unmode-
rated ones in the interest of free speech. we are not at
the point in usenet history where unmoderated fora are com-
pletely useless, not by a long shot. ergo i'd like to pre-
serve both types of newsgroup.
please note that i am not campaigning for a 'no' vote. i am
not urging anyone to vote in any particular way. i am just
stating my opinion for the record, since this is a CFV. i
do that in votes in which i am concerned about one thing or
another.
-alix
A. Deckers
[NB: Followup-To: news.groups]
In <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
>David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
>
> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
> completely unmoderated group should something down the
> line go awry with this one. i am not dead set against
talk.origins.unmoderated? :-/
Alain
A. Deckers
In <5irijs$162$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
Christopher B. Stone <cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu> wrote:
[...]
>Excuse me, but I am a regular reader of news.groups. We make it our
>business to know what is out of place in given hierarchies -- and for
>reasons I discuss in an earlier post, I adamently maintain that
>moderation is out of place in talk.*. Yes, I know that talk.* usually
>unreadable. That is in the nature of talk.*, as again I discuss at length
>in an earlier post.
While I wouldn't vote for any hand moderated groups in talk.*, I can't
see what's wrong with a moderation policy that only eliminates articles
cross-posted to more than a certain number of groups. I don't buy the
slippery slope argument; each case should be examined on its merits.
In this case the merits of the moderation proposal are obvious to anyone
who reads talk.origins, as I do.
In any case, anyone who advocates, as Chris apparently does, unusable
groups in order to protect some sacred "USENET principle" has his
priorities ass backwards, as Americans like to say. Remember that USENET
is supposed to help communication among people; if a principle stands
in the way of improving communication, then it has no place on USENET
and let's be done with it.
Cheers,
Alain
Jonathan Stone
In article <5ir6t4$m8_...@tpc.kenosis.com>, br...@phix.com (Bruce Baugh) writes:
> A counterpart to
> talk.origins with robomoderation to nuke crossposts belongs somewhere
> else - sci, I think.
Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
I cannot imagine a vote to create a sci.* group for such material
would *ever* pass. Consider the case of Velikovksy and Macmillan --
whatever one's ethical position on boycotts.
Talk.origins belongs in talk.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5irh1q$ge$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
>prevent Usenet from sliding into a morass of idiocy. That said, I think
>it best if we maintain talk.* as a "nature preserve" of unmoderated
>groups. Why? Too many people still argue that moderation is bad, that
>moderation is censorship. We need to show them a true-blue example of
>what happens with wholly unmoderated groups. Talk.*, with all its
>ugliness, *is* that example.
<obAOL> Me too! </obAOL>
It's interesting how the talk.origins debate is creating interesting
bedfellows; I'm normally on the opposite side of debates that Chris
Stone participates in. ;-)
piranha
In article <slrn5l50ei.5nb...@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>,
A. Deckers <Alain....@man.ac.uk> wrote:
>In <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
> piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
>> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
>> completely unmoderated group should something down the
>> line go awry with this one.
>
what are you trying to do, alain, make me lose my most
excellent lunch? :-)
-alix
piranha
In article <5irijs$162$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
>business to know what is out of place in given hierarchies -- and for
>reasons I discuss in an earlier post, I adamently maintain that
>moderation is out of place in talk.*. Yes, I know that talk.* usually
>unreadable. That is in the nature of talk.*, as again I discuss at length
>in an earlier post.
well, seems we're both voting no, tho for different reasons.
i feel sorry for the folks from talk.origins, trying to fi-
gure this all out. :-)
i don't know that talk.* is usually unreadable. appears to
me that plenty of people think it's readable since they're
participating enthusiastically (tho you and i are not among
them). if talk.* wasn't readable at all, we'd see a lot more
proposals to moderate, trust me. (it will happen, yes, but
we're not quite there.)
your post, and prior ones on the same subject have caused me
to muse a bit about this. i wasn't around when the talk.*
hierarchy was established, and i can see that i have a dif-
ferent idea of what it's for than you do, and possibly other
people as well.
here's the short version: i don't think any hierarchy should
be treated as a dumping ground for whatever other newsgroups
do not want. totally non-technical reason why not: people
get attached to their newsgroups, whether or not you think
attempting unmoderated talk about creation or guns or abortion
is utter rubbish due to inherent controversiality of the sub-
jects. people _do_ carry on rational and informative talk on
such subjects in unmoderated fora, even tho the signal:noise
ratio is nothing to write home about compared to moderated
newsgroups on the same subjects.
i can now see why this guy went for my balls in another post;
it's this sort of opinion that irked him to no end -- nobody
wants to have their community disparaged.
i'd like to get some idea how prevalent your view of talk.* as
a dumping ground is. am i pissing in the wind in trying to
treat it as a regular hierarchy?
>Now, I want to bring a key point in this post to the attention of
>news.groupies. In my earlier post, I discuss the possibility that we are
>embarking on a slippery slop by moderating talk.origins.
i don't believe in slippery slope arguments; i am all for trea-
ting each case on its own merits.
>Future
>proponents will not appreciate the distinction between robomoderation and
>human moderation.
lots of people _now_ have to have this explained to them. i do
not foresee any change; new people come onto the net every day,
and alas they do not spring fully informed from their provider's
cache.
>Eventually, someone will propose human moderation in talk.*, citing the
>talk.origins precedent. We news.groupies will object on the grounds that
>we never intended full human moderation in talk.*, but the proponent will
>thumb his nose at us. He will say, "you Cabal guys never post to talk.*,
>and you have no clue as to what is out of place in talk.*."
this is what has happened here WITHOUT there being a slippery
slope precedent. it's a different argument alltogether any-
way; it stems from people not knowing who the hell we are ha-
ving an allergic reaction to outsiders telling them what to
do with their group. it's happened on many other occasions,
having nothing at all to do with talk.* or moderation. it's
completely normal human behaviour.
>Yet if we are to maintain sound naming policy on Usenet, news.groupies
>MUST have some say in the affairs of groups we don't read. Of course, we
>should cooperate with the readership of existing newsgroups and genuinely
>listen to what outsiders have to say. Yet news.groupies are also
>concerned with the future of Usenet as a whole, which is why lobbyists
>for a particular group should not get veto power.
we already have very little actual power; i like your use of
"paper tiger". people listen to us when they understand our
arguments, and ignore us when they don't. that speaks for
more cogent argumentation, and for better writing of FAQs on
the process, and for less clash when non-technical people
have their first encounter with news.groups.
>Several months from now, someone WILL propose a human moderated talk.*
>group. (Look at the talk.religion.taoism proposal, if you don't believe
>me.) This person will have the weight of the talk.* origins precedent
>behind his call for moderation in talk.*, even if he has misconstrued the
>nature of that precedent.
i don't see why. but then i don't have this purity thing about
hierarchies. explain to me why i should (i am not being face-
tious).
>Does anyone seriously believe that future proponents will calmly listen to
>news.groupies expound upon the distinction between robomoderation and
>human moderation? Of course not.
of course. they often have. i see no reason why they shouldn't
listen in the future. see above as to how one can minimize the
misunderstandings.
>Wesley doesn't want my input as things
>stand -- and his ilk aren't going to want our input when the issues at
>stake are even more picayune.
wesley doesn't like his fave newsgroup disparaged, and i'm sure
he wouldn't like to be called an ilk. :-)
sometimes too many people here lose sight of how very little the
rest of the world understands about what we do. more patience,
chris. they haven't heard _any_ of this before. they don't
understand what we're after. not without a lot more patience.
we don't have the numbers to do anything else.
>We are heading down a slippery slope here, folks. Don't make news.groups
>even more of a paper tiger than it already is. Vote NO.
well, i'll vote no for other reasons, but if we don't want to be
a paper tiger we ought to look at other avenues than votes. we
are more and more outnumbered.
-alix
piranha
i realize this isn't RFD time anymore, but i feel that this
vote will be controversial, and i want to give my reasons
for voting as cogently as i can to further understanding.
In article <5iu8mj$4ra$2...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
Jonathan Stone <jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>
>But what you see as ``protecting free speech'' is, *operationally*, in
>talk.origins, protection of the ``right'' to spam to a dozen or more
>newsgroups.
no, that happens to be incidental, alas. i am no friend of
spammers. i co-administrate a group that limits crossposts
to a particular set of newsgroups, and it was formed for
precisely your reasons -- to get rid of spam and the endless
crosspost flamewars fomented by people whose sense of free
speech means turning usenet into misc.misc for their personal,
often kooky agenda. we were dead tired of it, but we left
the original group intact because there was a small minority
who liked the rough and tumble and who was distrustful of
even light moderation changing things too much. it seemed
fairer to create a sibling than to overrule them because we
might have had the numbers to do so. i do not know what the
situation is in talk.origins -- are you 100% all for this
moderation? that seems hardly possible.
but indeed, i believe there should be groups on any topic in
which there will not be any moderation at all. i would feel
differently if we could somehow actually control moderation,
but in effect there is no technical difference at all between
robomoderation and human moderation, and no such thing as a
mandatory removal of moderation should the moderators not live
up to their promises. not at this time, whatever you write
into your charter. there is no enforcement mechanism. i wish
there was, and it's one thing i'll be investing some thought
into, but as it stands, there is no such mechanism.
i do not distrust your moderators; i do not know your modera-
tors. i do however know that there are people who distrust
moderation, period. not all of them are paranoid, and from
what i've experienced with the group i was talking about be-
fore, even crosspost moderation alone changes the character
of a group.
i really dislike opposing what appears to be a large section
of the readership of a newsgroup. but i feel strongly enough
about preserving namespace for completely free speech that i
can't in good conscience just abstain in this case. it is not
a matter of personal distrust, but of philosophical ideals.
best wishes anyway. i do empathize with the problems.
-alix
Bruce Baugh
>Piranha thinks that the proposal is inconsiderate. Well, I
>think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
>the sort that I would want to be associated with.
You seem to be assuming that you have the right to do what you want
where you want. But just as the endless creationist drones about your
need for salvation are off-topic in talk.origins, and just as the
library doesn't let us shelve books on logic or rhetoric in with the
tracts, so moderated newsgroups don't always get to stay where their
unmoderated versions would.
Stephen Guerke
Having followed this group since right after the great renaming, I have to
agree with many of the other regulars, posters and lurkers alike. The
noise in this group has become unmanageable. The massive crossposting to
other groups, and from other groups has made this group almost unworkable.
I am willing to give the robomoderation a try (I instictively don't like
it, but sometimes a root canal is necessary). The most salient feature is
that in 6 months, we will get a chance to decide again. I have voted yes,
and I urge others to as well. If this doesn't work, we'll go back to the
old ways. This isn't being written in stone, and the safeguards against
abuse by the moderators (the two foo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hvolunteers, should
have their heads examined) seem more than adaquate. I think we should
give it a try.
_____________________________________
My newsfeed has become somewhat unreliable, please email as well as post
responses, if any.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than are lies." --
F. Nietzsche
My thoughts are mine alone, no one else is responsible for them.
--
*************************************************************************
Stephen Guerke, Computer Information/Technology Associate
University of Delaware Parallel Program sgu...@strauss.udel.edu
Georgetown, DE 19947 Phone: (302)856-5400 ext.266
Bruce Baugh
>They can vote 'NO', but they should they know they're killing
>talk.origins as an effective talk group.
No fooling.
However, the principle of ummoderated talk is important to me. There are
seven other hierarchies in the Big 8, all of which have a history of
moderation. Why not use one of them?
(I personally like the sci.debate.* idea, but there are other good
namespaces out there, too.)
>Namespace sanity *is* a Good Thing. But does namespace purity
>actually *work* in a world where the majority of those on Usenet are
>as tenacious as, oh, say, Mark Ethan Smith, but either don't know, or
>don't care (or even revel) that they're crossposting to 14 different
>newsgroups?
I think it's doubly important under these circumstances. There are a lot
of people out there who Will Not trust any sort of moderation - not even
robomoderation. I do not want to give up the option of telling them, "So
go to talk, where all is open."
--
Bruce Baugh <*> http://www.kenosis.com
Jonathan Stone
Summary: There's a conflict between freedom-of-speech concerns and
limiting unmanageable excessive crossposting. If you have
freedom-of-speech concerns about the talk.origins moderation CFV,
please consider voting ABSTAIN now, and *if* the vote passes,
re-evaluating the freedom-of-speech issue at the mandatory six-month
revote.
In article <5itqpr$m...@excalibur.gooroos.com>, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) writes:
> In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>,
[huge snip]
>
> they may not be your concerns, but they're valid ones, and
> not made less valid by lack of participation in this one
> particular newsgroup, since they're concerns on an organi-
> zational level above this particular newsgroup. talk.ori-
> gins isn't an island, unconnected to the rest of the use-
> net world.
Yes. That is a large part of the problem :). Protecting free speech
is a worthy goal. I don't think anyone wants this CVF to cause
censorship of *anyone's* viewpoint.
But what you see as ``protecting free speech'' is, *operationally*, in
talk.origins, protection of the ``right'' to spam to a dozen or more
newsgroups. The problems this causes were discussed at some length
during the RFD. Informal sampling of local news spools by a and a
pro-Evolution and a pro-Creationist showed an large volume of ECP
material, most of it off-topic, with on-topic and off-topic material
intermixed in any given thread.
I've decided to vote ``YES'' on this. I urge those with strong
free-speech concerns to vote ABSTAIN, and to re-consider the issue at
the *mandatory* six-month revote.
>
> >Some discussions in the RFC period simply assumed that since t.o. was
> >a talk.* group, that really nothing useful happened there anyway, and
> >the attitude of some saw any talk.* group as serving the role of a
> >verbal cloaca, where any sphincter restricting the flow would be a bad
> >thing.
>
> you will have a hard time pointing to any article from _me_
> that said anything of the kind. its far from anything i
> believe.
>
> my disagreement is not with the desire to have a moderated
> forum for origin discussions. my disagreement is with what
> essentially amounts to a removal of the space that talk.ori-
> gins represents now, however much many of the participants
> may have grown tired of it. i would prefer it for philo-
> sophical reasons if instead you created a sibling group as
> talk.origins.moderated, which would do both; give you the
> forum you want, _and_ keep the present forum, in whatever
> disagreeable state it is in, for people who cannot abide the
> idea of moderation.
Why should we protect their right to spam to more than 5 newsgroups?
That *is* what you're asking for. I still think a ``better'' solution
here is a change to the article propagation mechanism. Keeps a
per-group crosspost limit as part of the state at every news server,
and bounce back messages that exceed the limit of any group. (Or,
just possibly, 5 groups will work for everyone.) That's exactly the
mechanism that this CFV proposes.
Until we have such a mechanism, refusing to make any distinction
between _content moderation_ on the one hand, and _crosspost limits_
(implemented using the only mechanism Usenet provides, moderation) is
ignoring reality. Those who make this a ``free speech'' issue are, I
believe, yielding the field to the spammers.
I've decided to vote ``YES'' on this. I personally don't think ``free
speech'' includes the right to crosspost to the point where
talk.origins is routinely getting marginal or off-topic junk crossposted
to all or most of:
alt.atheism
alt.bible.prophecy
alt.christnet
alt.christnet.bible
alt.christnet.evangelical
alt.christnet.philosophy
alt.christnet.theology
alt.religion.christian
sci.misc
sci.philosophy.meta
sci.physics
sci.skeptic
talk.atheism
And alt.wicca, alt.magick and alt.postmodern are right out.
Again, I urge those with strong free-speech concerns to consider
voting ABSTAIN, and re-considering this experiment at the mandatory
six-month revote.
Brett Vickers
Chris McFarlane <chri...@midland.co.nz> wrote:
>| FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>| moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
I am voting YES on this proposal.
>There are numerous significant problems with this proposal, as was
>extensively discussed during the RFD. Those interested in making a
>fully informed decision, and who are unacquainted with that
>discussion, might consider delaying their vote until a full
>summary of these problems is reposted, within the next few days.
>An alternative, and generally agreed to be superior solution, "G5",
>has been proposed, submitted, and is being formally worked through
>with David Lawrence, within the next few months.
I agree that a systematic solution would be a better solution. But
frankly, unless you read talk.origins regularly, you don't know what a
cesspool of inappropriate cross-posts it has become. Something
*practical* needs to be done in the interim period, because who knows
how long the so-called "G5" solution could take to implement? And who
knows how practical it will be? Just to give you an idea of how bad
things have become in talk.origins, I have been kill-filing articles
cross-posted to 4 or more newsgroups for a few months now, and this
typically causes over half of the posts in talk.origins to be junked.
Cross-posting is being abused to the extent that the topicality of
most posts to talk.origins has been seriously compromised. Anyone
unfamiliar with or unable to use a kill file is likely to visit
talk.origins, witness the horrific shape it's in, and move on, never
to return again. I, for one, refuse to put up with this situation any
longer. If this G5 proposal and implementation are successful, we can
always have another CFV at a later time to remove the robo-moderation
policy.
I find it interesting that most of the opposition to the CFV comes
from people who rarely read (must less post) to talk.origins. If
these people were regular readers of talk.origins, I have little doubt
that they'd soon find themselves in this CFV's YES column.
Vote YES.
--
Brett Vickers bvic...@ics.uci.RemoveThisAntiSpam.edu
Michael L. Siemon
In article <5isjts$i...@marvin.deepthot.cary.nc.us>,
dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay Denebeim) wrote:
+Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
+'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
+see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
+called for.
I would say this is exactly my attitude, within the restricted context
of talk.origins. Two years ago, I would have sneered at the idea of any
limitation of posting to talk.origins, figuring we were robust enough
to live with it. I now think some measure like the current one is needed.
--
Michael L. Siemon m...@panix.com
"Green is the night, green kindled and apparelled.
It is she that walks among astronomers."
-- Wallace Stevens
Christopher Carrell
In article <5itqpr$m...@excalibur.gooroos.com> pir...@pobox.com writes:
>In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>,
>Wesley R. Elsberry <wels...@orca.tamu.edu> wrote:
>>In article <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
>>piranha <pir...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>P> [...] i am not dead set against
>>P> moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
>>P> in talk.*; i don't participate in the group
>>
>>Piranha thinks that the proposal is inconsiderate. Well, I
>>think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
>>the sort that I would want to be associated with. Deja News
>>author profile reveals that of 432 unique articles, *0* were posted
>>by Piranha to the talk.* hierarchy.
>
> you didn't have to bother with dejanews for that, i kept
> the relevant text from my reply included.
I kind of wonder about the point of this whole exercise. Browbeating
those who do not plan to vote YES because of nonparticipation in t.o.
strikes me as being rather counterproductive, to say the least. Right
now I don't even plan to vote YES; I'd like to see the G5 proposal
myself, but for now I'm voting ABSTAIN. Just my opinion.
Chris
Christopher B. Stone
In article <5isoof$lg5$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
Jonathan Stone <jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>They can vote 'NO', but they should they know they're killing
>talk.origins as an effective talk group.
Let's be blunt: there's no such thing as "an effective talk.* group"
anymore. Propose sci.origins (or a subhierarchy, if it's appropriate
somewhere) and be done with it, like everyone else must. *Your* proposal
forces sysadmins to comb through each new talk.* group and assess whether
it will be effective or ineffective. That is precisely the opposite for
what the newsgroup creation system will be doing.
--
Chris Stone * cbs...@princeton.edu * http://www.princeton.edu/~cbstone
"Isolationism must become a thing of the past." -Harry Truman
Christopher B. Stone
>They can vote 'NO', but they should they know they're killing
>talk.origins as an effective talk group. If the regulars *there* give
>up, then all the material that properly belongs on talk.origins will
>get spammed to the four winds. And recruitment of new, clueful t.o
>regulars may already have fallen below replacement rate.
Oops, let me point out one other thing. Although we repeatedly hear that
this proposal is not intended to set a precedent for full moderation in
talk.*, one could also use this argument about "recruiting new regulars"
to do just that.
I'm sure nothing short of full human moderation would attract new regulars
to talk.politics.mideast; if that goal is sacrosanct, and if there's
already the precedent of one moderated group that passed on those grounds,
why not propose to hand-moderate talk.politics.mideast?
Eventually we will wind up with some moderated and some unmoderated talk.*
groups, which will make talk.* indistinguishable from soc.* and sci.*.
Now, I'm sure some people out there are saying this: "sure, Chris, this is
possible, but still it's a bit farfetched, don't you think?" Here is my
response.
A few days ago, when we were discussing Tale's refusal to post an RFD
replacing rec.arts.anime.misc with rec.arts.anime, someone posted a
comment that said this: when the whole concept of news.announce.newgroups
was introduced, its use was not intended as obligatory. In other words,
its creation was not intended as a precedent. But in practice, it became
just that (justifiably so, in my opinion).
The point, then, is this: precedents *do* matter. Given the status of
news.groups as a paper tiger, we won't stop a proponent that wants full
moderation in talk.* if we pass this proposal -- and this proposal
virtually ensures such a proponent will come along. (In fact, they've
come already, in the talk.religion.taoism RFD).
As for the idea that "spam is such a threat to Usenet it must be stopped
at all costs," well, maybe so. I don't know; maybe this means eventually
we will have to stop creating all unmoderated groups. Certainly I think
that these days, a proponent should be forced to explain why he doesn't
want an unmoderated group, beyond "it's harder to establish."
But with the precedent this sets, eventually talk.* will riddled with both
moderated, robomoderated, and unmoderated groups -- exactly the same as
soc.* and other hierarchies. Arguably, this situation would make it
exceedingly more difficult to pass moderated groups in soc.*, sci.*, and
elsewhere, where moderated groups belong and ought to be encouraged. I
see little point in creating duplicate hierarchies in the Big 8, which is
a distinct possibility here.
Christopher B. Stone
In article <slrn5l4moc.irk...@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>,
A. Deckers <Alain....@man.ac.uk> wrote:
>In any case, anyone who advocates, as Chris apparently does, unusable
>groups in order to protect some sacred "USENET principle" has his
>priorities ass backwards, as Americans like to say.
You are misconstruing my point, although in fairness I should have made it
clearer.
I contend that with the precedent of moderated groups in talk.*, we will
end up with *fewer* unmoderated groups elsewhere in the long run. In
other words, you are sacrificing long-term gain for short-term
gratification. This is true for two reasons.
First,let's look at the short run. Having moderated groups will dull the
principle that anyone who dislikes moderation can establish an unmoderated
companion group in talk.*. We will not be able to argue that "censorship
is impossible on Usenet, because talk.* is canonically unmoderated."
Realistically, we often cannot pass proposals for moderated soc.* or sci.*
groups without an unmoderated companion group; without an unmoderated
companion group, the "moderation is censorship" crowd will flood the
proposal with NO votes. True, this is appeasing net.kooks, and I don't
like appeasing net.kooks, but such is the reality of the situation. Blunt
the companion group option in any way, and it will be harder to pass
moderated groups in hierarchies where moderated groups count.
Second, the long term. Over the long term, if this proposal passes, we'll
get both moderated and unmoderated groups in talk.* as well as other
hierarchies. Talk.* will lose its meaning; proponents won't understand
what it's for, and groups that by all rights *should* get put in soc.*
(and elsewhere) willl end up in talk.*, where they will go unnoticed.
People will feel uncomfortable proposing moderated groups in soc.*.
Hence, this proposal will eventually lead to fewer moderated groups in
hierarchies where moderation should be de rigeur.
You bring up two other point. First, you say, "anything that improves
communication is good." That principle sounds reasonable, on the surface.
But consider this: wouldn't this principle argue for full human moderation
in talk.*?
Of course it would; full human moderation would improve the
signal-to-noise ratio far more than robomoderation. Yet you agree that
full human moderation isn't an option; what you are really admitting, is
that your principle has its limits. We merely disagree about where those
limits lie. I say that we can best promote clear communication by
establishing moderated groups in soc.*.
Furthermore, in future some proponent will invoke your principle of clear
communication to propose full human moderation in talk.*. With the
precedent of talk.origins, we will have a tough time stopping that
proponent. News.groups is a paper tiger.
Lastly, you say that you don't accept my slipperly slope point because
"each case should be decided on its own merits." However, if we pass
talk.origins, future proponents will probably misconstrue it as a
precedent in favor of any sort of moderation in talk.*. Eventaully,
someone WILL propose full human moderation, and unfortunately,
news.groups does not boast a good track record when quibbling with
technical errors in proposals. In other words, we TRY to judge each case
on its merits, but we rarely succeed, because outsiders end up marshalling
enough votes to overrule NO votes from news.groups. Never underestimate
the power of precedent, not the ability of uninformed people to
misinterpret precedent.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5iu9js$n...@news.service.uci.edu>,
Brett Vickers <bvic...@ics.uci.RemoveThisAntiSpam.edu> wrote:
>
>I find it interesting that most of the opposition to the CFV comes
>from people who rarely read (must less post) to talk.origins. If
>these people were regular readers of talk.origins, I have little doubt
>that they'd soon find themselves in this CFV's YES column.
Perhaps. Nevertheless, I have yet to see any coherent explanation of
why creating a new moderated newsgroup is so anathema that you're
willing to court the NO vote of many news.groups regulars.
Jay Denebeim
In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
Jonathan Stone <jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
>vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
>science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
>same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
Definately not sci. However since the only reason to spend time on a
group like that is to enjoy yelling at each other (on something like
this, nobody could possibly convince anyone else) I think that a new
heirarchy 'rec.argue' is in order. For topics people enjoy arguing
about. Sorta like a moderated talk...
Jay Denebeim
In article <5iu7as$t...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
piranha <pir...@pobox.com> wrote:
> i'd like to get some idea how prevalent your view of talk.* as
> a dumping ground is. am i pissing in the wind in trying to
> treat it as a regular hierarchy?
Well, that was more or less its intent, yes. It was a place to put
all the mobile usenet flamewars in. It's been somewhat effective
too. Instead of huge abortion/creationist flame wars that break out
in one group, then spread all over the place, they generally don't
spread as much nowadays, and their duration is much shorter.
Bruce Baugh
In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
>Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
>vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
>science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
>same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
The subject of human origins is as on-topic as anything can be in sci.*,
and the University of Ediacara and other fine sources provides solid,
documented, easy-to-read guides to current scientific thinking as well
as responses to current fads in pseudo-science. sci would be a very good
place for this.
By the way, if you're going to post and e-mail, please indicate this in
the message sent.
Seth Kroger
In article <33515...@harold.midland.co.nz>,
Chris McFarlane <chri...@midland.co.nz> wrote:
>| FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>| moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
>
>has been proposed, submitted, and is being formally worked through
>and simple, efficient, effective use will benefit from your NO vote
>in this CFV and a little patience, with the resulting rewards for
>all, of a "G5" solution to ECP. I urge you to vote NO on this
>proposal, and YES on the "G5" proposal
???? This CFV, for all intents and purposes, implements a "G5" (or a
"G4") on a group, albiet through a different mechanism. Wouldn't it
be worth seeing how the cross-posting restrictions affects a single
group, before going system wide? What is the purpose of voting NO
when it's the same thing you want us to vote YES on? And if the "G5"
gets going by the 6-month revote, this CFV can simply be reversed.
>when we have completed it's
>processing. The summary will offer further basis for your NO vote
>in this CFV, if you feel that to be desirable. Let us positively
>act to keep Usenet usable, vote NO.
Let's act positively to keep talk.origins usable: vote YES.
>bye for now,
>Chris
--
|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger "If God made us in His image we |
| skroger(at)slonet.org have certainly returned the |
| http://www.slonet.org/~skroger compliment." -Voltaire |
A. Deckers
In <5iu5t5$t...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>In article <slrn5l50ei.5nb...@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>,
>A. Deckers <Alain....@man.ac.uk> wrote:
> >In <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
> > piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
> >> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
> >> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
> >> completely unmoderated group should something down the
> >> line go awry with this one.
> >
> >talk.origins.unmoderated? :-/
>
> what are you trying to do, alain, make me lose my most
> excellent lunch? :-)
Nah, I wouldn't want to do that, would I? ;->
But seriously, the CFV includes a provision that states the moderation
status of talk.origins will be reviewed, via the usual CFV voting
procedure, six months after the current CFV passes.
Since tale allowed the CFV through, he can't very well refuse to allow
the corresponding CFV to unmoderate the group, can he?
So my position is clear: I lurk, and very occasionally post, in t.o. I
know from my own experience that there is a problem with excessively
xposted articles in t.o. (of course, *I* don't see them if I don't want
to, since I use slrn, the best newsreader in the galaxy. But that doesn't
help the folks who read t.o. using Netscape or Free Agent, many of whom
*don't* have access to *any* other newsreader).
IMHO the cross-post limit proposed in the current CFV, and that is *all*
that this CFV proposes, is a Good Thing and doesn't imply any undue
limitations on freedom of speech in talk.*. BTW, I would vote NO to any
proposal to moderate a talk.* group according to content.
I have therefore voted YES for this CFV.
Cheers,
Alain
Paul J. Gans
Chris McFarlane (chri...@midland.co.nz) wrote:
: | FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
: | moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
: There are numerous significant problems with this proposal, as was
: extensively discussed during the RFD. Those interested in making a
: fully informed decision, and who are unacquainted with that
: discussion, might consider delaying their vote until a full
: summary of these problems is reposted, within the next few days.
: has been proposed, submitted, and is being formally worked through
: with David Lawrence, within the next few months. Usenet's well being
: and simple, efficient, effective use will benefit from your NO vote
: in this CFV and a little patience, with the resulting rewards for
: all, of a "G5" solution to ECP. I urge you to vote NO on this
: processing. The summary will offer further basis for your NO vote
: in this CFV, if you feel that to be desirable. Let us positively
: act to keep Usenet usable, vote NO.
This seems illogical to me. Let us act to keep the Usenet
usable and vote YES. *IF* the G5 proposal passes and works,
we can easily revert talk.origins to unmoderated status. I
have no doubt whatsoever that, under those conditions, the
proposed moderators will lead the fight to do just that.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
A. Deckers
In article <5irh1q$ge$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
>prevent Usenet from sliding into a morass of idiocy. That said, I think
>it best if we maintain talk.* as a "nature preserve" of unmoderated
>groups. Why? Too many people still argue that moderation is bad, that
>moderation is censorship. We need to show them a true-blue example of
>what happens with wholly unmoderated groups. Talk.*, with all its
>ugliness, *is* that example.
Point them towards alt.*. Making a Big 8 hierarchy unuseable will just
mean more newsadmin dropping that hierarchy, ie talk.*, altogether.
IMHO, arguing that talk.* should be kept moderation-free *in order* to
make it unuseable is the height of idiocy.
Alain
Chris Ho-Stuart
In talk.origins Christopher B. Stone <cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu> wrote:
[snip]
> Now, I am a big proponent of moderated groups; they are the only way to
> prevent Usenet from sliding into a morass of idiocy. That said, I think
> it best if we maintain talk.* as a "nature preserve" of unmoderated
> groups. Why? Too many people still argue that moderation is bad, that
> moderation is censorship. We need to show them a true-blue example of
> what happens with wholly unmoderated groups. Talk.*, with all its
> ugliness, *is* that example.
[snip]
No offense, but this is the most powerful argument I have seen yet
for voting YES. You seem to be arguing against moderation in order
to keep groups in the talk hierarchy unworkable.
What a strange notion. I think talk.origins serves a very useful
purpose. I certainly object to keeping it unmoderated because you
need examples of unworkable groups. You will always have plenty of
unmoderated groups to use as bad examples... and since you claim to
like moderation, in the massively unlikely circumstance that all
the talk groups do go moderated, why would you object?
If moderation will help avoid the ugliness, I'm for it. I would be
against content moderation, or censorship of any particular views;
but that is not what is being proposed.
Cheers -- Chris Ho-Stuart
David B. Greene
wels...@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley R. Elsberry) says:
>A recent thread started by TFarnon bemoaned the loss of the old t.o.,
>where the number of scientists posting was fairly high and constant.
>A respondent attributed the decline in proportion of scientists
>posting to the changing demographics of the Internet. There's
>probably some truth to that, but another factor is the noise level
>introduced by the upsurge in massively crossposted junk in t.o.
So, whatever happened to Matthew P. Weiner?
[snip]
>The system is broken. The proposal may not be perfect, but it
>represents a big improvement over the current situation. I've voted
>YES, and I encourage others to do so as well.
It is kind of funny how the chickens eventually come home to roost.
In earlier USENET days there was talk of quarantining t.o as some
of the regulars had a habit of searching out posts on other news
groups that they could crosspost to t.o for the purposes of an
entertaining flame-fest at someone else's expense.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot ...
Dave Greene
David Iain Greig
On 15 Apr 1997 03:41:05 GMT, Paul J. Gans <ga...@scholar.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Chris McFarlane (chri...@midland.co.nz) wrote:
>: | FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>: | moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
>:
>we can easily revert talk.origins to unmoderated status. I
>have no doubt whatsoever that, under those conditions, the
>proposed moderators will lead the fight to do just that.
I'll start drafting the unmoderation RFD right now, in fact. =)
If 'G5' was accepted as a solid working solution *today*, I'd
withdraw the CFV. If this whole months-long process has helped
push the 'G5' proposal into being put in place, I'm happy I
helped.
I've said it before, I'll say it again; I *don't* like the idea of
moderating a talk.* group. I think it's a *bad* idea. I went
forward with it as a service to other readers of talk.origins
who needed a point-man to push this forward. And should there be any
move to make t.o. *content* moderated, I will resign as moderator.
(Aside: I too use 'slrn' to read news, hence I never see the
crossposted articles; I do see that between 30 and 50% of
articles posted to t.o. *are* caught by my ECP filter, though.)
--D.
----
David Iain Greig Information Services
Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave., Toronto, Ont. M5G 1X8
gr...@sickkids.on.ca (416) 813-5390 "Arbor plena allouatarum"
Karl Kluge
br...@phix.com (Bruce Baugh) writes:
> In article <5isoof$lg5$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
>
> >They can vote 'NO', but they should they know they're killing
> >talk.origins as an effective talk group.
>
> No fooling.
>
> However, the principle of ummoderated talk is important to me. There are
> seven other hierarchies in the Big 8, all of which have a history of
> moderation. Why not use one of them?
Because the issue here is fixing a problem with talk.origins, making the
existance of other hierarchies irrelevent. A robo-mod mirror group in rec or
soc was floated as an alternative, but has its own associated problems as a
solution [and only improves the problem from the talk.origins side, I might
add, not the sci.skeptic, etc. side].
> (I personally like the sci.debate.* idea, but there are other good
> namespaces out there, too.)
There is no scientific debate on descent with modification from common
ancestry or an old Earth -- those are issues settled at a sufficiently
high degree of probability as to be as good as certain. There are
scientific responses to what passes for Young Earth Creationist
arguments, but such do not belong in the sci hierarchy. Moderation-free
talk.* is not the only name space purity issue here.
> >Namespace sanity *is* a Good Thing. But does namespace purity
> >actually *work* in a world where the majority of those on Usenet are
> >as tenacious as, oh, say, Mark Ethan Smith, but either don't know, or
> >don't care (or even revel) that they're crossposting to 14 different
> >newsgroups?
>
> I think it's doubly important under these circumstances. There are a lot
> of people out there who Will Not trust any sort of moderation - not even
> robomoderation. I do not want to give up the option of telling them, "So
> go to talk, where all is open."
There is a limit to how far the rest of the world should be expected to
go to accomodate such individuals. We already have people complaining
about their posts being censored in non-moderated newsgroups. (Of course,
we already have problems with content-based third-party cancels as well).
I'm not sure I see either the point or value in rejecting this proposal
on the grounds that someone may be deterred from posting by the abstract
unsubstantiated possibility that censorship might occur. Repeated requests
from me for delurking by any such individuals in the RFD stage did not
turn up much. Several of the handful who did seem bothered by the proposal
were demonstrably part of the problem to begin with.
Karl
Karl Kluge
da...@antispam.halcyon.com (David B. Greene) writes:
> It is kind of funny how the chickens eventually come home to roost.
> In earlier USENET days there was talk of quarantining t.o as some
> of the regulars had a habit of searching out posts on other news
> groups that they could crosspost to t.o for the purposes of an
> entertaining flame-fest at someone else's expense.
>
> Now that the shoe is on the other foot ...
Either (1) "earlier USENET days" here means "prior to 1986", or (2) this is an
interesting way of characterizing attempts to move threads which were
off-topic elsewhere than talk.origins onto talk.origins where they did belong.
Joe Bernstein
In article <5irh1q$ge$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu
(Christopher B. Stone) wrote:
>In sum, any sort of moderation contradicts the fundamental nature of
>talk.*; and worse, it will lead us down a slippery slope. Therefore I
>recommend we nip this idea in the bud with a NO ballot.
Well, I agree with all that I just quoted (though the "nature preserve"
business I snipped was *thoroughly* refuted during the RFD debate, which
you should have read, and spoken up during... are you taking up the habit
of ignoring RFD debates completely before posting your broadsides? this is
not going to improve your audience's acceptance of your views you know...)
But I feel constrained to note, sigh, that talk.answers already exists and
is moderated.
I am *certainly* opposed to moderation of talk.origins. I don't want to go
any further down the slippery slope. But as you would have known if you
had read the RFD debate, it simply is not true that talk.* is fully free of
moderation at present.
Joe Bernstein
PS What the heck, for the edification of latecomers: talk.origins
predates talk.* and was founded, as net.origins, specifically for the
purpose of giving creationist/evolutionist controversy and similar stuff a
home so scientists can have creation-free newsgroups. The argument of the
proponents, so far as I know true, is that spammed cross-posts from
religious groups (including talk.atheism) have made the group essentially
unreadable without cross-post-killing, and this is destroying the group's
usefulness for its original purpose. As a reader of various groups subject
to creation-debate invasions, I find this a wholly plausible argument which
much outweighs any need to keep talk.origins, in particular, in a 'state of
nature' when dozens of other talk.* groups do that job ...
On the other hand, it does not outweigh the need to keep the
distinctions about talk.* clear for the benefit of stupid proponents. And
I am generally becoming unsympathetic to group-by-group cross-post limits,
which are a solution at an improper level to the cross-post plagues.
--
Joe Bernstein, writer and bookseller j...@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself and nobody else http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
Bruce Baugh
>Because the issue here is fixing a problem with talk.origins, making the
>existance of other hierarchies irrelevent.
"But logic is _important_ in evaluating tracts, so I demand that you
file my favored treatises on logic in with the tracts." Sometimes the
right answer is to move a group rather than to try to patch it. I think
this is one of those cases. I frankly don't expect to be in the
majority, and I expect that Chris Stone's predictions will come entirely
true on this matter, but we shall se.
Bruce Baugh
In article <92ovi5n...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>First, let me begin by saying that I am intrigued by the notion that it
>is "news.groups"'s business to stop a proposal whose proponent can gather
>the necessary supermajority of votes. Acting as the voice of tradition is
>one thing. Acting as our Beloved Benevolent Maximum Leader is another.
Right. First we overthrow this, then we stamp out those wretched scum
who maintain the Dewey decimal and Library of Congress systems.
Namespace is an index. There are those who take an interest in the
overall coherence of the system (pause for laughter :-), as well as in
particular proposals. I'm one of them. Are you really not familiar with
the principle that what seems like a locally good idea may not be so
good on broader scales?
Karl Kluge
cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu (Christopher B. Stone) writes:
> The point, then, is this: precedents *do* matter. Given the status of
> news.groups as a paper tiger, we won't stop a proponent that wants full
> moderation in talk.* if we pass this proposal -- and this proposal
> virtually ensures such a proponent will come along. (In fact, they've
> come already, in the talk.religion.taoism RFD).
First, let me begin by saying that I am intrigued by the notion that it
is "news.groups"'s business to stop a proposal whose proponent can gather
the necessary supermajority of votes. Acting as the voice of tradition is
one thing. Acting as our Beloved Benevolent Maximum Leader is another.
Second, as had been repeatedly ignored by most oppenents of the proposal,
talk.origins is one of a small handful of newsgroups with a peculiar sort
of purpose, so any concerns about "precedent" need to be appropriately
narrowed.
Third, in the specific example you cite why aren't they proposing a
moderated soc.religion.taoism to go along with the moderated
soc.religion.christian? Why would the passing of this proposal for
talk.origins justify ignoring other existing namespace conventions for
new groups? [Or is there a moderated soc.religion.taoism and I'm simply
missing out on factional bickering by not following that discussion in
news.groups?]
> But with the precedent this sets, eventually talk.* will riddled with both
> moderated, robomoderated, and unmoderated groups -- exactly the same as
> soc.* and other hierarchies. Arguably, this situation would make it
> exceedingly more difficult to pass moderated groups in soc.*, sci.*, and
> elsewhere, where moderated groups belong and ought to be encouraged. I
> see little point in creating duplicate hierarchies in the Big 8, which is
> a distinct possibility here.
Again, the assumption seems to be that passing the proposal on the table
would act as a precedent to justify full-blown content-based moderation
of talk.* groups, apparently on the grounds that robo-moderation might
possibly be abused to do such so what's the difference. Or is there a
logic here that I'm missing?
Sherilyn
>
>I cannot imagine a vote to create a sci.* group for such material
>would *ever* pass. Consider the case of Velikovksy and Macmillan --
>whatever one's ethical position on boycotts.
>
>Talk.origins belongs in talk.
I think there's a precedent for tackling creationism and Velikovsky
crazies in the sci.* hierarchy. The top-level sci.skeptic handles the
ufo nuts admirably (plus the crazies get a kick out of posting to a
"real" science group). sci.skeptic.origins would do it for me.
--
Sherilyn
Paul J. Gans
Bruce Baugh (br...@phix.com) wrote:
: In article <5iraup$e...@news.tamu.edu>, wels...@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley R. Elsberry) wrote:
:
: >news.*, rec.*, soc.*, and bit.*. Chris' total reported posts to
: >talk.*? Two posts. This one that I'm replying to makes it three.
: >Does Chris Stone have a clue what is or is not "out of place" in
: >talk.*? Maybe, but perhaps not. Does Chris Stone have a clue what is
: >"out of place" in talk.origins? I seriously doubt it.
:
: You are neglecting the possibility that Chris, like me, may sometimes
: read talk groups and not participate because it's a cesspool. But talk
: is a conceptually important cesspool.
<Sarcasm_Mode>
Well now, this opens up interesting ground, doesn't it? Imagine,
condemning an entire discussion area (evolution) to a "cesspool".
I gather that you do not consider evolution an area of any
importance, cesspool status being fine. May I also gather that
comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated is moderated to KEEP it
from becoming a cesspool? How nice of you. We who have to
live in the cesspool, even though it drowns out much reasonable
discussion, thank you for it. I'm glad that our problems
allow you to keep your "conceptually important" view of
talk.origins. Of course, I don't expect you to come over
and actually play in our cesspool, you might get some of the
cess on your self.
<End Sarcasm_Mode>
: (By the way, if you want to profile me, you'll need to check
: bru...@teleport.com, br...@arancet.com, and br...@kenosis.com.)
:
: --
: Bruce Baugh <*> http://www.phix.com
: Moderator, comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated
: List manager, Christlib, Christian/libertarian mailing list
: Host, new sf by S.M. Stirling and George Alec Effing er
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Paul J. Gans
piranha (pir...@gooroos.com) wrote:
[major deletions. The discussion at this point involved the
moderation of talk.origins]
: it represents an improvement only for those who approve of
: it. what about the ones (a potential minority, yes) who do
: not? this proposal takes their outlet away. now, you may
: not have a high opinion of those people, and i am sure you
: have your share of kooks. but i look at it from a much more
: general viewpoint -- i like there to be as many outlets as
: possible for discussion. moderated ones for those who would
: prefer some semblance of a sphincter (*grin*), _and_ unmode-
: rated ones in the interest of free speech. we are not at
: the point in usenet history where unmoderated fora are com-
: pletely useless, not by a long shot. ergo i'd like to pre-
: serve both types of newsgroup.
Piranha has posted some interesting (and useful) observations.
But the nub of our problem (the robomoderation of talk.origins
to eliminate massive cross-posting) lies, I think, in the
paragraph above.
Who are those for whom this proposal "takes their outlet away"?
It isn't the "normal" usenet Kook, they post in talk.origins
in droves. Of course, their posts are not massively cross-
posted, so they will be unaffected by the proposed robomoderation.
This is, we are all agreed, a good thing. Kooks are part of the
life-blood of usenet and are certainly a mainstay of talk.origins.
So who will this proposal remove from talk.origins? Simple: those
who massively cross-post. Are we not trampling on the massive
crossposter's rights? Are we not inhibiting the massive cross-poster's
free speech?
The answer is that we are not, at least according to any reasonable
definition of "rights" and "free speech".
I think that all will agree that there is no reason to allow
destructive behavior. If you mailbomb, folks will try to get
you to stop. If you massively spam unmoderated sci.* and soc.*
groups, folks will try to get you to stop. Why? Because that
is unacceptible behavior. It is axiomatic that freedom is
not total. As is often said, your freedom to swing your arms
ends at the tip of my nose. And the massive cross-poster's
freedom to massively cross-post ends at the point those posts
totally disrupt a newsgroup.
When the talk.* groups were set up, folks did not forsee this
type of behavior. The idea was to allow the free and unfettered
posting of ideas. The (very) few massive crossposters of that
day were dealt with one way or another. (I'm sure some of you
remember this.) We are now long past the point where community
pressure can deal with massive crossposting. It *has* to be
dealt with in other ways. There are sites that refuse to
propagate massively cross-posted messages. Nobody feels that
such sites are ruining usenet. In fact they are often applauded
for their efforts.
The talk.origins proposal is the least restrictive proposal we could
come up with. The only folks affected will be those who *willfully*
massively crosspost.
: please note that i am not campaigning for a 'no' vote. i am
: not urging anyone to vote in any particular way. i am just
: stating my opinion for the record, since this is a CFV. i
: do that in votes in which i am concerned about one thing or
: another.
:
: -alix
I appreciate this. And I understand that some folks will vote
NO for deeply held philosophical reasons. I respect that. The
CFV comes as a result of the clash between ideals are reality.
It is clear to many of us who live there that talk.origins has
long ceased to play its original role as a talk.* group. We will
soon see what future role it will have.
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Christopher B. Stone
In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
Jonathan Stone <jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
>vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
>science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court.
Fine, so why worry about forming a high-quality group in which to debate
creationism at all? If anything, moderating talk.origins will give the
creationists a veneer of legitimacy.
Daniel Howell
In article <5iu9js$n...@news.service.uci.edu>,
Brett Vickers <bvic...@ics.uci.RemoveThisAntiSpam.edu> wrote:
>Chris McFarlane <chri...@midland.co.nz> wrote:
>>| FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>>| moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
Perhaps I could try and summarizing the arguments flying around here:
Reason for voting YES:
talk.origins has become flooded with cross posts, to the extent that
it risks drowning in it.
Reason for voting NO:
talk newsgroups should not be moderated.
Possible reason for voting NO:
That moderation will limit free speach.
I have to say that, in principle I agree with both the reason for voting
YES and for voting NO :-) I do not want talk groups to become moderated,
but something needs to be done. It's reached the stage where talk.origins
is essentially unreadable if your newsreader (or your knowledge of your
newsreader) doesn't allow you to kill posts to more than X groups. In
view of this I am voting YES because I can see no other solution at present.
If an alternative solution comes along at some future date then I will
gladly vote to unmoderating the group.
If it turns out that the moderation does limit people's acces to the
group, or to express themselves then I will gladly vote for reverting
to an unmoderated status in 6 months time.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
>>
>> The point, then, is this: precedents *do* matter. Given the status
>> of news.groups as a paper tiger, we won't stop a proponent that
>> wants full moderation in talk.* if we pass this proposal -- and this
>> proposal virtually ensures such a proponent will come along. (In
>> fact, they've come already, in the talk.religion.taoism RFD).
>
>First, let me begin by saying that I am intrigued by the notion that
>it is "news.groups"'s business to stop a proposal whose proponent can
>gather the necessary supermajority of votes. Acting as the voice of
>tradition is one thing. Acting as our Beloved Benevolent Maximum Leader
>is another.
It actually isn't just the business of news.groups, but also of any
interested Netizen who follows news.announce.newgroups (which I do even
when I'm not in news.groups).
>> But with the precedent this sets, eventually talk.* will riddled with
>> both moderated, robomoderated, and unmoderated groups -- exactly the
>> same as soc.* and other hierarchies. Arguably, this situation would
>> make it exceedingly more difficult to pass moderated groups in soc.*,
>> sci.*, and elsewhere, where moderated groups belong and ought to be
>> encouraged. I see little point in creating duplicate hierarchies in
>> the Big 8, which is a distinct possibility here.
>
>Again, the assumption seems to be that passing the proposal on the
>table would act as a precedent to justify full-blown content-based
>moderation of talk.* groups, apparently on the grounds that
>robo-moderation might possibly be abused to do such so what's the
>difference. Or is there a logic here that I'm missing?
That's more-or-less correct. What you're missing is the fact that *on
the newsreader side* there is literally no technical difference between
content moderation and robomoderation. Furthermore, there is no
difference in the distribution of articles of a moderated newsgroup.
The only difference between human mod and robomod is the software that
receives e-mail and decides whether to post it.
Wesley R. Elsberry
In article <5isis0$mo_...@tpc.kenosis.com>, Bruce Baugh <br...@phix.com> wrote:
>In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>, wels...@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley R. Elsberry) wrote:
WRE>Piranha thinks that the proposal is inconsiderate. Well, I
WRE>think that the sort of consideration evinced by Piranha is not
WRE>the sort that I would want to be associated with.
BB>You seem to be assuming that you have the right to do what you want
BB>where you want.
Actually, no, and nothing in my posts would indicate that.
BB>But just as the endless creationist drones about your
BB>need for salvation are off-topic in talk.origins, and just as the
BB>library doesn't let us shelve books on logic or rhetoric in with the
BB>tracts, so moderated newsgroups don't always get to stay where their
BB>unmoderated versions would.
Bruce may not have noticed that this is a CFV. We're voting
on this precisely because the issue is arguable. Each side on this
has concerns, and those concerns will drive how one views the CFV.
Bruce's text above gives the mistaken impression that there are no
reasonable grounds for disagreement.
I did say something about free speech, but nothing like what Bruce
says above. That's just a mischaracterization on Bruce's part. In
two cases, there were expositions urging people to vote "NO" on this
CFV. While I disagreed with those posters' position, I'll note that
they at least didn't go to the extreme of stating that the point in
dispute was not arguable. Since then, Chris Stone at least has
promised to provide actual argumentation in support of his position
rather than the argument from personal authority that he started with,
which will be a welcome advance. I stated my disagreement and pointed
out some personal backgrounds to go with the personal recommendations
that were proffered. I also gave my reasons for voting YES on this
CFV. I've seen the RFC discussion on news.groups, and given it
serious consideration. I just didn't come to the same conclusion as
some others. Like I said before, the system is broken, and while
this proposal may not be the best possible fix, it represents a big
improvement.
Not that Bruce said anything about it, but the suggestion was made to
vote NO on this proposal, and YES to a proposal to appear Real Soon
Now. I think that would be a Bad Idea. Vote YES to both instead.
Deferring a current possible fix for a problem based on the
*expectation* of a future conjectured fix is nearly always a
disappointing proposition.
Hey, Bruce, did you used to post to the FidoNet Science Echo some
years back, or is that a different person of the same name?
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, 6070 Sea Isle, Galveston TX 77554. Information sent to any
of my email addresses is my personal property, to be published as I see fit.
Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry
"some people i told him inhabit a vacuum all their lives and never know it" -a.
Jonathan Stone
In article <5isis0$mo_...@tpc.kenosis.com>, br...@phix.com (Bruce Baugh) writes:
> In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>, wels...@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley R. Elsberry) wrote:
>
> >Piranha thinks that the proposal is inconsiderate. Well, I
>
We don't *want* a moderated group.
We want a group with a reasonable limit on crossposting. Reluctantly.
Because the noise ratio has become unmanageable.
The only feature that current Usenet transport mechanisms provide that
let us get that is moderation. Robomoderation was the best compromise
that was found to exist.
Where and how are the ``free speech'' consequences of crosspost-based
robomoderation any different from spam cancellations? Seriously: do
you think spam cancellations shouldn't be allowed in talk.*?
Colin Douthwaite
Jay Denebeim (dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us) wrote:
>Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
>'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
>see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
>called for.
You are wrong.
Moderation will kill usenet faster than spam.
Bye,
Chris Colby
Bruce Baugh wrote:
> However, the principle of ummoderated talk is important to me.
Yes, but having a readable newsgroup is important to those of us who
actually read and/or participate in talk.origins. Hopefully, enough
actual t.o. readers vote on this proposal so the outcome reflects what
the group's participants want. It's easy for outsiders to stick to their
principles when the t.o. readership, not the outsiders, end up paying
the price for this commitment.
I urge t.o. readers to vote YES, then assess how they like the change
before the revote.
I urge non-t.o. readers to let us decide what's best for us.
> Bruce Baugh <*> http://www.kenosis.com
Chris Colby
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5j0apq$gra$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>Well now, this opens up interesting ground, doesn't it? Imagine,
>condemning an entire discussion area (evolution) to a "cesspool".
>I gather that you do not consider evolution an area of any
>importance, cesspool status being fine. May I also gather that
>comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated is moderated to KEEP it from
>becoming a cesspool? How nice of you. We who have to live in the
>cesspool, even though it drowns out much reasonable discussion,
>thank you for it. I'm glad that our problems allow you to keep your
>"conceptually important" view of talk.origins. Of course, I don't
>expect you to come over and actually play in our cesspool, you might
>get some of the cess on your self.
><End Sarcasm_Mode>
One more time: why is moving 'talk.origins' to a new hierarchy so
anathema to you that you're willing to court the NO vote of
news.groups?
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <33549F...@biology.bu.edu>,
Chris Colby <co...@biology.bu.edu> wrote:
>
>I urge non-t.o. readers to let us decide what's best for us.
We *are* letting you do that. What we're doing is deciding what's best
for Usenet as a whole.
Snowhare
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Nothing above this line is part of the signed message.
In article <33549F...@biology.bu.edu>,
Chris Colby <co...@biology.bu.edu> wrote:
>Bruce Baugh wrote:
>
>> However, the principle of ummoderated talk is important to me.
>
>Yes, but having a readable newsgroup is important to those of us who
>actually read and/or participate in talk.origins. Hopefully, enough
>actual t.o. readers vote on this proposal so the outcome reflects what
>the group's participants want. It's easy for outsiders to stick to their
>principles when the t.o. readership, not the outsiders, end up paying
>the price for this commitment.
I concur with this. There have been some incidents in the last year where
*for the sake of namespace purity* square pegs were to all intents and
purposes forced into round holes by people who did not have to live with
the result because they were not active participants in the groups.
talk.origin *cannot* perform its role as lightning rod for
creationist-evolution arguments when it is massively cross-posted. This is
true of many of the talk.* groups - talk.* should have *ALWAYS* have been
under G5.
There is no POINT in having a talk.* hierarchy if the kook squads just
massively cross-post back into the other hierarchies.
I will be in the vanguard of those voting to repeal talk.origins
robomoderation the day G5 is implemented - but with the history of good
proposals languishing for many months or even years it is not realistic to
expect the residents of talk.origins to 'be patient'. To use an analogy
with medical triage by dividing groups into those that will die no matter
what you do, those who will survive on their own, and those than can be
saved by *prompt* action, it is clear which catagory talk.origins falls
into: It can be saved - but only with immediate action.
If I thought G5 would be widely implemented this _year_ I might vote
against the robomoderation of talk.origins. But honestly, I don't believe
it will be (well, ok, so it will probably be on my own servers - but not
world wide).
Benjamin Franz
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
iQCVAwUBM1Tzo+jpikN3V52xAQGlagP+KRPp/L6LJOejZ80dZ5eiq4FjlH6K7hZZ
NuLVs+dmmraYPYhnAXW5DPaOhTN04qRi/mbBcM2DNdzGuesUOsgSmsevye44SYWm
CNbKmnEXzBMYLAErt0cSes/OaUCTS/Mdujntgv4bOYmf317yUU50iuAh5cnIxNDO
MxDiKvboVXc=
=civ4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Paul J. Gans
piranha (pir...@gooroos.com) wrote:
: In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
: David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
: > FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
: > moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
: bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
: the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
: completely unmoderated group should something down the
: moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
: in talk.*; i don't participate in the group and i am sure
: its readers have plenty of reason to want to keep out
: extraneous noise, but i do wish the proponents had had the
: consideration to keep the namespace free for an alterna-
: tive.
:
: this action is the only reason why i'll very likely vote
: against it. i do not like that option being closed off.
:
: yes, i've read the proposal and how little moderation the
: modbot will impose. i am co-admin of a group that does
: much the same. but we didn't take the unmoderated group
: away from people who, despite the noise, wanted it that
: way. the power inherent in a modbot, whether or not it's
: currently used with integrity, makes me not wish to see
: this group pass without its name reflecting that it is
: moderated, and keeping a spot open for a group that isn't
: at all moderated.
I think the difference is this. We (the talk.origins folks)
do not want to lose our constituency. Moving to another
newsgroup (i.e. talk.origns.moderated) seems to most of
us a step that would cost us much participation, particularly
from anti-evolutionists who might well feel that the "moderation"
was aimed at them. We feel strongly that we should not be
driven out of what is one of the oldest newsgroups on the net.
Perhaps what is needed is to set up another newsgroup, say
talk.origins.massive_crossposts and automatically send all
things posted to talk.origins *AND* all massive crossposts
banned from talk.origins to that group. This is quite feasible
technically. Would this meet your objections? Of course, I
expect that nobody would actually *read* such a group; certainly
the massive crossposters won't.
If I'm right that nobody will read such a group, then the solution
is this: we just pretend that talk.origins.massive_crossposts has
been set up and that the spam (and everything else) is being sent
there. Then we can all be content that we have done the right thing.
j...@swiftmedia.com
I have been reading talk.origins since 1986, and posted
extensively therein for a couple years; now I mostly lurk.
I have voted YES myself, and urge others to do the same.
---
Joel Hanes SP4
Houseman Scholar Experimental Apologetics University of Ediacara
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Jay Denebeim
In article <335d1efc...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Douglas Weller <dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>If you replace 'moderating' with 'limiting crossposts' this argument
>doesn't sound quite as good, does it?
Not really relevant, at this point the only way to 'limit crossposts'
is to moderate.
Jay
--
* Jay Denebeim, Moderator, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated *
* newsgroup submission address: b5...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
* moderator contact address: b5mod-...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
* personal contact address: dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us *
Guy Macon
In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
>Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
>vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
>science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
>same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
>
>I cannot imagine a vote to create a sci.* group for such material
>would *ever* pass. Consider the case of Velikovksy and Macmillan --
>whatever one's ethical position on boycotts.
Hmmm. If sci.* isn't the right place for creationism, and talk.* isn't
the right place for moderated newsgroups, where *should* a moderated
newsgroup about creationism go?
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5j3j9u$nmj$2...@news07.deltanet.com>,
Guy Macon <guym...@deltanet.com> wrote:
>
>Hmmm. If sci.* isn't the right place for creationism, and talk.* isn't
>the right place for moderated newsgroups, where *should* a moderated
>newsgroup about creationism go?
Jonathan Stone is wrong; sci.skeptic.origins would almost certainly be
welcomed by the news.groups crowd. sci.debate.origins might also work.
Tim Thompson
In article <5j27tl$q...@orm.southern.co.nz>,
cf...@southern.co.nz (Colin Douthwaite) writes:
> Jay Denebeim (dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us) wrote:
[Some Unknown Person said ... ]
>> Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
>> 'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
>> see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
>> called for.
[Denebeim ... ]
> You are wrong.
> Moderation will kill usenet faster than spam.
An over-proliferation of content-based moderation could do that, but
the robo-moderation proposed for talk.origins does not even count as
"moderation" at all, so far as I am concerned. However, the massively
cross-posted SPAM will kill usenet with blazing speed, far faster than
any form of moderation could ever hope to do it. Remember that thousands
of new people are accessing usenet all the time, as part of the overall
explosive expansion of the internet. The old days are gone forever, and
usenet as a whole is no longer a functional system. Without this kind
of cross-post limiting restriction, there will be no usent at all worth
talking about within a few years. I voted YES.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Thompson, Timothy.J...@jpl.nasa.gov
NASA/JPL Terrestrial Science Research element
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.
Atmospheric Corrections Team - Scientific Programmer.
Guy Macon
>PS What the heck, for the edification of latecomers: talk.origins
>predates talk.* and was founded, as net.origins, specifically for the
>purpose of giving creationist/evolutionist controversy and similar stuff a
>home so scientists can have creation-free newsgroups.
If this is the case, then the robomoderator should always set Followups-To:
to be talk.origins only...
L.A. Moran
In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>,
Wesley R. Elsberry <wels...@orca.tamu.edu> wrote:
>Some discussions in the RFC period simply assumed that since t.o. was
>a talk.* group, that really nothing useful happened there anyway, and
>the attitude of some saw any talk.* group as serving the role of a
>verbal cloaca, where any sphincter restricting the flow would be a bad
>thing. Pretty uniformly, these opinions were made in the absence of
>any appreciable experience in reading or writing to talk.origins.
>Those people were wrong about t.o. in the past, but sadly may be
>fostering the conditions for making t.o. so in the future.
I participated in the earlier discussion before the vote was called.
I pointed out that I object to any moderation of a talk.* newsgroup and I
stated that there were better solutions to the problem.
I have been reading and contributing to talk.origins for eight years.
I will vote NO and I resent Wesley's implication that this proposal should
only be of concern to readers of talk.origins. The proposal affects the
entire usenet community and I appreciate the time and effort of some of the
experts who contribute regularly to news.groups. Their advice and perspective
has been invaluable to me in helping me to make up my mind on this vote.
Larry Moran
Jay Denebeim
In article <5j3doc$h...@netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov>,
Tim Thompson <t...@aster.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <5j27tl$q...@orm.southern.co.nz>,
>cf...@southern.co.nz (Colin Douthwaite) writes:
>
>> Jay Denebeim (dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us) wrote:
>
>[Some Unknown Person said ... ]
>>> Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
>>> 'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
>>> see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
>>> called for.
>
>[Denebeim ... ]
I didn't say that, I guess Colin did, I haven't seen the post.
>> You are wrong.
>> Moderation will kill usenet faster than spam.
Jay
Russ Allbery
In news.groups, Jay Denebeim <dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us> writes:
> Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
>> Jonathan Stone is wrong; sci.skeptic.origins would almost certainly be
>> welcomed by the news.groups crowd. sci.debate.origins might also work.
> I'd go for rec.debate myself.
Poor debating societies. :) (I'd go for sci.skeptic.origins; I dislike
the various proposed hierarchies which basically amount to sci.flame.*.)
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
David B. Greene
In article <92oragb...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu> says:
>
>da...@antispam.halcyon.com (David B. Greene) writes:
>
>> It is kind of funny how the chickens eventually come home to roost.
>> In earlier USENET days there was talk of quarantining t.o as some
>> of the regulars had a habit of searching out posts on other news
>> groups that they could crosspost to t.o for the purposes of an
>> entertaining flame-fest at someone else's expense.
>>
>> Now that the shoe is on the other foot ...
>
>Either (1) "earlier USENET days" here means "prior to 1986", or (2) this is an
>interesting way of characterizing attempts to move threads which were
>off-topic elsewhere than talk.origins onto talk.origins where they did belong.
Bullshit! And Keith Cochran was one of the worst offenders.
Troy Varange
> > A counterpart to
> > talk.origins with robomoderation to nuke crossposts belongs somewhere
> > else - sci, I think.
>
> Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
> vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
> science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
> same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
>
> I cannot imagine a vote to create a sci.* group for such material
> would *ever* pass. Consider the case of Velikovksy and Macmillan --
> whatever one's ethical position on boycotts.
Science proves religion wrong, so why not allow religious newsgroups
in the sci.* hierarchy? It would be unmoderated posts that prove the
flat earth theory wrong, and its equivalents, but it would be the
moderation advocates who would seek to crush science.
Jay Denebeim
In article <aahzE8r...@netcom.com>,
Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Jonathan Stone is wrong; sci.skeptic.origins would almost certainly be
>welcomed by the news.groups crowd. sci.debate.origins might also work.
I'd go for rec.debate myself.
Jay
Richard Palmer
Paul J. Gans wrote:
>
> In article <5iuodt$16k...@tpc.kenosis.com> you wrote:
> :
> : In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
> :
> : >Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
> : >vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
> : >science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
> : >same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
> : The subject of human origins is as on-topic as anything can be in sci.*,
> : and the University of Ediacara and other fine sources provides solid,
> : documented, easy-to-read guides to current scientific thinking as well
> : as responses to current fads in pseudo-science. sci would be a very good
> : place for this.
>
> [deletions]
>
> Possibly. But it does two things wrong. It lets the massive
> cross-posters win (which, some suspect, was their objective) in
> driving us *out* of our newsgroup, and it puts creationism
> debates in the sci.* groups, quite contrary to THEIR charters.
> Sci.* groups were invented for the discussion of science. Many
> have become moderated just to keep creationism-like spam *out*
> of the sci.* groups.
>
> I appreaciate the trouble many folks are going to in order to
> try and find a middle ground between spam and content. But
> there seems to be no easy way. The net has changed and we
> must change with it.
Uh, isn't this called - now what's the word I'm looking for - Oh, sure -
evolution? Just think of this change in the net as selection pressure -
I just hope that a favorable mutation for t.o exists out there in
netland - somewhere. I'm voting yes for the CFV.
>
> ------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
--
Remove SPAM protection before sending email.
I'll come up with a real .sig file eventually.
Mahalo and Aloha,
Rick Palmer - Holding on in Honolulu
Bruce Baugh
In article <5j1mrm$s...@news.tamu.edu>, wels...@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley R. Elsberry) wrote:
>Bruce's text above gives the mistaken impression that there are no
>reasonable grounds for disagreement.
I would be obliged if you could point out these passages to me. I mean
that seriously - I don't think _anything_ involved with newsgroup
creation is self-evident, and think that darned little is so clear that
all intelligent people of good will should be on one side of the issue.
I think I'm right, but it would be silly not to. :)
>Not that Bruce said anything about it, but the suggestion was made to
>vote NO on this proposal, and YES to a proposal to appear Real Soon
>Now. I think that would be a Bad Idea.
I agree that it's a bad idea to act in response to something that may or
may not happen in the future. I think that there are a number of
reasonable positions to be held on this issue in the present moment.
Like Chris Stone, I'm concerned with overall issues of namespace and
moderation activity, and think that it would be better to move the
quality part of talk.origins elsewhere than to attempt to transform
talk. But the point of the vote is precisely to give people a chance to
express their own opinions.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> http://www.kenosis.com
Moderator, comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated
List manager, Christlib, Christian/libertarian mailing list
Host, new sf by S.M. Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Bruce Baugh
In article <5j0apq$gra$1...@news.nyu.edu>, ga...@scholar.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans) wrote:
>Well now, this opens up interesting ground, doesn't it? Imagine,
>condemning an entire discussion area (evolution) to a "cesspool".
I'm condemning _talk_ as a cesspool. I think the subject of origins is
very interesting, and would like to see it debated somewhere in Usenet
where minimal moderation (probably just robomoderation) is appropriate.
>from becoming a cesspool? How nice of you. We who have to
>live in the cesspool, even though it drowns out much reasonable
>discussion, thank you for it.
I'm not sure why so many think that a newsgroup for discussion of
origins must exist in talk. On a smaller scale, this is what we did with
comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated: we did not attempt to take over or
clean up any existing group, because such things inevitably create
opposition. Instead, we opened a _new_ forum where we could set up a
standard we regarded as appropriate. It's unclear to me why you can't do
the same thing with talk.origins.
>talk.origins. Of course, I don't expect you to come over
>and actually play in our cesspool, you might get some of the
>cess on your self.
I read talk.origins regularly, and have posted in the past.
Bruce Baugh
In article <5j1sde$24n$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
>We don't *want* a moderated group.
You do want a group with some way of keeping signal-to-noise ratio from
going all to pieces, and yes, at this point it does take robomoderation
for that. So why not move to a hierarchy where robomoderation is not a
serious point of contention?
Christopher B. Stone
In article <joe-ya02408000R...@news.tezcat.com>,
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>Well, I agree with all that I just quoted (though the "nature preserve"
>business I snipped was *thoroughly* refuted during the RFD debate, which
>you should have read, and spoken up during... are you taking up the habit
>of ignoring RFD debates completely before posting your broadsides? this is
>not going to improve your audience's acceptance of your views you know...)
Uh, I did read the debate, because at the time I was not sure how I felt
about the issue. You err in assuming that merely because one does not
actively participate in a debate, that one has not read that debate. That
is precisely what the debate is *for*: persuasion and making up one's
mind, not endlessly reciting one's position.
I did not find the pro-moderation camp's points persuasive, howver.
>But I feel constrained to note, sigh, that talk.answers already exists and
>is moderated.
Obviously *.answers groups are sort of a special case; it exists because
other Big 8 hierarchies have *.answers groups.
--
Chris Stone * cbs...@princeton.edu * http://www.princeton.edu/~cbstone
"Isolationism must become a thing of the past." -Harry Truman
Jonathan Stone
In article <5j3q51$e...@marvin.deepthot.cary.nc.us>, dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay Denebeim) writes:
> In article <aahzE8r...@netcom.com>,
> Mean Green Dancing Machine <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Jonathan Stone is wrong; sci.skeptic.origins would almost certainly be
> >welcomed by the news.groups crowd. sci.debate.origins might also work.
I explicitly referred to *scientists*. I beleive a lot of scientists
would object to a non-content-moderated sci group in which
Velikovsianism and young-earth creationism were on-topic. For roughly
the same reason that they're not allowed in science classes: they're
*not* science.
From here, it looks to me like someone has an overinflated sense of
the importance of ``the news.groups crowd''.
Jonathan Stone
In article <5j3e7g$d...@crl2.crl.com>, var...@crl.com (Troy Varange) writes:
>
> Science proves religion wrong, so why not allow religious newsgroups
> in the sci.* hierarchy? It would be unmoderated posts that prove the
> flat earth theory wrong, and its equivalents, but it would be the
> moderation advocates who would seek to crush science.
Troy,
I'm sorry, your argument is too subtle for me. What are you trying to
say? That we're trying to silence the opposition? Nothing could be
further from the truth.
Nobody in talk.origins wants *content-based* moderation, at all, under
any circumstances. The problem is that a significant minority -- if
not a majority -- of the posts to talk.origin are crossposted to
anywhere up to 30 newsgroups. The noise level is intolerable.
As Usenet moves futher into the shallow end of the human gene pool, I
suspect other groups are likely to have a similar problem. the vote
is about filtering out articles based solely on the number of groups
to which they're crossposted.
The only hook that Usenet transport provides to do this is moderation;
that's the *only* reason this group is voting for moderation. To
impose a crosspost limit. My own guess is that news.groups should be
prepared for more groups facing a similar situation; should think
about how to write CFVs for robomoderated groups; and how to
forcefully change the moderator of a robomoderated group, given
evidence that the moderator is going beyond the robomoderation policy.
Either that or write up the G5 proposal *and* get it implemented *and*
get it widely deployed, instantly. Of which I'm ... skeptical, to say
the least.
If news.groups was really as important as the regulars seem to think,
there would be a solution for this in place before talk.origins got as
far as a moderation vote.
Just to hammer the point: nobody wants content moderation on
talk.origins. What we *do* want is to stop the flood of messages with
Newsgroups: lines like the following:
alt.religion.christian
alt.bible.prophecy
alt.christnet.evangelical
talk.religion.misc
alt.religion.unification
talk.religion.newage
alt.religion.scientology
alt.support.ex-cult
a.bsu.religion
alt.christnet.theology
alt.christnet.philosophy
alt.religion.mormon
alt.christnet.bible
alt.blasphemy
tnn.religion.catholic
alt.fan.jesus-christ
alt.atheism.satire
alt.org.promisekeepers
alt.messianic
alt.divination
alt.pagan
talk.origins
sci.skeptic
alt.philosophy.debate
alt.apocalypse
alt.evil
alt.butt.harp
comp.ai.philosophy
alt.paranormal
alt.usenet.kooks
talk.abortion
alt.christnet.hypocrisy
alt.religion.urantia-book
alt.bitterness
alt.fan.art-bell
alt.paranet.paranormal
alt.destroy.the.earth
alt.recovery.religion
Because the deliberate cross-posting and consequent off-topic
follow-ups is diluting, no, *attacking* the free speech of those who
*do* want to participate in talk.origins. On *all* sides.
Henrietta Thomas
On Wed, 16 Apr 1997 09:45:33 +0000, Chris Colby <co...@biology.bu.edu>
wrote:
>Bruce Baugh wrote:
>
>> However, the principle of ummoderated talk is important to me.
>
>Yes, but having a readable newsgroup is important to those of us who
>actually read and/or participate in talk.origins. Hopefully, enough
>actual t.o. readers vote on this proposal so the outcome reflects what
>the group's participants want. It's easy for outsiders to stick to their
>principles when the t.o. readership, not the outsiders, end up paying
>the price for this commitment.
>
>I urge t.o. readers to vote YES, then assess how they like the change
>before the revote.
>
>I urge non-t.o. readers to let us decide what's best for us.
Don't say that. I'm getting ready to vote YES. And I _don't_
read talk.origins. :-)
Henrietta Thomas
Chicago, Illinois
h...@wwa.com
Henrietta Thomas
On 15 Apr 1997 05:06:15 GMT, cbs...@flagstaff.princeton.edu
(Christopher B. Stone) wrote:
>In article <5iu8mj$4ra$2...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
>Jonathan Stone <jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>
>>Summary: There's a conflict between freedom-of-speech concerns and
>>limiting unmanageable excessive crossposting.
>
>This summary does not have anything to do with my objections to moderating
>talk.origins. Moderation is not censorship and does not impinge upon free
>speech. Rather, this proposal violates the fundamental nature of talk.*
>as a hierarchy *meant* for flamewars and unmoderated groups.
I think it was a big mistake to say that talk.* (or any other
hierarchy) is _meant_ for flamewars in unmoderated groups.
All it did was encourage flamewars, and now they are all over
the place, and everyone is paying the price.
Colin Douthwaite says moderation will kill Usenet before Spam.
I don't know. Moderation in moderation may be OK, and a little
Spam was OK a few years ago. But now we may be getting a
little too much of both. So it may be a race between the two.
Which is worse? Too much moderation or too much Spam?
Henrietta
h...@wwa.com
Jonathan Stone
In article <335594f2...@news.wwa.com>, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas) writes:
> Colin Douthwaite says moderation will kill Usenet before Spam.
Colin Douthwaite appears to be posting from New Zealand....
Point of fact: Usenet distribution into New Zealand in the
early-to-mid 1980s blossomed during a bootstrapping phase. The cost of
importing newsfeed was covered by a consortium that charged downstream
sites for a newsfeed. Entire newsgroups were `censored' from New
Zealand (articles were neither imported nor exported) if there was
little readership or demand for them, and if nobody was willing to
sponsor the cost of importing the group over the (at the time)
horrendously expensive New Zealand-US or New Zealand-Australia links.
To the best of my knowledge, much the same thing happened in the early
days of EUnet. (There was certainly a fuss about the collection
copyright EUnet asserted over its newsfeed, in order to fairly share
the cost over all downstream participants).
That was a *far* harsher form of ``censorship'' than the restriction
on crossposting that the talk.origins CFV proposes. Usenet flourished
under those conditions.
Does Colin have rationale or evidence to support his claim?
Wesley R. Elsberry
GM>Hmmm. If sci.* isn't the right place for creationism, and talk.* isn't
GM>the right place for moderated newsgroups, where *should* a moderated
GM>newsgroup about creationism go?
A>Jonathan Stone is wrong; sci.skeptic.origins would almost certainly be
A>welcomed by the news.groups crowd. sci.debate.origins might also work.
Interesting. Guy Macon quoted Jonathan Stone, but Aahz did not.
Let's see the elided text:
[Quote]
JS>Sorry, no. Young-Earth Creationist is not perceived as science by the
JS>vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
JS>science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
JS>same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
JS>I cannot imagine a vote to create a sci.* group for such material
JS>would *ever* pass. Consider the case of Velikovksy and Macmillan --
JS>whatever one's ethical position on boycotts.
[End quotes]
Aahz says that Stone is wrong. There are at least two issues
that I see that could be in dispute.
I was unaware that "the vast majority of practicing scientists" had
substantial, or even minimal, overlap with the set of regulars in
news.groups. That would be an intriguing claim for Aahz to make,
and would require a good deal of documentation for support.
But perhaps Aahz simply referred to the likelihood of passage of a new
group in the sci.* hierarchy, and was affirming that news.groups
regulars would at least not actively vote 'no' on a proposal like
that. However, that doesn't really address how likely such a group
would fare in the vote, and thus doesn't support the categorical
statement that Jonathan was "wrong". My personal opinion is that
Jonathan is quite right.
Perhaps Aahz can clarify...
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, 6070 Sea Isle, Galveston TX 77554. Information sent to any
of my email addresses is my personal property, to be published as I see fit.
Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry
"you better dodge me when i m feeling mean and i don t feel any other way" -a.
Paul J. Gans
In article <5iuodt$16k...@tpc.kenosis.com> you wrote:
:
: In article <5iu9r6$6fn$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
:
: >vast majority of practicing sciencists, or those with an education in
: >science, or (as I'm sure you're aware) by the US Supreme Court. The
: >same goes for Velikovskian material too, modulo the Supremes.
:
: and the University of Ediacara and other fine sources provides solid,
: documented, easy-to-read guides to current scientific thinking as well
: as responses to current fads in pseudo-science. sci would be a very good
: place for this.
[deletions]
Possibly. But it does two things wrong. It lets the massive
cross-posters win (which, some suspect, was their objective) in
driving us *out* of our newsgroup, and it puts creationism
debates in the sci.* groups, quite contrary to THEIR charters.
Sci.* groups were invented for the discussion of science. Many
have become moderated just to keep creationism-like spam *out*
of the sci.* groups.
I appreaciate the trouble many folks are going to in order to
try and find a middle ground between spam and content. But
there seems to be no easy way. The net has changed and we
must change with it.
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Wesley R. Elsberry
In article <E8qKt...@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>,
L.A. Moran <lam...@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>In article <5iscap$3...@news.tamu.edu>,
>Wesley R. Elsberry <wels...@orca.tamu.edu> wrote:
WRE>Some discussions in the RFC period simply assumed that since t.o. was
WRE>a talk.* group, that really nothing useful happened there anyway, and
WRE>the attitude of some saw any talk.* group as serving the role of a
WRE>verbal cloaca, where any sphincter restricting the flow would be a bad
WRE>thing. Pretty uniformly, these opinions were made in the absence of
WRE>any appreciable experience in reading or writing to talk.origins.
WRE>Those people were wrong about t.o. in the past, but sadly may be
WRE>fostering the conditions for making t.o. so in the future.
LM>I participated in the earlier discussion before the vote was called.
LM>I pointed out that I object to any moderation of a talk.* newsgroup and I
LM>stated that there were better solutions to the problem.
Larry also never forwarded an opinion of the sort that I was
objecting to ("really nothing useful happened there anyway"),
AFAIK. I'm not sure if Larry thought that I was discounting
his participation in the RFC period, but I certainly was not
doing any such thing.
LM>I have been reading and contributing to talk.origins for eight years.
I've been around t.o. since 1991, which isn't quite as long, but I
think it does give me some perspective.
LM>I will vote NO and I resent Wesley's implication that this
LM>proposal should only be of concern to readers of
LM>talk.origins.
Via email, I've asked Larry to document this claim. I've
reviewed my posts, and just don't see what seems so plain to
Larry. I have stated that the vote should be about what is
best for the readership of t.o., which I do not see as an
exclusionary statement, but rather an orienting one.
LM>The proposal affects the entire usenet community and I
LM>appreciate the time and effort of some of the experts who
LM>contribute regularly to news.groups. Their advice and
LM>perspective has been invaluable to me in helping me to make up
LM>my mind on this vote.
Ditto. I've voted YES, though. Or will, once the vote machine
is back up. The issue is arguable, we have argued it, and now
is the time for decisions.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, 6070 Sea Isle, Galveston TX 77554. Information sent to any
of my email addresses is my personal property, to be published as I see fit.
Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry
"i might have been a poet if i had kept away from the theatre" - archy
Jay Denebeim
In article <335ec64c...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Douglas Weller <dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On 16 Apr 1997 18:30:24 -0400, dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay
>Denebeim) wrote:
>
>>In article <335d1efc...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>>Douglas Weller <dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>If you replace 'moderating' with 'limiting crossposts' this argument
>>>doesn't sound quite as good, does it?
>>
>>Not really relevant, at this point the only way to 'limit crossposts'
>>is to moderate.
>
>also, which has a very different effect on a newsgroup.
Well, I understand moderation styles, however, for usenet there is
only moderated and unmoderated. That's the point here. It's a
slipery slope argument.
Anyway, I've found that Chris Stone and Co have convinced me. Talk
was intended to not be moderated. rec or soc, besides having better
propagation than talk, would be a more appropriate place for this
topic. (I agree that sci is right out)
Peruru
Henrietta Thomas wrote:
*snip*
> I think it was a big mistake to say that talk.* (or any other
> hierarchy) is _meant_ for flamewars in unmoderated groups.
> All it did was encourage flamewars, and now they are all over
> the place, and everyone is paying the price.
I see almost no flamewars. I do see experienced people explaining
things to creationist Christians that they might get nowhere else.
Boiling talk.origins down to a bunch of people who already agree
with one another would seem to eliminate the purpose of talk.origins
altogether. I mean, you don't see biologists and paleontologists
coming on here to share research and manuscripts with one another.
You do see creationists and non-creationists trying to come to terms
with one another.
> Colin Douthwaite says moderation will kill Usenet before Spam.
> I don't know. Moderation in moderation may be OK, and a little
> Spam was OK a few years ago. But now we may be getting a
> little too much of both. So it may be a race between the two.
> Which is worse? Too much moderation or too much Spam?
Moderation, in my book. At least you can ignore the spam. Moderation
in groups that cater to the layman threatens to eliminate incentive to
post altogether, and turn what was a thriving newsgroup into
an auto-posted FAQ once a month, read by no one. The crossposts
quite often are on-topic for all of the newsgroups involved, and
they are almost uniformly on-topic for talk.origins.
I vote NO, and I do so unequivocally.
Peruru
--
It's like the cookies are dancing.> Peruru at nowhere dot com.
"I can ford a red eed, only street a wide a ree land." - the Melvins
Chibi-Usa is Terrific, Everyone. <They just look delicious to me.
"There's no sense in having a .sig file that makes any sense." - me
Paul J. Gans
Mean Green Dancing Machine (aa...@netcom.com) wrote:
: In article <5irh1q$ge$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
: Christopher B. Stone <cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu> wrote:
: >
: >Now, I am a big proponent of moderated groups; they are the only way to
: >prevent Usenet from sliding into a morass of idiocy. That said, I think
: >it best if we maintain talk.* as a "nature preserve" of unmoderated
: >groups. Why? Too many people still argue that moderation is bad, that
: >moderation is censorship. We need to show them a true-blue example of
: >what happens with wholly unmoderated groups. Talk.*, with all its
: >ugliness, *is* that example.
:
: <obAOL> Me too! </obAOL>
:
: It's interesting how the talk.origins debate is creating interesting
: bedfellows; I'm normally on the opposite side of debates that Chris
: Stone participates in. ;-)
Thanks folks. I really appreciate being told that talk.origins
is a "nature preserve" whose main purpose is to show other folks
"what happens with wholly unmoderated groups."
You seem to feel that talk.origins serves no socially useful
purpose. You'd be wrong in that. It deals with real issues
of some importance to the country and the world. The fact that
it happened, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, to have been
placed into the talk.* heirarchy has little to do with any
present reality. The original group was here *before* the
naming conventions. It is older than 97% of all newsgroups.
But then, you folks don't care. The garbage is in the "nature
preserve" and all of us folks that have to wallow in it are
just "nature" too. For you, with your neato moderated newsgroups,
that sure is a good solution.
I know that the above is intemperate. But the posts above
are *somewhat* condescending, eh?
Vote to keep the nature preserve a dumping ground for net.scum.
Vote no on robomoderating talk.origins!
At least we scum know where we stand with the rest of you.
A. Deckers
In news.groups,talk.origins,
cf...@southern.co.nz wrote:
>
>Jay Denebeim (dene...@deepthot.cary.nc.us) wrote:
>
>>Personally, I hate spam, I hate it enough that I'm willing to vote
>>'YES' to moderated talk groups. I find it abhorant to do so though. I
>>see usenet fighting for it's life here, and IMO drastic measures are
>>called for.
>
>
>Moderation will kill usenet faster than spam.
I'm not going to enter into a philosophical debate about whether
moderation is good or bad in principle, but lets think about the
practical consequences of allowing talk.* to become what some
participants of this thread have described as a "nature reserve" (sic)
for what in effect would be any type of behaviour, however anti-social,
that might take a poster's fancy.
The net effect of this is that more and more people who would otherwise
participate in good faith and contribute to talk.* groups will leave. The
signal to noise ratio will continue decreasing, and news admins are going
to get wind of this.
If this trend continues unabated, at some stage those news admins that
haven't already done so are going to drop talk.* from their servers, and
the propagation of talk.* will get steadily worse. Eventually, it might
get to be about the same as alt.*.
The net result of this is that there will be *NO* Big 8 hierarchy with
good propagation that will serve the purpose that talk.* currently does,
that is to say, allowing anyone to express any view without interference.
ECP does not qualify as "expressing an opinion" and AFAIK was not what
talk.* was intended for when it was created.
Is that what those who object to this proposal want? IMHO that's what
will happen. Here is the slippery slope argument that needs to be
addressed: the slippery slope that talk.*'s propagation is going to get
worse and worse if things don't change.
Let's face it folks, more and more sites are imposing limits upon the
number of groups that an article can be cross-posted to before it gets
dropped. One European network that I am well acquainted with has recently
dropped the limit from 10 to 7 in a particular national hierarchy, and
many sites impose a G10 limit on Big 8 newsgroups.
Unfortunately, this isn't happening as fast as might be desirable. The
proposal to moderate t.o. addresses this problem in a timely manner and,
in practical terms, goes *no further* than a cross-post limit
implemented on the server side.
And if it proves to be the case that the proposed moderation of t.o.
doesn't work or that the costs outweigh the benefits, you can vote to
unmoderate the group in six month's time. But in the meantime, please
give those of us who read t.o. a chance to make the group a workable
enterprise.
FWIW, I have voted in favour of this CFV.
Alain
Jim Riley
In article <5ip1u5$m8v$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU> Christopher B. Stone wrote:
>I have considered the arguments, and I nonetheless have concluded that
>moderation, even pure robomoderation, is out of place in talk.*.
>Therefore, I have voted NO and urge others to do likewise.
That's because you see talk.* as a place to exile all unmoderated
discussion to so that you moderate everything else.
--
Jim Riley
Jim Riley
In article <5is5ff$q...@excalibur.gooroos.com> piranha wrote:
>In article <8608738...@isc.org>,
>David Bostwick <bost...@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
>> moderated group talk.origins (moderates existing group)
>
> bad choice of name. the one and only moderated group in
> the talk.* hierarchy, and it takes away the slot for a
> completely unmoderated group should something down the
> line go awry with this one. i am not dead set against
> moderating talk.origins, or against any moderation at all
> in talk.*; i don't participate in the group and i am sure
> its readers have plenty of reason to want to keep out
> extraneous noise, but i do wish the proponents had had the
> consideration to keep the namespace free for an alterna-
> tive.
The group already exists. They are trying to preserve its character
as a place for open discussion.
It would be a simple matter to create:
talk.evolution Argue with talk.creationism and 15 other groups.
talk.creationism Argue with talk.evolution and 15 other groups.
Someone could set up a bot that would send reminders whenever
anyone forgot to cross-post.
--
Jim Riley