moderated rec.arts.startrek offshoot
Kyle Jones
deoted to info postings has been quite favorable. The lone dissenter
has been found and slain :) ; the call for discussion goes out to
news.announce.newgroups today.
Vidiot
<In article <1989Dec6.1...@talos.uucp> ky...@xanth.cs.odu.edu writes:
<%I would like to see a moderated offshoot of this group, devoted to
<%schedules, credit listings, program guides, con announcements and other
<%informational type postings. The volume in this group is large enough
<%that a separation would be useful.
<
<Screw it.
And that coming from a guy who just requested a copy of the program guide.
This idea would have benefited Jeffrey just fine.
Anyway, I like the idea. Are you (kyle) offering to moderate the group?
This is kind-of against the net rules, but even if someone else moderated
the group, I can still set up my system so that I can still post the guide,
schedules, etc. I doubt that anyone would object.
Following net rules, if there is enough interest and there is a moderator,
discussion should start in the correct newsgroup.
--
harvard\ att!nicmad\
Vidiot ucbvax!uwvax..........!astroatc!vidiot!brown
rutgers/ decvax!nicmad/
ARPA/INTERNET: <@spool.cs.wisc.edu,@astroatc:brown@vidiot>
Kyle Jones
> Anyway, I like the idea. Are you (kyle) offering to moderate the
> group?
In my initial opinion survey I offered to moderate the group in lieu of
any other volunteers. In the official call for discussion that I
recently posted, the choice of moderator is left wide open.
> This is kind-of against the net rules, but even if someone else moderated
> the group, I can still set up my system so that I can still post the guide,
> schedules, etc. I doubt that anyone would object.
Hmmm, I didn't see anything against it in the newsgroup creation
guidelines, although I'll admit that such a self-nomination could be
interpreted as a powerplay. In reality, I thought that I should be
willing to back up my proposal with action. Therefore I'm willing to
moderate the group in lieu of any other volunteers. As yet no
volunteers have stepped forward.
Kyle Jones
> My opinion is that it isn't worth it. I'm unconvinced that such an
> offshoot would have any real benefit or would in anyway curb the
> traffic simply due to the lack of true definition for the separate
> newsgroup.
The idea behind the group as proposed is not to curb the traffic in
rec.arts.startrek, but to divert articles that are clearly informational
in content to a less noisy forum. The volume in this group is enormous.
I've been seeing 80-90 articles a day here, even though TNG has been
showing reruns for the past couple of weeks. Peak volumes have exceeded
130 articles a day. Trying to find schedules and other info postings in
that kind of volume is tiresome to do manually, and requires knowledge
of `rn' esoterica to do automatically.
I don't understand what you mean by "lack of true definition for the
separate newsgroup." For the most part, the type of postings I have in
mind are con announcements, program schedules, credit listings, and
program guides. I can also see allowing postings like "Brent Spiner
will be interviewed on the Tonight Show on 18 January" or "there's a
good interview of Gates McFadden in this week's TV Guide."
> I presonally do not like moderatied newsgroups for the same reason I
> don't like seeing the Chinese government in control of their press -
> you only get one person's view of anything. True people can argue
> about the biases of "informational" postings, but still, I see no
> reason for the split.
You do the existing moderators on USENET a grave disservice with
statements like this. I have never heard of distortions or censorship
anywhere near the magnitude of the situation in China. (In fact, most
moderators disdain `editing' articles, for just the reason you
mentioned. They either accept the article in its entirety or reject
it.) There have been people disgruntled because articles were rejected,
yes, but these people have always had the recourse of reposting the
rejected article to an unmoderated group and complaining loudly that the
article was rejected in the moderated forum.
I think the idea of "informational postings" is clear enough that a
moderator should be able to cull inappropriate postings objectively and
thereby escape the flames that would result were the new group's charter
to include, say, reviews and parodies.
Vidiot
<Vidiot writes:
<
< > This is kind-of against the net rules, but even if someone else moderated
< > the group, I can still set up my system so that I can still post the guide,
< > schedules, etc. I doubt that anyone would object.
<
<Hmmm, I didn't see anything against it in the newsgroup creation
<guidelines, although I'll admit that such a self-nomination could be
<interpreted as a powerplay. In reality, I thought that I should be
<willing to back up my proposal with action. Therefore I'm willing to
<moderate the group in lieu of any other volunteers. As yet no
<volunteers have stepped forward.
Normally, when a person is a moderator, all information goes to that person
for posting/rejection. In order to save money in shipping things to the
moderator, I was indicating that I would post directly to the net, the
schedules and the guides that I do. What I post is expensive enough. If
it is against the rules, I won't do it.
Jim The Big Dweeb Griffith
>In article <1989Dec14.1...@talos.uu.net> kjo...@talos.uu.net writes:
><Hmmm, I didn't see anything against it in the newsgroup creation
><guidelines, although I'll admit that such a self-nomination could be
><interpreted as a powerplay. In reality, I thought that I should be
><willing to back up my proposal with action. Therefore I'm willing to
><moderate the group in lieu of any other volunteers. As yet no
><volunteers have stepped forward.
I'm officially throwing my name into the ring, provided this is acceptable
to a majority of r.a.s. readers, the technical aspects of moderatorship can
be worked out at my end, and the newsgroup is voted into existance.
Note that for the time being, I have a fairly solid newsfeed and an easily-
reached mailing address (as far as I know).
>Normally, when a person is a moderator, all information goes to that person
>for posting/rejection. In order to save money in shipping things to the
>moderator, I was indicating that I would post directly to the net, the
>schedules and the guides that I do. What I post is expensive enough. If
>it is against the rules, I won't do it.
Based on my experience with Vidiot's postings, I would say that if it can
be worked out so that he can post his schedules, Paramount info, etc.,
straight to the newsgroup, it would be preferable to forcing him to route
that stuff through a moderator. Is there a "joint moderatorship" scheme
that would allow this?
Jim
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Griffith /--OO--\ |
...!ucbvax!scam!griffith | "Take my Worf. Please"
BEWARE BATS WITHOUT NOSES! |
Kyle Jones
> [...] it appears that the people who will read this new newsgroup
> will not read the old one for the simple reason that the traffic will
> not change more than an iota. The old newsgroup will remain the same
> and the new newsgroup will be a miniscule subset of it just for the
> sake of a few people.
Judging from the enthusiastic support rec.arts.startrek.info is
receiving I think the number of interested readers is much more than a
few.
> Perhaps we can work out a convention for the Keywords that would allow
> the few people who only want informational postings to search?
This won't work for new users; they have no way of figuring out the
system. Monthly postings with long expire times won't help either. The
average new r.a.s reader upon seeing "3557 unread articles, read now?"
is going to either type `u' or `c' and thus not see the monthly posting.
on the jagged cliffs of Ngranek
>In article (Jeffrey A. Hallett) writes:
>> [...] it appears that the people who will read this new newsgroup
>> will not read the old one for the simple reason that the traffic will
>> not change more than an iota. The old newsgroup will remain the same
>> and the new newsgroup will be a miniscule subset of it just for the
>> sake of a few people.
> Judging from the enthusiastic support rec.arts.startrek.info is
> receiving I think the number of interested readers is much more than a
> few.
Assuming that the new newsgroup is created, what might be the
total number of articles posted to it monthly? On the average?
I'm just curious...
One might argue that the readership of r.a.startrek will decrease
because the new group will be taking away all of the best or most
informative (juiciest) articles.
I'd be inclined to read the new group only. But I might for a while,
skim through the old group until it inevitably falls into total
irrelevancy.
Just my .02 cents worth...
-- --
rj pietkivitch att!ihlpa!rjp1
Kyle Jones
> Assuming that the new newsgroup is created, what might be the
> total number of articles posted to it monthly? On the average?
I'd guess around 15 to 20 core postings a month plsu a random number of
user submissions. The core postings are the Vidiot's stuff, Chris
Wayne's station listings, Roger Noe's credit listings, and Ed
Whiteside's schedules.
> One might argue that the readership of r.a.startrek will decrease
> because the new group will be taking away all of the best or most
> informative (juiciest) articles.
I know some people plan to unsubscribe to r.a.s once the new group is
created; they said as much in e-mail to me. Still, the info group will
lack the humor and feedback of the discussion forum, and I for one would
miss that. There are people in r.a.s that write consistently good
discussion type articles and I believe they do it because they enjoy
doing so. There's no reason to believe they won't continue to do so.
John Pimentel
>recently posted, the choice of moderator is left wide open.
>moderate the group in lieu of any other volunteers. As yet no
>volunteers have stepped forward.
Well, gee Kyle, I am all for the proposed newsgroup, but I seem to find a
volunteer at "Vidiot". Though, Mike has not come and said "Hey, Kyle here
I am." I feel "I can set up my system" as volunteering. Don't you ;-) ?
---
Take care and have a good day. John.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES.
UUCP: frog!jp
Dave Ochs
> > because the new group will be taking away all of the best or most
> > informative (juiciest) articles.
>
>I know some people plan to unsubscribe to r.a.s once the new group is
>created; they said as much in e-mail to me. Still, the info group will
>lack the humor and feedback of the discussion forum, and I for one would
>miss that. There are people in r.a.s that write consistently good
>discussion type articles and I believe they do it because they enjoy
>doing so. There's no reason to believe they won't continue to do so.
I plan to stay subscribed to both, but support the split for the following
reason ... when I am away for a while, it is virtually impossible to
catch up on ALL the postings that occured in the meantime. Since I
don't want to miss things like synopses and program guide updates, I
end up weeding though the new information. If this was in a separate
group, the "vital" information could be found easily.
Dave Ochs
da...@hp-pcd.HP.COM
hplabs!hp-pcd!daveo
Kyle Jones
> I'm willing to moderate the group in lieu of any other volunteers.
> As yet no volunteers have stepped forward.
John Pimentel writes:
> Well, gee Kyle, I am all for the proposed newsgroup, but I seem to find a
> volunteer at "Vidiot". Though, Mike has not come and said "Hey, Kyle here
> I am." I feel "I can set up my system" as volunteering. Don't you ;-) ?
You're a bit behind in your newsreading.
Since I posted that note on 6 December, a few people have come forward.
We (the volunteers and I) hashed it out via e-mail and it was agreed
(unanimously) that Jim Griffith would be the moderator, and that the
VIdiot would be allowed to post some of his larger postings (e.g. the
guides) directly to the group to save on e-mail costs.
All that's left to do is for me to compose a coherent group charter
based on the comments made during the discussion period, run it by Jim
for approval, and then issue the call for votes.
the witch
r.a.s. (and have gotten lots of positive responses - thanks!).
However, in light of this proposal for a moderated group, I will
suspend the ras-digest project until after the vote. If the group is
formed, I will drop it; if it isn't, I will go ahead with it.
Let's hear a big cheer for Kyle, Jim, and Vidiot!
--the witch
--
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you numberless infinity of Souls \/ | BITNET: tit...@uci.bitnet
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Jeff Standish
I have noticed the episode listings that are floating around the net for
ST:TNG, and have wondered, are there any lists of the episodes for ST:TOS
out there as well (most likely there are, but has anyone posted one lately?)?
Dreamwalker
Jeff Temple
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