The future of rec.humor.jewish
RHJ Admin
About 12 years ago, alt.humor.jewish was under attack by trolls,
anti-Semites, and spammers. The noise level was so high, that good posts
were being drowned out. Since it's hard to be funny while people around you
are shouting for your death, some of the participants began the work to
create rec.humor.Jewish - a moderated alternative.
This was no small feat. Not only was moderated newsgroup creation
cumbersome, a number of anti-Semites battled us every step of the way. When
the voting took place, we were joined by Jews and non-Jews from around the
world, and even the JDL joined in our fight. We won that battle - and thus
on March 21, 1998, with 395 yes votes and 27 no votes, RHJ came into being.
We went through a tough learning curve. The moderators all had the same
goal, but often had different interpretations on how to reach that goal. In
the early days, it seemed that every RHJ post generated many internal
discussions. We tried to be consistent and fair. We know that we made
mistakes, but we always did our best.
We blocked hundreds - if not thousands - of terribly vile anti-Semitic and
racist posts. Some were aimed at specific participants, some were aimed at
all Jews. There were countless personal attacks and "flames". There was so
much spam that we finally had to install a spam filter.
But the humor was wonderful. The wit - and endless discussions - were what
made RHJ special. The intellectualization of humor provided many insights
for us, and we hope others as well.
The usenet is decreasing in popularity, and the moderators have been
discussing ending our role - and thus ending the status of RHJ. But before
we do, we would like to hear if you have anything to add. Please don't use
this to berate us for some past mistake. We were volunteers, and we always
did our best.
We would like to use this opportunity to thank all past moderators Ken,
Jennifer, and Diane, and our technical producer, Jonathan Kamens. We also
take this as an important opportunity to acknowledge Paula Taft (aka
"Annie"), z''l, who will always be in our thoughts.
And most of all, we thank YOU, the group's participants.
Sincerely,
The current RHJ moderators:
Irene Stern Friendman
Judy Lawrence
William Scarborough
Phil Sego
Dick Adams
Dick
Soquiso
dir:
>Dear RHJ Readers,
>The usenet is decreasing in popularity, and the moderators have been
>discussing ending our role - and thus ending the status of RHJ. But before
>we do, we would like to hear if you have anything to add. Please don't use
>this to berate us for some past mistake. We were volunteers, and we always
>did our best.
I don't know if this kind of website could be an alternative:
http://mathoverflow.net/questions
Thanks for your work,
Agustí
DAS
I agree that usenet is declining. I follow several different groups in
different fields and the participation is down, not necessarily because of
spam. (The other groups are unmoderated.)
In the case of my Microsoft group (for Outlook Express) it is victim of MS
pulling all its groups off (its own) news servers and transferring to web
groups. Participation can live on as long as some other news servers carry
the groups (and some experts continue to volunteer their services). But
it's dying.
So maybe it is time to call it a day, regrettably?
Whatever, many thanks to the moderators.
DAS
To reply directly replace 'nospam' with 'schmetterling'
--
"Dick Adams" <rda...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:i2iptf$dl7$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>I suggest robo-moderation.
>
> Dick
>
Herman Rubin
> Sincerely,
I thank the moderators, and I would prefer that this
group remain. Possibly we have had a decline in articles
because of summer. Also, many places have regrettably
dropped USENET, my university included. It is still
possible to get it, and groups for good humor postings
are not very common.
So I am asking for you to keep up the good work.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Harry Farkas
waned. I changed ISP's and was surprised I still get the newsgroups via
their news server. If I lose this access, it would be much more difficult to
post. I would also miss some of our, um, characters.
I appreciate the efforts of the mods and hope the group can continue either
as moderated or - Gasp! - non-moderated. It's hard to maintain any group
that eschews controversy or doesn't provide pirated movies or music. I so
hope there is a future for this one.
Oh, and I still have 'Annie' in my address book......
Harry
--
Harry Farkas
***************
Soquiso
vas dir:
You can find Usenet groups through Google groups too.
Agustí
maxine in ri
maxine in ri
Potblak
DAS
fearful of being so (I was cut off without warning by my ISP) go to Eternal
September.
http://www.eternal-september.org/
Giganews is not free, this is.
I set it up just now. Got my NGs back (only 5, incl the two Jewish humour
ones). However, NGs are declining. Nothing to do with summer, Herman R.
DAS
To reply directly replace 'nospam' with 'schmetterling'
--
"Soquiso" <soq...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v37i56l15qs8e9a9u...@4ax.com...
Lofty Goat
> news:i2iptf$dl7$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>>I suggest robo-moderation.
On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:42:33 -0400, Potblak wrote:
> Why not start a group on Facebook?
Why not Face Book? Because the people who run it are fundamentally
dishonest. Why drum up business for people who mistreat you? [1]
The next question one might reasonably ask is, "Where else?"
Thinking about that myself (having been "on-line" since there was such a
thing); the best I can come up with so far is to use one of a huge
collection of public message boards, now also accessible through the
Web... called USENET.
-- RLW
[1] This remark is off-topic, but it would solve a great many problems
if more of my fellow citizens could grasp that concept.