Moderation of uk.business.telework
Simon Reed
the prime moderator of uk.business.telework and expressed his desire to
resign some months ago. I have volunteered to continue his work.
Simon resurrected uk.b.t back in January 2001 with myself and three
other volunteers. Thank you all for your efforts and time spent
moderating.
There have been problems this last few months with messages not getting
to the moderation team and other issues. I should like to give this
newsgroup the opportunity to be resurrected again.
A request to UK Usenet Control to update the newsgroup details will be
made shortly. This is so that I see the messages to be moderated. How
long this will take to occur, I am not sure but I expect it may be a
number of days.
Previous address for posting:
ukbt <at> wretched.demon.co.uk <--- OLD address
New address for posting:
ukbt <at> sandj.demon.co.uk <--- NEW address
To update the last "FYI":
New Moderator: Simon Reed
Q: Who are you?
A: An IT professional who would like to see more flexible working
actually happening in the UK.
Q: Who made you moderator?
A: I volunteered in January 2001 and I am "the last man standing".
Q: What qualifications do you have to be moderator of
uk.business.telework?
A: Qualifications? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! This is Usenet! Seriously though,
I am a TCA member, my wife is a teleworker and I want to do it.
Q: What experience do you have as moderator?
A: I've been a volunteer moderator for nearly five years but as prime
moderator: none. Please be gentle with me while I get up to speed.
Q: What are you views on Usenet Moderation?
A: More gentle than they were, but I will generally do what the charter
says. However, expect the charter to become more flexible with a view
to promoting telework shortly.
Initially there will be no automation in the moderation. That will, no
doubt, change with time as I get fed up with the time taken.
--
Simon Reed, ukbt<at>sandj.demon.co.uk or use the 'Reply-To' address.
Moderator for uk.business.telework
use...@isbd.co.uk
> Simon Waters is no longer in a position where he is able to continue as
> the prime moderator of uk.business.telework and expressed his desire to
> resign some months ago. I have volunteered to continue his work.
>
> Simon resurrected uk.b.t back in January 2001 with myself and three
> other volunteers. Thank you all for your efforts and time spent
> moderating.
>
> There have been problems this last few months with messages not getting
> to the moderation team and other issues. I should like to give this
> newsgroup the opportunity to be resurrected again.
>
> A request to UK Usenet Control to update the newsgroup details will be
> made shortly. This is so that I see the messages to be moderated. How
> long this will take to occur, I am not sure but I expect it may be a
> number of days.
>
> Previous address for posting:
>
> ukbt <at> wretched.demon.co.uk <--- OLD address
>
> New address for posting:
>
> ukbt <at> sandj.demon.co.uk <--- NEW address
>
>
moderator) automatically doesn't it? All I (or others) need to do is
to post to uk.business.telework.
--
Chris Green
Keith Lawrence
> Surely when one posts to the newsgroup the posting reaches you (the
> moderator) automatically doesn't it? All I (or others) need to do is
> to post to uk.business.telework.
IMHO it is the moderation that is killing this group, why not simply get rid
of moderation? Personally I loath moderated groups, I would rather put up
with the occasional spam that have to wait days for somebody to "approve" my
post and that of anybody who replies.
So a quick straw poll of the group - moderation : Yes or No?
Keith L
Simon Reed
>Simon Reed <uk...@sandj.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
<snip a load of rubbish about how to post. Written by me.>
>>
>Surely when one posts to the newsgroup the posting reaches you (the
>moderator) automatically doesn't it? All I (or others) need to do is
>to post to uk.business.telework.
How I wish I could pretend I did it on purpose to see if anyone was
lurking, but no. I was just wrong. Just after I sent it I realised my
mistake but then thought "That's OK - I'll just reject the posting when
I'm asked to moderate it, ha, ha! Nobody will ever know. Gosh, I'm
clever."
A few seconds later I get an email: "Because you are on the whitelist,
your posting to ukbt has been auto-approved...". <sigh>
Thank you for being gentle with me.
--
Simon Reed, ukbt<at>sandj.demon.co.uk or use the 'Reply-To' address.
Moderator for uk.business.telework
Now I can see another error in the charter.
Now then, where's that manual?
use...@isbd.co.uk
> In article <3l65nhF...@individual.net>, use...@isbd.co.uk writes
> >Simon Reed <uk...@sandj.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> <snip a load of rubbish about how to post. Written by me.>
> >>
> >Surely when one posts to the newsgroup the posting reaches you (the
> >moderator) automatically doesn't it? All I (or others) need to do is
> >to post to uk.business.telework.
>
> How I wish I could pretend I did it on purpose to see if anyone was
> lurking, but no. I was just wrong. Just after I sent it I realised my
> mistake but then thought "That's OK - I'll just reject the posting when
> I'm asked to moderate it, ha, ha! Nobody will ever know. Gosh, I'm
> clever."
>
> A few seconds later I get an email: "Because you are on the whitelist,
> your posting to ukbt has been auto-approved...". <sigh>
>
> Thank you for being gentle with me.
>
--
Chris Green
Tim Sharrock
>IMHO it is the moderation that is killing this group, why not simply get rid
>of moderation? Personally I loath moderated groups, I would rather put up
>with the occasional spam that have to wait days for somebody to "approve" my
>post and that of anybody who replies.
>
>So a quick straw poll of the group - moderation : Yes or No?
moderation that is largely automatic (eg white-lists broadly applied) would
probably not be too much of a problem, but waiting for a human response from
a single, or very small number of, moderator(s) does restrict the free flow
of conversation.
I do not subscribe to any other uk.business groups, so I don't know how big
the spam problem is. Perhaps some figures may help?
Tim
--
Tim Sharrock (t...@sharrock.org.uk)
Simon Reed
<tim-n...@sharrock.org.uk> writes
>
>I do not subscribe to any other uk.business groups, so I don't know how big
>the spam problem is. Perhaps some figures may help?
You'd need Simon Waters to answer this one but:
- a large proportion are blocked by his Demon account's Brightmail
mechanism (I think);
- some get blacklisted;
- I don't see any viruses; they are getting stopped somewhere in the
chain;
- I think Simon W. has being doing half the moderation;
- and that leaves about (guessing) 4 a day that I reject although
sometimes it's a couple an hour for a day or so.
Quite why other newsgroups are not swamped with spam I can't figure out.
There used to be spam-bots that auto-cancelled such things but I thought
they were all turned off a couple of years ago.
--
Simon Reed, ukbt<at>sandj.demon.co.uk or use the 'Reply-To' address.
Moderator for uk.business.telework
Waddya mean, there's no manual?
Keith Lawrence
> Quite why other newsgroups are not swamped with spam I
> can't figure out.
:-) My point exactly Simon - so the purpose of moderation is?
This group /should/ be alive and active, it isn't, I just don't feel that
the moderation system is helping this problem. You're solving a problem that
isn't there, I subscribe to several unmoderated groups and none of them have
serious spam problems.
This group survived a uk.net.news.config rm group by the skin of its teeth
the other month. I was one of the firm supporters FOR that rm group, I see
no point in having dead groups lying around. The only thing that changed my
mind was assurances and undertakings from the then moderator(s) that
"something would be done". It hasn't been.
Since then? NOTHING, this little exchange is the first traffic I've seen
since subscribing some months back, I can't remember when we last had on
on-topic discussion! If things carry on as they are Simon that rm group will
come back in a few months time, it will get a lot of support, on the current
level of traffic I will support it.
I just don't see what we have to loose, RFD to change the group status to
'unmoderated', see how it goes, if it doesn't work then RFD to change it
back again! We're not seeing an awful lot of support for moderation here,
most people seem to have voted with their feet anyway.
Regards
Keith L
[Yup - a teleworker, have been for many years, also been involved in setting
up systems to support teleworking]
Jonathan Allen
Absolutely, yes !
Jonathan
use...@isbd.co.uk
> "Simon Reed" <uk...@sandj.demon.co.uk> wrote...
>
> > Quite why other newsgroups are not swamped with spam I
> > can't figure out.
>
> :-) My point exactly Simon - so the purpose of moderation is?
>
> This group /should/ be alive and active, it isn't, I just don't feel that
> the moderation system is helping this problem. You're solving a problem that
> isn't there, I subscribe to several unmoderated groups and none of them have
> serious spam problems.
>
more spam than most. However I also suspect that nowadays filters are
more effective than they were when the group 'went moderated' so it
could well be that there will be less of a problem now.
--
Chris Green
Simon Waters
> In article <bndte1h8cgguavfcp...@4ax.com>, Tim Sharrock
> <tim-n...@sharrock.org.uk> writes
>
>>I do not subscribe to any other uk.business groups, so I don't know how big
>>the spam problem is. Perhaps some figures may help?
>
> You'd need Simon Waters to answer this one but:
I think it is worth considering working as the other newsgroups do.
There is a lot of spam sent to the group, but I think other groups deal
with it successfuly via cancel bots.
Also I think having a publicised email submission address invites spam.
> - a large proportion are blocked by his Demon account's Brightmail
> mechanism (I think);
Yes but there is still a lot left.
Brightmail is somewhat less effective that greylisting, and the sbl-xbl
blocklist in combination in my experience. Although presumably it will
stay more effective when the spammer finally see the need to defeat
greylisting.
> - some get blacklisted;
>
> - I don't see any viruses; they are getting stopped somewhere in the
> chain;
My MTA doesn't accept emails with Microsoft executable format
attachments. There is no need for email servers to send these around.
> Quite why other newsgroups are not swamped with spam I can't figure out.
> There used to be spam-bots that auto-cancelled such things but I thought
> they were all turned off a couple of years ago.
Not as far as I know, Andrew G, or Tim S, could probably tell you the
current state.
Stuart Millington
wrote:
>So a quick straw poll of the group - moderation : Yes or No?
Yes.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Stuart Millington ALL HTML e-mail rejected -
- mailto:ph...@dsv1.co.uk http://w3.z-add.co.uk/ -
Stuart Millington
<2005...@technocool.net> wrote:
>Simon Reed wrote:
>I think it is worth considering working as the other newsgroups do.
>There is a lot of spam sent to the group, but I think other groups deal
>with it successfuly via cancel bots.
I know what you mean, but it's past that stage now and
retro-moderation is not allowed within uk.*
>Also I think having a publicised email submission address invites spam.
So don't publicise it so well ;-) All correctly configured NNTP
servers will forward e-mail to the submission address "automagically"
- it's only the moderators "manual complaints" address that needs to
be generally/heavily "promoted".
>Brightmail is somewhat less effective that greylisting, and the sbl-xbl
>blocklist in combination in my experience. Although presumably it will
>stay more effective when the spammer finally see the need to defeat
>greylisting.
Whatever, the white-list/black-list should be unaffected. However,
neither you or the Simon Reed will have unlimited time to spend
moderating the group and a completely manual process seems like a step
backwards. Has anyone asked {R} (nicely! ;-) if his mod-bot can be
used?
>My MTA doesn't accept emails with Microsoft executable format
>attachments. There is no need for email servers to send these around.
Mine rejects all executable attachments, ZIP files, etc. However,
unless the mod-bot [1] is running on a separate server - or with a
separate config to the moderation's team's "normal" MTA - it could be
hard to allow separate rules.
NO attachments (or anything other than text/plain) should be accepted
to a NG.
>> Quite why other newsgroups are not swamped with spam I can't figure out.
>> There used to be spam-bots that auto-cancelled such things but I thought
>> they were all turned off a couple of years ago.
>Not as far as I know, Andrew G, or Tim S, could probably tell you the
>current state.
The "business" part of the name, as others have said, tends to attract
more than usual :-(
[1] Although I get the impression that there won't be a mod-bot for a
while :-(
Simon Waters
>
> Has anyone asked {R} (nicely! ;-) if his mod-bot can be
> used?
My understanding is that there is an open invitation from {R}, although
it has been open rather a long time.
But that decision is with the other Simon, I've stood down remember
(honest I have), just my computer that ploughs on regardless.
Stuart Millington
>In uk.business.telework on Wed, 3 Aug 2005 01:41:54 +0000, Stuart
>Millington <ne...@dsv1.co.uk> wrote:
>}backwards. Has anyone asked {R} (nicely! ;-) if his mod-bot can be
>}used?
>Of course you can use my mod bot if you want. It would take a bit of time
>to set up but no problem really. It works well.
I don't see manual moderation working in the long term and I know your
bot works. As a mere reader of this group, all I can say to you is:
thanks for the offer and to "the other Simon": please consider this -
RL has a way of making manual processes "problematic" at times :-(