Author: Todd Durham
Date: 11:17:59 03/26/99
Go up one level in this thread
On March 26, 1999 at 13:40:04, Dann Corbit wrote: First, thank you for your reply, and second, thanks for the advice about TSCP and Phalanx you gave G. W. Smith. I'm going to take that piece of advice and put it to use in a month or two. >Moderated newsgroups are a huge workload for someone. Ask the moderators of >this group, and I am sure they will tell you. On Usenet, it is even harder, >because the posts back up and don't get posted until approved. Would it be possible to run one more like CCC is run? I saw last night that Charles Unruh made a post that was killed by this morning. Is it not at all possible to do such things on a usenet group? (I mean deleting a post after it goes out instead of before so that posts don't have to be read by a moderator before hand?) And I also still have my original questions, if someeone can answer them: 1) How would one go about doing this? 2) Who would be the moderators? How would they be choosen? 3) Would there be any cost? 4) Who would the moderators be responsible to? (This is an important one!) 5) Are we just going to talk about it, or are we going to do something about it? >It also prevents >them from being delivered to any crossposted newsgroups when a moderated group >is included until it has been approved. This might be a good thing! It could act as a fire wall to slow the spread of the flames! >Also, moderated newsgroups have a tendency to be dry and boring. I suppose that >is better than the quagmire things have arrived at, but I don't really see any >good solutions. Ideally, I would see the moderators acting with a light hand. If a thread wanders a little off into left field, that's fine, people can ignore these as they wish. Even some arguing should be allowed, I think, as sometimes people do disagree strongly and honestly on an issue. (For example, the threads here concerning whether or not Odell Hall should have given the handle of the person he caught cheating.) Some arguement is fine. Good, in fact! What I think a moderator's job in such a situation SHOULD be would be to send off email to the parties concerned and just ask them to tone done any personal stuff if it got out of hand. In the case cited above, the people in question handled this matter on their own (at least, I didn't see any public action by outside parties) and handled it well, last I checked. I believe this would work well most of the time, as most people ARE reasonable, and only need to be occassionally reminded to mind their manners. (My wife performs this function for me!) The biggest function a moderator would perform would be to handle the people whose only purpose in life is to make the lives of others miserable, and wildly off-topic stuff. (e.g. Starting a discussion on whether or not NATO should pursue its policy in Kosovo would be too far afield, but perhaps asking which player one thinks is the most aggresive player ever might not be. At least it's about chess.) Also, it should be made quite clear what the policies are before hand, so no one later says, "I didn't know I couldn't say ____." Finally (at last!), I don't think a moderated group HAS to be dry. It's just a question of who the moderators are and what policies are to be enforced. Todd PS I apologize for any missing or extra t's. Getting a new keyboard is my top priority this weekend!
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