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From: bytebug@pertec.UUCP (roger long)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: mod.all and net.fascism
Message-ID: <255@pertec.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Nov-84 13:13:24 EST
Article-I.D.: pertec.255
Posted: Sun Nov  4 13:13:24 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Nov-84 04:15:11 EST
Organization: Pertec Computer Corp., Irvine, CA
Lines: 63

As I have been occupied with other things recently, I discovered this
morning that I had a month's bickering to catch up with in this
newsgroup.

I can't really say I support the recent creation of most of the
moderated newsgroups.  The only ones I do support are those such as
mod.news.map and mod.sources, especially because of the problems with
discussions and requests for source to net.sources.  I would also
support getting rid of net.news.map and net.sources because I don't see
a need for both the net and mod flavors.

However, mod.singles and mod.motss?  I agree that net.singles and
net.motss are two of the most active newsgroups, and often find myself
using the "n" key alot.  However, I don't think splitting off moderated
groups is the answer, as it only adds to the storage and transmission
costs of the net.  I'd rather see the problem solved via new software,
since it seems to me that the real problem is not being able to
effectively filter out the noise.  If there are a bunch of people who
are seen to be the cause of most of the noise, perhaps there should be
a way to filter out submissions from those people BY THE NEWS-READER
SOFTWARE.  If I don't like to listen to the ravings of Fred, then I add
his net address to a file, and his ravings are silently filtered by my
news-reader.  Other people who agree with what Fred is saying can
continue to listen to him.

I think the real answer is by making the news-reader software powerful
enough to deal effectively with the large amount of information that we
all have to deal with.  One thing that this all has prompted me to
finally do is spend the time and install "rn" to see if that is an
effective answer to some of the problems.

Other random things that I'd like to respond to:

> From: ucla-cs!booth
> Message-ID: <1792@ucla-cs.ARPA>
> 
> Someone privately mentioned the need for anonymous postings to newsgroups.

Does anyone really agree that people have the right to post anonymously
to the net?

> From: vortex!lauren
> Message-ID: <429@vortex.UUCP>
> 
> The whole point of moderated groups is (as far as I am concerned)
> to cut down on repetition (such as 500 people answering the same
> question) and to insure a more valuable level of information
> content.  People, if we continue on our current course, we'll shortly
> find major sites dropping out of the netnews business, and setting
> up separate groups to distribute the repetitous answers and obviously
> meaningless drivel isn't going to help at all.

Here again, I'd like to see us handle this with a software solution.
Perhaps we can come up with a way to mark a message so that you are
unable to "f"ollow-up on it.  Hitting "f" should still produce a
mail response.  Perhaps by putting a net-address in the "Followup-To:"
header?  Yes, people could get around that by posting a response, but
I would hope that we could cut out a lot of the meaningless drivel
this way.
-- 
	roger long
	pertec computer corp
	{ucbvax!unisoft | scgvaxd | trwrb | felix}!pertec!bytebug