Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 5/22/85; site cbosgd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!cbosgd!mark From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group Subject: Re: Newsgroup creations and deletions Message-ID: <1390@cbosgd.UUCP> Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 14:30:44 EDT Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1390 Posted: Sun Aug 11 14:30:44 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Aug-85 00:02:05 EDT References: <3091@nsc.UUCP> <494@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <3107@nsc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh Lines: 27 Xref: linus net.news:3001 net.news.group:2776 It is true that, up until now, new moderated groups were created by a relatively small group of people (namely, the people who have volunteered to put time into making moderated groups work.) This is necessary with a prototype effort; can you imagine a startup company with 30,000 stockholders having to ask permission of the stockholders every time they did something? They would never get anything done. (Note that the removal of net.general, which has been postponed until such time as the net wants it, was never in the hands of even this group.) It appears now that moderated groups work well, at least for many cases. So I propose that we now change the mechanism for changes to moderated groups (creation, change, deletion) to be the same as for unmoderated groups, that is, publicly discussed in net.news.group. (There is some argument for doing this in a moderated group, to avoid the "I vote yes" messages being posted, but there are problems with this; fast discussion and paranoia about censorship are two.) Note that to have a moderated group, you have to have a moderator. So the decision to make the group can't take place until someone volunteers to be moderator. This moderator may eventually have to agree to observe some sort of standards in the group - these standards are not defined currently, but to get the group broadcast on StarGate, for example, s/he may have to promise not to let certain kinds of material through. Mark Horton