Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site munnari.OZ Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!munnari!kre From: kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz) Newsgroups: net.news.b Subject: Re: Problem with mod groups: cross-posting doesn't work. Message-ID: <994@munnari.OZ> Date: Sun, 27-Oct-85 09:41:07 EST Article-I.D.: munnari.994 Posted: Sun Oct 27 09:41:07 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 29-Oct-85 01:20:43 EST References: <209@l5.uucp> <987@munnari.OZ> <218@l5.uucp> Organization: Comp Sci, Melbourne Uni, Australia Lines: 64 In article <218@l5.uucp>, gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: > [Note: I'm John Gil*more* and I'm l5!gnu. I don't work at Sun.] Sorry about the name mixup - that's one of the things that happens when you try and avoid including text from previous postings, & rely on quoting from memory (especially true when its my memory in question!) > I guess if it all works out in the end I'm satisfied. The things I > am complaining about are: > > 1. It didn't do the expected thing. Maybe not what you expected, its exactly what I would expect, earlier news versions did unusual things with such cross postings. > 2. I don't want a moderator censoring my postings to an unmoderated group. It seems to me that moderators very rarely "censor" anything. They may occasionally reject articles (in which case you just post it), but I would have expected to have heard from people if moderators started making inappropriate editing changes. (Correcting spelling and such, if any moderator actually goes to that trouble, I wouldn't expect would bother anyone) > 3. I don't want the extra delay in my postings to an unmoderated group. It sounds as if you what you want is to post your article twice, how can you conceivably have one posting that both has a delay, and doesn't? > 4. I haven't seen any evidence that moderators can cooperate in > approving a cross-posting. Does it work technically? Do they do it? I don't know that it has ever happened, but it certainly could. > > I don't object to mod groups -- they have their place -- but if the net > really wants to use them (rather than "if a few net admins really want > us to use them") then they ought to work -- and work as well as what they're > claimed to replace. I suspect that in this last sentence you really mean "and work the same as ..". Moderated groups aren't the same as net groups. For some (most) purposes they are a LOT better, but they do have some disadvantages (even leaving aside the workload on the moderator). Where a group really is moderated, I much prefer to read it than unmoderated groups, I know that the "thousand answers" problem is going to be weeded out, as are most of the perennial questions from naive users. Of course, where the moderated group is just an automatic mailing list (mail in, & its redistributed) we get the disadvantages with none of the advantages. Another aspect of all this is that cross postings are way overused (abused). If any article that you are posting belongs in one group then it almost certainly DOES NOT belong in any others. Exceptions exist where an article doesn't really belong one place, and you are trying to find a suitable home for a topic (testing out readers of several groups to see which set are most interested in a discussion). Announcements sometimes might qualify too. Remember that readers who unsubscribe to a newsgroup do so because they don't want to see articles on a topic, you shouldn't force them to see something by posting in some other group. If you think that readers of some group realy might be interested in something that belongs in another group, then don't cross-post, post a pointer article instead (and note, I'm not suggesting this because I care about "notes" sites, I don't, but because I care about being forced to look at things cross posted to a group that I read when it was also posted to (and belonged in) another group). Robert Elz seismo!munnari!kre kre%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov