Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!umd5!virginia!kesmai!dca
From: dca@kesmai.COM (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,news.admin
Subject: Re: Getting serious about moderation
Message-ID: <131@kesmai.COM>
Date: Wed, 17-Jun-87 13:09:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: kesmai.131
Posted: Wed Jun 17 13:09:43 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 01:10:14 EDT
References: <687@desint.UUCP>
Organization: Kesmai Corporation, Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 42
Summary: Passwords
Xref: mnetor comp.sources.d:869 news.admin:557

In article <687@desint.UUCP>, geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
> I just finished skipping over the fourth or fifth comp.soources.misc
> posting from someone who thought their judgement justified posting a
> childish opinion in a group that was supposed to be for sources.  So much
> for automatic archiving systems.
> 
Any form of password scheme is unlikely to work because the user has
access to the received news files and can simply extract it.  Only
if the posting programs prevent him from entering the appropriate line
would you have marginal success.

I think probably a better idea is to have a list of valid moderators
somewhere and their base machines.  Check the transmission route of
submissions on moderated groups and block those that aren't originating
from the right machine.  Not foolproof, but it would be closer to
doing the job with a minimum disturbance in the force.

There is validity on both sides of this net.sources vs. comp.sources
argument but despite the tendency for the adolescent to resort to
anarchy I think that this will hardly be constructive in the long run.
This net is based on cooperation and arousing antagonism will only
cause more restrictive administration.

I think that getting rid of net.sources was a bad idea.  The dependence
on a single moderator who can get sick, not have time, be switching jobs,
be too picky about what goes where, makes sources throughput a major problem.
It would have been much better to upgrade the posting programs to make it
more difficult to post non-sources to net.sources.  They ('vnews...')
could disallow followups to sources groups and postnews could ask 20
questions when posting to sources groups:

   'Is this source code?'  (If not yes give the usual this group is for
			    sources only use .d for discussion ...)
   'What language?'
   'What machines does it run on?'
   'OS?'
   'You get the idea'

And maybe even get some useful information in the process.
My two cents worth.

David Albrecht