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