Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pacbell!att!alberta!teletron!andrew
From: andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Unbiased moderator volunteers (Re: The death of USENET was ( Re: Moderated USENET (was Re: The death of USENET)))
Message-ID: <379@teletron.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jun 88 16:07:35 GMT
References: <2805@rpp386.UUCP> <28.UUL1.3#935@aocgl.UUCP> <4542@gryphon.CTS.COM> <659@scovert.sco.COM>
Organization: TeleTronic Communications Ltd., Edmonton, Alta.
Lines: 98

In article <659@scovert.sco.COM>, davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) writes:
>
> But seriously folks...The consequences of moderating the net will be these:
> Fewer new topics of discussion, the possiblity of never having a new topic
> show up (i.e. Prince in the rec.music.rock example), and the extreme overload
> of the moderator.  Not to mention the EXTREME added cost in terms of connect
> time and phone costs for the moderator.

The most important consequence would still be that the overall net bandwidth
requirements would be sharply reduced, which I hope most everybody agrees would
be a "good thing".  Brian Reid posted some numbers a while ago that indicated
that the net had grown from 80 Meg a month to 130 Meg a month since last
October.  The net simply cannot continue to grow at this pace.

The overloaded moderator argument could be solved by having multiple moderators,
perhaps by a regional basis.  Alternatively, a person might moderate for a
month at a time before turning over to another "moderator of the month".
Neither of these solutions would be practical with the current news software
system, but they could be implemented for a "MODNET".

>Moderating newsgroups works best for groups with a specific agenda, a moderator
> with the time to moderate, or a group that goes outside of the network.
> It works worst for groups with HIGH volume, high emotional content (such as
> talk.politics or news.groups) or high amounts of crossposting.
> Universally applied it won't work at all.

I think that USENET would be have an entirely different character if it was
completely moderated.  It seems to me that a lot of mindless posting goes on
in many of the high volume newsgroups, postings that might not be made in the
first place if the groups were known to be moderated.  For an example, let's
compare rec.humor and rec.humor.funny, since they represent what moderation
does to a newsgroup.  Many people in rec.humor post jokes that have been
heard before, prolonged "run-on" puns that cease to be funny, and flames at
people for screwing up the punchline.  Postings in rec.humor.funny are (for
the most part) intelligent and original.  You get the idea.

Take a look at many of the other high volume newsgroups.  The same kind of
things go on.  For example, in rec.arts.startrek or comp.lang.c, we get a
zillion answers whenever a neophyte asks a simple question.  A moderator
could post a monthly introductory posting of commonly asked questions - this
alone would be a huge improvement.

Another pro-moderation argument typically heard is the "low signal-noise
ratio" argument.  I wholeheartedly agree.  However, noise is too polite a
word for some of the crap I've seen in recent months.  The net used to be
a very civil place.  It's very discouraging to see it disintegrate into a
cesspool of flame-throwing and abuse.  I've seen more rude postings in the
last few weeks than I care to count.  I most definitely believe that these
kind of postings would not have even been composed if USENET were moderated.
It seems as though on USENET it is permissible to be rude in a public place.
I can't understand how this attitude manifested itself, but it is clearly
to the detriment of the net.

> Who wants to moderate talk.bizarre?

Hopefully, the moderated USENET would have no need for a talk.bizarre in its
current form.  A moderated t.b could be just as fun and amusing, but without
the bandwidth.  I know the bizarroids will flame me for that comment, but I
think it's time we decided what USENET is and what it should be.  One thing I
think it should *not* be is a global BBS.  That means that we should get rid of
"frivolous" newsgroups, or at least replace them with moderated equivalents.

I'm also in the "binaries must go" camp.  I think that *all* sources and
binaries newsgroups (including comp.sources.unix) should be replaced by
a comp.sources.announce type newsgroup, where announcements of new source
releases could be made, including instructions on how to get them from an
archive server. (perhaps uunet?)

You may get the impression that I'm a hard-core technodweeb who only wants
the technical comp.* groups and wants to see the rec, soc and talk groups
vanish.  Not so.  I do think that many of the recreational groups would be
far more enjoyable if they were moderated.  I know I would subscribe to
more of them if I knew I wouldn't have 70 unread postings awaiting me every
morning, most of them throw-away.

In fact, I'd like to moderate a rec group myself, if we did go 100% moderated.
I'd like to do rec.sport.hockey.

I really think that 100% moderated USENET is a way to solve many of our
current problems:

	1) much reduced bandwidth.  This means that transmission charges
	   will be less, disk requirements will reduce, and readers will
	   be able to get a lot more out of USENET than they do now.

	2) flames and abusive postings would be disallowed.  They belong
	   (and always have) in private mail, not in a public forum.

	3) no more JJ type postings (and the resultant waste of bandwidth
	   in beating the subject to death)

I've said a lot, but I'm concerned at what USENET is degenerating into and I
want to see it live a more healthy life.

Comments?
-- 
Andrew Scott		andrew@teletron.uucp    - or -
			{codas, ubc-cs, watmath, ..}!alberta!teletron!andrew