Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!texbell!ssbn!carpet!bill From: bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Call for Discussion: Moderation of news.admin Message-ID: <159@carpet.WLK.COM> Date: 25 Sep 88 01:25:42 GMT Article-I.D.: carpet.159 References:<2728@tolerant.UUCP> <155@carpet.WLK.COM> <54460RWC102@PSUVM> Reply-To: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Distribution: na Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr & Associates, Pipe Creek, TX Lines: 53 >In article <155@carpet.WLK.COM> I wrote: >> >>When I cross-posted to news.admin and news.sysadmin one time I was politely >>informed that news.admin was for news administrators and that news.sysadmin >>was news for system administrators. In article <54460RWC102@PSUVM> RWC102@PSUVM (R. W. F. Clark) writes: >To state that news.admin and news.sysadmin are reserved _for_ >administrators is not technically correct. Both groups are >reserved for comments directed _to_ the respective sort of >admins. I didn't mean to suggest anything about "reserved" unless that means "most appropriate to". I doubt that anyone over in comp.fonts cares much about why articles vanish without being expired. But I did mean to point out that it was a place for discussion among the administrators. I disagree that it's a place you address things _to_ administrators unless it's of general use and interest to all or most of them. >I might be convinced to vote for moderation of news.admin, >were someone to collect votes and agree upon a reasonable >method of tallying opinion, and to present an adequate _reason_ >that moderation is necessary. Me too, but the sort of person with the savvy to moderate a rather narrow technical group would not be likely to want to screen out some of the stuff that has appeared here lately. I coordinate a rather large mailing list. The people on the mailing list think and say it's "moderated" but I don't agree with them. They moderate themselves. I think I might have returned one, maybe two, contributions in two years. They don't want a lot of air, so they don't generate much. I acknowledge the *significant* difference between a newsgroup and a mailing list, but I suggest that the analogy is still valid. The audience should control the tone and tenor of the discussion. [ voting opinion deleted ] >as a valid means of determining the need for moderation of a group. I think that far more important than any voting results would be the selection/appointment of a moderator. I would want that individual to be a news administrator at a site with every conceivable kind of news administration problem (which means we wouldn't get one). My mailing list has a mechanism for handling contributions that cover well trodden ground, I don't know how you do that in a newsgroup. The moderated groups I read seem to be pretty fast moving and there isn't much "trodden ground". Accordingly, I'll go back to an earlier suggestion. Let's make news.admin a place for discussing news administration and discourage (I'm guilty, twice in a single day) discussions that don't have anything to do with news administration. -- Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM Usenet: { killer | att | rutgers | uunet!bigtex }!ssbn!bill