Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!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: <155@carpet.WLK.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 88 04:26:20 GMT
References:  <2728@tolerant.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Distribution: na
Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr & Associates, Pipe Creek, TX
Lines: 47

In article <2728@tolerant.UUCP> jane@tolerant.UUCP (Jane Medefesser) writes:
>In article  lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) writes:

[ deleted what I'm not following up ]

>Well I'll vote YES for moderation - at the worst, it will cut down on a lot
>of inappropriate cross-posting (a la MES) that don't really belong here.
>I'll even further my vote to include moderation of news.sysadmin as well.

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.  Admittedly they are frequently the same
person, but often they are decidedly different.  The person who reminded me
added that the mistake I made was commonplace.  I don't disagree with Jane,
but I thought this would be a good time to remind us of what each group is
for.  That won't deter abuse, perhaps moderation will, but those who don't
abuse don't need moderation and those who need moderation will attempt to
abuse.

>For the people who want to continue to flame or cross-post to news.admin,
>perhaps we can create a new group, a subgroup of news.admin called
>news.admin.bullshit or news.admin.whocares....

At the risk of sounding pedantic, I'd like to suggest that we get less
territorial about these groups.  I tried defending news.admin for news
administrators from time to time and it was futile at best.  The MES and
Webber wars wax and wane, but they appear as suddenly and vanish as happily
as the "annual cold".  I've never read anything so important in news.admin
(or .sysadmin for that matter) that couldn't wait for a moderator's
imprimatur, but by and large the useless volume is generated by people like
me who get territorial about "just who in the hell are you to intude on my
namespace?!?"  I think we could moderate it ourselves by making these groups
a less fun place to play, i.e. just `n' a lot and `F' (having just done so
myself) a lot less.  If it's no fun to play, the players will move to more
entertaining haunts.  We control these groups if we want to, how many flame
wars have you seen in (if you read it) comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt?  It's entirely
up to us.  If we react we make it fun and those not amused want to puke.
If we ignore, it's not fun and we can get back to the dreary business of
news administration.

I wasn't picking on Jane,  I used to be a news reader at her site and she
works hard to make it go.  I don't agree, however, with her suggestion that
we give "intruders" (my word and quotes) some other place to go.  Make it
dull, they'll find their own place.
-- 
Bill Kennedy  Internet:  bill@ssbn.WLK.COM
                Usenet:  { killer | att | rutgers | uunet!bigtex }!ssbn!bill