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From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms,news.groups
Subject: Re: Binaries in comp.windows.ms
Message-ID: <2380@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 2 Aug 90 14:04:01 GMT
References: <58356@lanl.gov> <1990Jul27.225601.17914@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <1990Jul28.011900.24190@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <1990Jul28.044401.7591@world.std.com> <58454@lanl.gov>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Followup-To: comp.windows.ms
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 60

In article <58454@lanl.gov> u803535@beta.UUCP (Wayne A. Vieira) writes:

| >>However, there's a catch:  somebody needs to be a moderator.  I will not
| >>volunteer; I already do comp.binaries.os2, and I don't want to double my
| >>unpaid workload.  :)
| >
| >Could you describe for us the work that is involved in being a moderator?
| >Are the binaries groups required to be moderated?  I certainly value
| >the work that's done by the moderators, but don't necessarily have time
| >to do it myself.  Can it work as a shared responsibility?

  I guess it could, if you had very dedicated people. I find that it's
hard to get people to do reviews, even after they offer, and only about
30% of what I get is (a) in the correct format, and (b) has a
description of what it is and does.
| >
| Knowing nothing about the tasks of a moderator, I would be very interested
| in this too.  If it is technically within reach of me (I do not have
| sys-admin or root on the machines I read from)  I would be very interested
| in helping out.

  Let me give you a typical case example: the submission comes in, out
of order. You use the "put in order" tool, then save the parts, use the
"strip the garbage tool" to find the encoded binary, then convert to a
binary file, and (sometimes) a useful explanation of the program and
useful return address for the submitter. You may need to read all the
documentation and run the program to determine what it does, then use
the "write a review" tool. In many cases the tool is a heavy duty
editor.

  You unpack the archive, which is in any archive format you ever heard
of, then virus check it with several programs. Then you review it
(usually) or farm it out for review. Then you repack it into the
standard archive type, encode it, break it into pieces, add the
explanation to the 1st part, headers to every part, then submit it.

  This assumes that you don't get something as a self unpacking
archive, in which case you need to unpack on a machine which can be low
level formatted if you are hit with a virus.

  After you develop the right tools for doing all this, you should be
able to do most submissions in an hour.

| Yes, my thanks too.  I have been very frustrated (if you haven't been able
| to tell from the "flame-like" posts) that EVERY effort to start
| a comp.binaries.windows.ms has been shot down with suggestions that
| "we don't need one" or "there wouldn't be enough activity".  Then
| later on, I listen (watch) people complain about the binaries appearing here.
| They may not really belong here, but they don't belong in comp.binaries.
| ibm.pc either!

  What kind of volume are you talking about here? Are there ten
programs a day or five a month? If you generate even five programs a
week you may need a group, if it's less than that maybe just a reviewer
for c.b.i.p. Would the volume be as high if a moderator had dropped
dups, etc?

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me