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From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: The responsibilities of volunteers
Message-ID: <1532@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 7 Dec 90 19:05:13 GMT
References: <1990Nov27.075737.16836@vicom.com> <10820@rayssd.ssd.ray.com> <1990Nov28.214659.26551@looking.on.ca> <2756A27D.5D54@tct.uucp> <1842@utodaycom>
Reply-To: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Intuitive Systems, Mountain View, CA: +1 (415) 966-1151
Lines: 48

Sean Fulton writes:

> Let me get this straight: The Rich Salz bashers are a couple of
> students at Yale; the Rich Salz defenders are mostly professionals
> who take time away from making money to contribute to Usenet.

Well, Sean, I wouldn't be too fast off the gun here.  I'm an ersatz 
professional, have been involved with Usenet and Unix for quite a few 
years, even moderate a group or two (comp.society and ba.announce)
and I personally believe that Rich has been slipping up on his job
to the point where it would be most appropriate at this juncture for 
him to propose a viable alternative approach to moderating the 
comp.sources.unix group.

Further, Rich and I have been friends for years too, and I know that
as an individual he is of, what's the phrase?, the highest moral and
ethical fiber.  :-)  He's a good guy, and like Muddy Waters might say,
he's just got one hell of a job on the side...

The point here isn't whether or not Rich is a nice person, or whether 
or not moderators should be allowed to do whatever the heck they want,
but whether or not the needs of the Usenet community are being met.
I think that with the current poor turnaround time on source code
being submitted to Rich, coupled with the highly sporadic nature of
the articles themselves, the needs of the community are not being met.  

A caveat; I don't believe that any volunteer, on the side, is going to
be able to find sufficient time to properly moderate the group, including
testing out all software before release (as Rich does currently).  I am
much more in favor of a team moderation effort, where the rather 
incredible workload of the job is distributed among a team of people,
each expert in a specific field/genre of software...

Of course, I'd also vote in favor of the Usenix Association paying for
a qualified person to do this job part/full time (though if someone 
could devote 10-20 hours a week, I'm sure things would be much more on
track than they are now).  

Heck, some of the best software I have on my computer, some of the most
common packages (including rn, netnews, and elm) have gotten to my 
machine via the comp.sources.unix channel.  It's a GREAT idea, an
excellent distribution mechanism, and it's fun too.  It just isn't 
working...
						-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California

taylor@limbo.intuitive.com    or   {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor