Xref: utzoo news.admin:11487 comp.sources.d:6132
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: The responsibilities of volunteers
Message-ID: <1990Dec10.073955.28681@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 90 07:39:55 GMT
References: <27662@cs.yale.edu> <8195@uwm.edu> <1990Dec9.231719.11572@athena.mit.edu> <1990Dec10.055351.13221@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 168

In article <1990Dec10.055351.13221@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
|> I can't imagine what, outside of kindergarden level innumeracy, could
|> have prompted you to choose the term "purports"; either you understand
|> the calculation, or you do not.  I'm pretty sure my twelve year old
|> daughter could walk you through it, if it gave you that much trouble.

  My apologies for the word choice, which, now that I've looked up the word
"purport" in my dictionary didn't quite convey the idea that I meant to
convey.  I should have said "alleges," not "purports" -- the idea I meant to
convey was that I was reserving judgment one way or the other.

  In any case, the insults with which your article is riddled can do nothing
but increase the flamage without producing any significant discussion; so why
do you insist on including them in your response?  I may have criticized what
John Dobnick wrote in my response to his message, but as far as I recall, I
didn't criticize *him*; you, on the other hand, appear to take great pains to
find opportunities to insult me in your message.

  Oh, wait, I forgot, you're one of the elite who are not considered
"newbies," so you're allowed to insult anyone you want, hmm?

  Getting back to the subject at hand, I did have some doubt about Dobnick's
calculations, mainly because I don't think he took into account the fact that
there's a huge block of sources right in the earliest part of the
comp.sources.unix archives that were *not* posted while Rich was moderator. 
Although I'm not certain that Dobnick counted those in his calculations, I
believe that he did; hence, the validity of the statistics were questionable
in my mind; hence the use of the word "purports."

|> Well, my site's undergone a hardware upgrade this year, but the last
|> article count I saw for comp.sources.unix was 501, so at least that many
|> postings have hit the group. That doesn't at all look to me like the
|> signs of an idle moderator.  And, strangely enough, there's an article
|> currently online in the group for each day of this site's expire time.
|> Looks like he's just been _pouring_ sources out, to me.

  Oh, this is just grand.  "There have been 501 postings in the newsgroup over
the past n years, which means that the moderator must not be idle."  This is
exactly the logic to which I objected when Dobnick posted it, and I'm going to
object to it in your posting.  One more time -- a lifetime average does not
imply anything about the CURRENT status of the newsgroup.

  As for recent activity in the newsgroup, it would be completely ludicrous to
claim that one week of activity in the newsgroup belies all claims that there
have been any recent idle blocks in the newsgroup at all.

  It is entirely possible that Rich has been reading the discussion in this
newsgroup, and has posted sources recently because of that discussion.  It is
entirely possible that the activity of the past week will taper out as it has
many times in the past, and that we will then see several months with no
activity at all, despite many items waiting to be posted.  Your assertiong
that "this week has been active" does nothing whatsoever to belie the claim
that the TREND has been toward more idle gaps and less activity.

|> > Your analysis completely ignores the most important issues being
|> > discussed here.
|> 
|> Unfortunately, that judgement of "importance" is not widely shared.

  That is not clear to me.  The fact that you do not agree with it is no
indication that it "is not widely shared;" it is just an indication that you
do not agree with it.  I have seen quite a few other postings from other
people expressing ideas similar to what I have expressed in my postings; those
postings give *me* the impression that I am not alone in my "judgement [sic]
of `importance'."  I'm sorry if you don't agree.

|> As was noted by another poster in response to the article with the graph,
|> what we see is that the group's output has _always_ been bunchy.  All we
|> have now is a bunch of newbies who just noticed the fact and are trying to
|> pretend they've discovered heliocentrism, or something.

  And as was noted by me in at least two other postings, if the number of
submissions goes up and the gaps remain consistent (or, worse, get longer),
then the gaps are effectively LARGER because the gap for each individual
package is larger.

  Once more, we see the "newbies" argument -- people who haven't been around
the net forever don't know anything and don't have the right to speak about
anything.  Give me a break, Kent, it just doesn't wash.

  As I noted in response to the article to which you refer above, if the
output has already been bunchy, then perhapse we've ALWAYS had the problem!  I
believe someone else pointed out near the start of the discussion that there
were complaints about the irregularity in c.s.u postings as much as TWO YEARS
AGO.  The argument, "That's how it's always been, so it can't be wrong,"
doesn't wash either.

|> Impatient authors have and have always had a multitude of alternate
|> publication paths. Some have used them. My site was using trn off an ftp
|> site before it came out in c.s.u. It is a fair assumption that authors
|> who wait patiently for their software to be posted do so because they
|> are willing to trade time for the imprimateur of quality Rich's
|> excellent moderation gives the software published through c.s.u.

  To be frank, for my software at least, I don't give a damn about "the
imprimateur of quality of Rich's excellent moderation."  Until the start of
this discussion, I had no idea at all that people considered that "imprimateur
of quality" to be such an important aspect of the group.  I posted my sources
to comp.sources.unix because the name of the group, and the description of it
in the list of newsgroups, and the other software that I saw posted to it,
implied to me that c.s.u was the right place for my sources.

  I post to c.s.u because that's the most appropriate place for my sources to
go; with or without Rich's "imprimateur," that's where my sources should be.

  Incidentally, Rich's moderation has never made one useful change to the
sources I've posted to c.s.u; as I described in my first posting in this
discussion, the only changes he did make were made without consulting to me,
were wrong, and caused me a lot of grief.  I'm afraid I just can't see how
that fits in with the high standard of quality which so many people attribute
to Rich.  I agree that for what he posts, he does a good job.  But I don't
think his job is so sterling that no one in the world can match it, and I
don't think that he never makes mistakes, and I don't think that authors who
post to c.s.u do so exclusively because they value Rich's expert opinion.

|> Since the main value of the group is its reputation, and that depends
|> entirely on the diligence and probity of the moderator, proposals to go
|> to a multi-moderator system or to replace the moderator are quite beside
|> the point. I can think of perhaps three other people on the net I'd
|> trust with the job, and none of them have stepped forward to offer
|> assistance.

  First of all, as I just discussed above, it is not at all alear to me that
"the main value of the group is its reputation."  Perhaps, to some people that
is the main value of the group.  But I don't think that's true for all people.

  Second, your opinion does not law make.  Just because you would only accept
three other people on the net for the job, does not mean that there are only
three other people on the net who are capable of doing the job.  Oh, wait, I
forgot, you're one of the non-newbie elite, so your opinion is fact, hmm?

|> Bingo!  We have a scarce and irreplaceable resource, and aside from the
|> false to fact character assassination postings here, he is also being
|> abused by overuse.  Are there really that many people on the net who
|> write software _worth_ the quality of review that sees it published in
|> comp.sources.unix?

  Oh, I see!  The reason all of his delays are OK is because the sources that
are being sent to him shouldn't even BE in comp.sources.unix!  Yes, sir,
that's a great argument, let me tell you!

|> > Third, as I have pointed out in another message, it is ludicrous to
|> > try to claim two packages are posted to c.s.u per week, when six of
|> > the last twelve months have seen *no packages at all* posted to the
|> > newsgroup, or at least, not according to what's in the archives on
|> > uunet.uu.net.
|> 
|> You slept through your statistics classes, or you took a pass when
|> common sense was handed out? That is the biggest set of logical
|> contradictions yet posted in this pile of newbie nattering. If there are
|> sixteen packages posted every other month, or eight per month, the
|> average is the same.

  Do you see the word "average" anywhere in the paragraph which you have
quoted above.  As I have said, over and over again, what we're discussing NOW
is what's happening NOW, not what was happening three or four years ago!  An
average of two packages per week over the last four years (a statistic which,
as I've pointed out, I question, but that's beside the point) does NOT prove a
current rate of two packages per week!  And, as I pointed out in the paragraph
which you quote, the six empty months in the last twelve would seem to imply
that the current rate is NOT two packages per week!  Is this such a difficult
distinction to understand?

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8085			      Home: 617-782-0710