Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!cs!ptownson From: ptownson@cs.bu.edu (Patrick Townson) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: The Moderator Who Doesn't Give A Shit Message-ID: <74540@bu.edu.bu.edu> Date: 12 Feb 91 07:32:21 GMT References: <74436@bu.edu.bu.edu> <1991Feb11.185846.20778@lavaca.uh.edu> Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu Reply-To: ptownson@cs.UUCP (Patrick Townson) Organization: Computer Science Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA Lines: 173 In article <1991Feb11.185846.20778@lavaca.uh.edu> jet@karazm.math.uh. edu ("J. Eric Townsend") writes: >This has about as much to do with EFF as anything else in this goofy >thread. One of my biggest concerns related to the global village is that >people with biased interests will take over various channels of >communication while constantly claiming how "fair" they are to >the other side. Imagine the uproar if talk.abortion was moderated >by an anti-abortion activist. Or if comp.unix.aix was moderated >by an IBM employee. You miss the point entirely. The name of the publication is TELECOM Digest and/or comp.dcom.telecom --- NOT, repeat NOT 'comp.dcom.telecom.caller.id' .... the newsgroup is not intrinsically a caller id discussion area. A better example from you might have been 'what if a group devoted to discussions about computers and their role in society was moderated by an IBM employee. I would say what is wrong with that? Anyway, why do you feel a person who personally opposes abortion will automatically be unfair to those who favor freedom of choice? Why do you imply that a person who favors abortion would be any more or less fair to someone who did not? You are telling me a lot about your experience in newsgroup moderation and your experience as a participant in discussions here. Holding a viewpoint automatically makes one unfair to the other side, eh? The 'uproar' that would result from the unlikely combination you suggest is because of the nature of Usenet itself. Usenet would not exist if there were not `uproars' going on all the time. With apologies to George Bernard Shaw and Rex Harrison and the other fine performers in Pygmalion (aka "My Fair Lady") : Usenet and flamage! Usenet and flamage! Go together like a horse and carriage ... Ask the local gentry; and he'll tell you its elementary. Why do you think my predecessor moderator in telecom pulled the Digest out of Usenet for over a year back in 1986-87? Jon Solomon said he could not handle the hassle he was getting from some of the fools. When I took over, I reconnected the gateway ... was that a bad thing to do? The sub-group (actually now growing to the point it is a group in its own right) discussing issues of privacy in telecommunications and caller id goes completely untouched in any way by me except that I promote it and tell people how to find it. Not only do we have caller id messages in telecom , we have a whole supplementary mailing list and alt group devoted to it! What more can I do for you? >In article <74436@bu.edu.bu.edu> this newsgroup only - Not to me personally writes: [Townson, not Townsend, writes] >>Where is it written that this net is to parrot the liberal nonsense >>spouted by several of you? >Hoist by his own petard! I was feeling sorry for you, Patrick, up >until this. I thought you were going to actually defend yourself >in a relatively unbiased manner by showing how you honestly try >and keep your own politics out of your postings. Oh well. I never have said I 'try to keep my politics out of my postings.' Where did I ever say that? I said I honestly admit to my personal opinions. >In other words, you've got a "bully pulpit", and you'll use it to >further your own ends as much as possible; Of course, why shouldn't I? Actually 'my ends' are the dissemination of as much information as possible about the workings of the telephone network. But yes, I express my opinions also. >but you'll also do the "opposing viewpoint" the great favor of >editing *their* point of view before you print it. This is not true at all. Please read what I said earlier. There are two complete sub-sections or mailing lists (with their own alt news groups) which are part and parcel of telecom: 1. Telecom Privacy 2. Computer Underground Digest Both of these groups started as a direct result of a huge overflow of messages to telecom (proper) ... they deal with caller id, privacy in telecom, hacking, phreaking, legal problems of people who hack, etc. All those messages were funnelled through TELECOM Digest when I first started as moderator. I could not begin to print them all or answer them all. Two fine readers of TELECOM Digest volunteered to pull all those messages and ones that followed on the same topics. We swap messages back and forth all the time. I frequently forward stuff to both. Message threads begin in the Digest and then continue in those groups. The people on those lists are the same readers as on the main list (if they wanted to be part of the extended discussions). The only thing I do not do regards those lists is exercise any editorial control at all ... no moderation, nothing. Do you mean to say you actually want all 100-150 messages per day received between the three of us who moderate the telecom lists (Dennis Rears with Privacy, Jim Thomas with Underground and myself) to appear in the main TELECOM Digest itself? When would I find time to print them all? When would you find time to read them all? And as far as editing within TELECOM Digest itself, here is a little challenge for you: Take the last X messages you find in the Digest. Take your pick ... any you like ... write to the author of the article and ask them: "was your article edited in any way before it appeared in TELECOM Digest to cause the message to be different in its content or message? Was anything changed or eliminated (other than sometimes when the quoted text gets cut back to free up some space)?" I edit spelling, grammar and punctuation. I eliminate most signatures. I format message line length and create paragraphs ... actually, my software does most of this. Some messages require a lot of work to use them, and I often times don't bother but just send it back. The exception to this is I try to help new netters feel 'at home' and part of the group, to wit, I sometimes receive absolutely gawd-awful stuff which is full of typo errors, entire sentences missing, thoughts which trail off to no where, etc ... and the poster is someone I've not seen before. Often times the message will have an opener saying "I have never posted before", etc ... naturally for those people I reconstruct their whole message for them if necessary trying to keep in mind what I *think* they are trying to say ... and I show it to them and say is this okay with you ... and then I run it ... and they feel like someone experienced on the net cares about helping them get started, etc. I change subject headers as needed to keep threads running consistently. I make up appropriate subject headers when none comes with the item. You'll notice a certain consistency in TELECOM Digest in the way the sentences flow; in the way words and phrases are blended .... I try to follow the Chicago Manual of Style (a 'rule book' used by newspaper editors) in my choice of numerical presentation of numbers or spelled out numbers (i.e. 'eight' or '8'). I place the names of other publiations in italics, ie. {italics}. I edit the Digest to make it easier reading and consistent in format, but I do not edit ideas therein. ** Now you prove me wrong if you can, but you won't. ** You are blowing smoke, making a non-issue into an issue. > Tell me, oh great moderator, who gets to edit *your* point of view? That's easy. You do. You get to send messages to your little heart's content to the Digest or the supplementary lists. You get to start new groups whenever you wish. You get to post messages here. You can refuse to read anything if you prefer. You can start a movement to have a new moderator for comp.dcom.telecom as a thing entirely separate from TELECOM Digest. You can do whatever you wish, J. Eric, and perform some very effective editing of me in the process. But since I don't edit opinion as such but merely the presentation of same in a digest where I try to maintain an attractive format, there isn't quite the same thing going on as what you would be doing to me. But until we reach the point that you sit here in my chair at my desk and produce TELECOM Digest three or four times a day for a month or so and see exactly what goes on may I respectfully suggest you do not know what you are talking about. PAT (PS You know, the more I think about it the more I like the by-line of 'The Moderator Who Doesn't Give a Shit' ... I think I'll start using it in TELECOM Digest, in the header. Good idea, Patrick! :)