Xref: utzoo alt.hackers:321 alt.config:3904
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!well!jef
From: jef@well.sf.ca.us (Jef Poskanzer)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers,alt.config
Subject: a thought about alt.hackers and self-moderation
Message-ID: <23266@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 21 Feb 91 19:55:17 GMT
Reply-To: Jef Poskanzer <jef@well.sf.ca.us>
Followup-To: alt.config
Organization: Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric, Ada Lovelace Cabal
Lines: 38
Approved: by everyone except nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu

Ya know, when I came up with this idea I figured there might be
problems with bozos posting garbage just to prove they could do it.
There was an initial flurry of test messages, and there is currently
another one, but overall the hackers have been amazingly responsible.

It just never occurred to me that the major problem would be with
sysadmins, not hackers.

In retrospect, it's clear that self-moderation version 1.00 is indeed
very fragile with respect to sysadmins.  Not just deliberate sabotage
as with Rutgers, but simple misunderstanding.  I presented sysadmins
with something they had never seen before: a moderated newsgroup
with no moderator's address - which happened to look very similar
to something they had seen all too often: a bozo screwing up while
trying to create a newsgroup.  Most of these people had no idea of
what alt.hackers was about, all they saw was the control message.
No wonder that a few of them went ahead and assumed I was a bozo.

If I were to do it over, I think I would make it look to the sysadmins
like a normal moderated group.  Basically, I would lie to the sysadmins
as a whole so that the few idiots and saboteurs wouldn't screw things up
for everyone else.

Unfortunately, it's too late for alt.hackers.  I'm going to be sending
out monthly newgroups along with the monthly info messages, and that
should help keep the idiot sysadmins in line, but the saboteurs at
Rutgers have gone into defensive mode and are unlikely to reform.

Oh well, it's kind of fun cancelling the offending articles, even
though cancels don't work very well due to B news's broken propagation
algorithm.  Maybe with a dozen people sending them out they'll do
better.
---
Jef

  Jef Poskanzer  jef@well.sf.ca.us  {apple, ucbvax, hplabs}!well!jef
 "Our gatewaying has nothing to do with the problem and you damn well
                  know it." -- postmaster@rutgers.edu


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