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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: newgroup mod.jokes && rmgroup net.jokes
Message-ID: <1717@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Dec-85 19:22:24 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1717
Posted: Sat Dec 28 19:22:24 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Dec-85 02:29:11 EST
References: <397@cad.cs.cmu.edu> <246@neurad.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 40
Xref: watmath net.news.group:4889 net.jokes.d:1311

In article <246@neurad.UUCP> donn@neurad.UUCP (Donn S. Fishbein) writes:
>Perhaps a reasonable compromise to the problem of low signal to noise ratio
>versus censorship would be a "semi-moderator".
>
>This person could look at incoming material to locate duplicates,
>and perhaps messages posted in error, and inform the sender of this.

This is exactly what almost all current moderators do today.  Very
few newsgroups have any sort of quality standards - net.announce is
the major one that actually rejects things (and such rejections are
usually accompanied with a suggested alternate newsgroup to post to.)

Many of you seem to think that having a newsgroup moderated means that
people would be prevented from posting.  While such strict quality
control is done in publications such as journals and magazines, and
while there have been many people asking for high quality newsgroups
(where having a message accepted implies prestige) the fact is that
most moderation is simple filtering of duplicates and mistakes.

Even if the net went to 100% moderation (say, because of Stargate
requirements) almost everyone could still get messages posted.
The outright rejection without an alternate newsgroup (where the
poster really wanted it posted, even after seeing possible duplicates)
would be an incredibly rare event, probably only legally libelous
messages would be completely refused.

However, nobody is advocating total moderation.  Just moderation of
the groups which would benefit from it.  Newsgroups where large numbers
of readers have had to unsubscribe because they lack the time to read
it all are prime candidates, and net.jokes is probably an excellent
example.

Remember, moderators are responsible to the readers of the newsgroup.
If the readers feel the person isn't letting important things through
(or is too slow, or is letting too much through, or whatever) they can
tell the moderator.  If we should ever get into the situation where the
readers want to recall a moderator (and there is an alternate candidate)
we can always hold an election.

	Mark Horton