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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!vax135!cjp
From: cjp@vax135.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,news.groups
Subject: Re: comp.sys.amiga moderation?
Message-ID: <1745@vax135.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Jan-87 20:44:44 EST
Article-I.D.: vax135.1745
Posted: Fri Jan 30 20:44:44 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Jan-87 09:18:18 EST
References: <2950@j.cc.purdue.edu> <3830@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Reply-To: cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 39
Summary: No to enforced moderation
Xref: watmath comp.sys.amiga:1809 news.groups:268

In article <510@hao.UCAR.EDU> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes:
>In article <253@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU> mende@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Bob Mende) writes:
>>
>>   I was
>>telling everyone the impossiblity of moderating such a high volume
>>group!
>
>  The alternative may be that certain sites that have very high phone bills
>but few or no Amiga users may drop the group, thus limiting its distribution
>and therefore its usefulness. If you don't want such groups (and this is
>not to pick on Amiga; the same applies to Mac, PC, etc. source groups) to
>be moderated, then I would recommend coming up with some other ways of
>reducing volume to reasonable levels before the hammer falls. Personally,
>I don't think there are any, but I certainly welcome constructive suggestions.

If the alternatives are a) to cripple the group for EVERYBODY by
enforcing slow, unreliable moderation, or b) to have some low-budget
sites give up on the group and refuse to carry it,  then let us choose
b.  Sure there may be sites cut off from the group who are willing and
able to carry it, when their feeder site drops the group.  This is
relatively easy to fix by just finding another site to connect to.
"You get what you pay for" applies here.

There is currently more than one way to skin a cat, requiring only a
sufficiency of funds at *participating* sites.  With moderation, there
is only one way to skin the cat and the cat can't be relied upon to
cooperate.  It's a problem of compound probabilities.  P(entire mail
path to moderator is working) * P(moderator's machine is working) *
P(moderator is not vacationing or doing her day job) * P(moderator
likes your posting) * P(moderator doesn't lose or mangle your posting)
* P(your posting is still relevant four weeks later when it finally
comes around) is a good approximation of zero.

Besides, is there really *that* much "fat" to be trimmed?  On balance,
for comp.sys.amiga, I think not.

	Charles Poirier   (USENET)!vax135!cjp

Disclaimer: I don' need no steeenkin' disclaimer.