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From: max@oz.berkeley.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: rec.food.drink,rec.food.cooking,news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Re: Moment of Decision
Message-ID: <18448@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 18-Apr-87 05:54:21 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.18448
Posted: Sat Apr 18 05:54:21 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 01:11:03 EST
References: <1775@whuts.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: max@oz.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Max Hauser)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Keywords: moderated group, how decided?
Xref: utgpu rec.food.drink:300 rec.food.cooking:511 news.groups:641 news.admin:287
Summary: We need wine articles, not moderation

Terry Sterkel has proposed to do a great deal of leg work, with
obvious good intentions.  I have followed the discussion. With
serious respect for Terry's efforts, I strongly disagree that
we need a *moderated* wine group, with or without other drinks.

Jeezus, there is little enough traffic about wine without
potentially scaring off more of it by forcing people into
a specific format like the one Terry has proposed. This is
serious, folks! I was an avid reader of net.wine from 1983
through 1985, and have recently returned. I myself was driven
out, as were others I know, not by the presence of "noise" 
but by the *absence* of postings about wines.

Now, one of the best things about the unmoderated groups is the 
unpredictability and individuality of anarchic submissions.
Anyone can make a point, in the format THEY choose, and people
do, spontaneous and unintimidated by an established style.
It is not left to the moderator to anticipate the best way to
orchestrate everyone's postings.  It seems to me that enthusiasm
for more wine postings would be better channeled into keeping the 
wine talk active rather than forcing us into a format that 
sounds, in the charter, a lot like mod.terry.sterkel.

I hope that Terry, or anyone else, will not presume to change an
unmoderated group into a moderated one without an overwhelming
consensus from the membership. No such consensus has been evident
in the postings. To quote Jeff Winslow, "if you want to see
articles on wine, then start posting them..."

	Max Hauser, UC Berkeley EECS