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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!brandx.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Announcement of unmoderated sources mailing list.
Message-ID: <248@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 00:36:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.248
Posted: Wed Jun  3 00:36:06 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jun-87 02:23:15 EDT
References: <965@vortex.UUCP> <7946@utzoo.UUCP> <7947@utzoo.UUCP> <134@academ.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 81
Keywords: unmoderated news
Summary: unix-sources mailing list is moderated!  do you want one that isn't?

[postnews wouldn't permit cross posting between comp.sources.d and news.group]

In article <134@academ.UUCP>, sob@academ.UUCP (Stan Barber) writes:
> In article <243@brandx.rutgers.edu> webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) writes:
> >...Moderating a sources group just heightens the illusion that it is
> >`safe' to run programs that one doesn't understand.
> So, are you are saying that the "first pass" work that the moderator does
> to be sure that the code has documentation and a makefile is a waste of
> his and our time? This is the main reason I LIKE the moderator arrangement...

This is as sensible as having news.groups moderated to catch spelling errors.
If the code doesn't have enough documentation to be useful to you, then
there is no reason for you to save it.  Not every posting on the net
was created expressly for your particular situation.  If someone wants
to moderate sources, that is fine; create a group called comp.sources.mod
and run it, but I strongly object to having moderated sources be the only
option on the net.  (Of course, if there aren't a hundred people on the 
net that agree, then I would see no reason for creating comp.sources.rwx .)
Incidently, months ago, there were two groups, the unmoderated net.sources
and the moderated mod.sources, guess which group people preferred to post
to and which group was clogged with `moderator unavailable' problems.

> >Personally, instead of creating a funny newsgroup, I would rather set
> >up a distributed mailing list and then when it grows sufficiently
> >petition to have it turned into a newsgroup (the non-standard
> >newsgroup approach makes it very difficult to connect all the
> >interested parties as well as not giving the uninterested a chance to
> >see the error of their ways).
> 
> You seem to be describing the UNIX-SOURCES Internet List. What would your
> list do that UNIX-SOURCES does not?

According to the information posted in news.lists, unix-sources@brl.arpa
is the same thing as comp.sources.misc which is indeed a moderated group.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no `correct' place to post
sources that doesn't force you to go through a moderator.  Heavy
reliance on moderators is a bad idea, as I have mentioned elsewhere.
The only groups where I find the moderator appropriate are the old
mod.mag groups.

So far, one person has contacted me about this mailing list; so there
now exists a non-moderated distributed sources mailing list of 2 people.
When it reaches 100 or so, I will petition to have it converted into an
unmoderated sources newsgroup.  Currently, there have been no sources
posted to this mailing list, so there has been no need to investigate
the resources problems of maintaining it.  As I have presented
elsewhere, such things can be maintained in a distributed manner with
minimal resources.  If you are interested in unmoderated sources (as
opposed to moderated sources), please contact me (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ;
webber@red.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis!webber).  I do not have unlimited
resources available for this project, but it is reasonable to expect
that by the time the mailing list is too large to be handled as such,
it will form a sufficient justification for an unmoderated sources news
group.  There is no notion that the unmoderated group would carry
better sources, except to the extent that you would expect that a 
programmer that understood the foolishness of restricting sources to
a moderated forum would probably be capable of analyzing other
problems correctly also.  (Incidently, I see no reason to segregate discussions
of sources from listings of sources, such a separation dehumanizes C code.)

> >I would think one would use tape to archive `junk'.  Due to the usual
> >random human problems, the current moderator of the sources groups has
> >significantly reduced the bandwidth of his group.  However, this has
> >not impacted quality at all.
> "archive" was a bad choice of words on my part. What I really meant to
> say was "transient storage". If the bulk of the sources are junk, how
> can I justify the transient disk space while the news (and junk) are passing
> though? [Fortunately, I don't have this problem at the moment, but I have
> had it in the past...]

If you are asking about the 2 meg a day flow, either you have the
resouces to participate in the net or you don't -- if a sizable
portion of the net doesn't have sufficient resouces, then it is time
to look into a more distributed approach (as outlined elsewhere).  If
you are saying that you are so busy that sometimes it takes weeks
before you can get around to looking over the sources that you have
collected, then I really don't see what the problem is with writing
them to tape every couple of days.

----------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis!webber)