Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!jkg From: jkg@gatech.edu (Jim Greenlee) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: Yet Another Swipe At Moderation Message-ID: <18141@gatech.edu> Date: 10 Mar 89 18:21:33 GMT References: <5946@bsu-cs.UUCP> <7965@xanth.cs.odu.edu> <6055@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> <1736@csuna.csun.edu> <182@falkor.UUCP> Reply-To: jkg@gatech.UUCP (Jim Greenlee) Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 94 This may be interpreted as a flame by some. Maybe it is. >> is Jeff Boeing (abcscagz@csuna.csun.edu) > is Ron Heiby (heiby@mcdchg.chi.il.us) everything else is me (jkg@gatech.edu) >> (1) Delay time. One lousy disk crash -- which was certainly not Rahul's >> fault -- caused the entire backlog of binaries to be set back several >> weeks. >Right. It was unfortunate. But, what did it *really* hurt. Some neat >programs arrived a few weeks later than they otherwise would have. >Big deal. I agree with Ron 100%. I can't understand the attitude of some of the readers of the PC-binary group - whenever there is a lull in postings, people start screaming for the moderator's head on a platter. USENET is not, and never has been, a homogeneous medium. An interruption in postings can happen for any of a number of reasons (I'd wager that hardware failure is among the *least* likely reasons). >> (2) Moderator preference. >Right. It would be nice to get an occasional game. But, if the moderator >has machine problems or extra heavy demands from his/her *REAL JOB*, then >I would much rather get half a dozen small utilities than half a moria. >If there's someone filling in while a moderator is on vacation, I think >it's perfectly acceptable for him/her to delay posting games. Some neat >games arrived a few weeks later than they otherwise would have. >Big deal. Well-said. A lot of people don't realize that moderating a group like this takes a *lot* of time. I know of no moderator that gets compensated directly for his or her time - most of them just get abused by the very people that they are trying to do Good Things for (Brad Templeton is an excellent example). Frankly, I don't read comp.binaries to get games. Oh sure, i snarf them when they float by, but I would not be the least bit upset if the moderator elected not to post them at all. I am mainly interested in utilities that help me be more productive in cross-pollinated (MSDOS/UNIX) environment (admittedly, since I bought the MKS Toolkit a couple of years ago, this is less of a problem :-). >> The moderated newsgroup is still a good idea, but I ask you, fellow netters, >> should binaries postings be restricted to the moderated group ONLY? An >> unmoderated forum (such as this one) seems to me like a good place to vent >> those binaries that didn't make it (or are delayed up the wazoo) to c.b.i.p. No, this is the *worst* possible thing that could be done. A moderator is, in many respects, the moral equivalent of a benevolent dictator. While a moderator *does* exert some level of control that impedes the free and unencumbered sharing of information (I've obviously been reading too many "spirit of USENET" postings in news.groups :-), in most cases it is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. Anybody who remembers the MEAN18 and PSPICE debacles last year (when c.b.i.p. was unmoderated) should realize that this group *must* be moderated if it is going to continue to survive (imminent death of the net predicted). Anybody who doubts this should send me e-mail - I will tell you the true (I know the principals personally) account of how comp.binaries.ibm.pc was almost yanked from the net last year. >Yes, binary postings should continue to be restricted to the moderated >group ONLY. [...] I can't think of a single posting >to comp.binaries.ibm.pc that would have caused irreparable harm by having >been delayed a couple of weeks. Can you? No, I can't. The thing that irks me is that soon as people find out that a particular utility exists, they have to have it *right* *then*. Never mind that they have gotten by quite nicely for the last 3 or 4 years without it - the mere knowledge of the utility's existence makes it an absolute necessity. Some people almost seem to *demand* that it be delivered to their door, yet they are not willing to expend any energy or time to get it there - It's almost as though they are saying, "This piece of software is so important to me that I insist that everybody drop everything and use every available resource (as long as I don't have to pay for it) to get it to me." This is arrogance in the extreme. If you simply cannot live without it, why not send a blank (formatted!) diskette and a postage-paid mailer to the author? If you are not willing to do this, then you have no right to complain about a perceived slowdown in net traffic. >Keep the binaries in the binaries group and the discussion in the >discussion group! Amen. Jim Greenlee -- Jim Greenlee - Instructor, School of ICS, Georgia Tech jkg@gatech.edu Jryy, abj lbh'ir tbar naq qbar vg! Whfg unq gb xrrc svqqyvat jvgu vg hagvy lbh oebxr vg, qvqa'g lbh?!