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From: davidsen@sungod.steinmetz (William Davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: we need an unmoderated binaries group
Message-ID: <13746@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 4 May 89 14:13:24 GMT
References: <1944@csuna.csun.edu> <7788@galbp.LBP.HARRIS.COM>
Sender: news@steinmetz.ge.com
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
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Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
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Let's remember the "good old days" before moderation.
  a) some nice copyrighted programs got posted
  b) at least one trojan horse got posted
  c) lots of begware, crippleware, etc, got posted
  d) duplicate copies got posted, and when someone wanted a missing
	copy of something, they only had to ask and 3-8 people would
	repost the missing part, and often the whole damn program to
	avoid "wasting bandwidth with requests for repost."
  e) volume was huge, if binaries hadn't gotten out of c.s.i.p the
	group might have been dropped by some major sites.

I think that bulleting boards are great places for unmitigated (er,
unmoderated) crap. I can't convince myself that an unmoderated group is
worth having. However, you can always propose it, although if any
serious number of sites refuse to carry it, the vote doesn't matter
much.

                         "Fast track" postings

  All it would take is one more commercial program or virus and the
credibility of this group would be badly hurt. I would rather see a
group which is unmoderated than any postings in this group which are not
tested to the fullest extent Rahul's time allows.

  By all means form alt.binaries.ibm.pc, but let's keep this group a
tight ship, so there won't be a move to restrict it further. I don't
want to have bandwidth stolen by stuff that is less tested when we can
usually fill the available bandwidth of the group with things which are
tested. What program could possibly have such value that it needs to be
sent immediately? A game? A utility which puts 50MB on a 360k floppy
using the standard IBM drives?

  USENET isn't a BBS, and I think the excelent moderation which has
taken place so far has lent it an air of professionalish which allows
commercial sites to justify carrying it. Let's create an alt group for
the impatient, and keep this group just as is.

                   "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me