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From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: Volunteer for rec.arts.movies.serious moderator/editor
Message-ID: <50274@bbn.COM>
Date: 2 Jan 90 17:27:26 GMT
References: <50208@bbn.COM> <1812@zerkalo.cfa250.harvard.edu> <50239@bbn.COM> <2477@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
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Reply-To: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro)
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In article <2477@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> reiher@onyx.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Peter
Reiher) writes:
>[arguments in favor of having a moderator; I agree, so I won't
>respond directly]
>  If it is moderated, however, I feel very 
>strongly that it should be moderated only on the basis of inclusion/exclusion.  
>I don't think that the moderator should serve as an editor, beyond possibly 
>pointing out the reasons that an article was rejected.


In general, yes. It may happen once in a while that the moderator
perceives that a submission is likely to be misinterpreted or
misunderstood. In this case, some editorial work on the moderator's
part would be useful, especially if the submission is likely to be
misinterpreted as a flame.

>I'll probably vote for this newsgroup, no matter what form it takes.  However,
>I do have doubts about its viability.  Is there some good reason not to try a 
>mailing list for a couple of months, to see whether there is enough interest 
>in serious discussions of film to warrant a newsgroup?

Because of the difference in outreach between mailing lists and
newsgroups, I don't think it's appropriate to use a mailing list as a
testing ground. If there already is a working list, maybe that's
another story. But creating a new one as a test seems wrong to me.

In general, I think a (newly created) mailing list only makes sense
when there's a large interested group, but not large enough to pass
the newsgroup requirements (lists that are *too* small sputter and die
because they don't reach 'critical mass'). The only way to determine
this is to have a vote. Therefore I would say it makes more sense to
take the vote first. If it's a resounding 'yes', we'll just create the
group.  If it's not so resounding, but nonetheless there are lots of
'yes' votes, we can consider setting up a mailing list (and we'll have
a good base of names to work from). If there aren't many 'yes' votes,
we can drop the idea altogether.

Rather than trying to predict in advance how much interest there is,
and choose mailing list or newsgroup accordingly, let's let the voting
determine that for us. Then we can make an informed decision based on
real numbers instead of on speculation.