Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!bloom-beacon!snorkelwacker!think!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Withdrawal symptoms...
Keywords: no moderator
Message-ID: <35132@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 90 02:27:41 GMT
References: <22685@usc.edu> <1990Feb6.203835.9134@uwasa.fi>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 39

prescriptum:  I didn't know that Rahul appointed bill, nor that Keith
asked Gene to intervene.  Obviously, neither did Peter.  (Whee!
Namedropping!  [ouch!  my toe!]) Not that I care much about how this is
all done, if I did I'd follow the misc.groups newsgroup or whatever it's
called.  But why "...[do] things quietly until everything was in place"?
It's just kept the confusion and frustration higher for us commoners out
here peecee purgatory.


Now, for the short of memory:  c.b.i.p. was originally unmoderated.
Its volume was such that the net.gods threatened to shut it down.  Or
more accurately, many sites threatened to stop paying the phone bills
for distributing it.  The newsgroup became moderated as a means to make
it acceptable to those who were paying to spread it around to all the
rest of us.

IMHO one delightful side effect of moderation was that c.b.i.p.'s
quality went way, waaay, WAY up.  Partly because the unmoderated group's
excessive volume frequently didn't include any programs.  Literally days
and weeks could go by with no source, no binaries, just chatter, and much
of that was pretty aimless.  Just like c.s.i.p.

But also Rahul, when he was at his old job and had the time, was a very
thorough moderator.  He generated tools for managing archives, some of
which I use for completely unrelated purposes.  And he tested the stuff
before he posted it, so you could be pretty sure it worked on at least
a couple of systems.

I wish c.b.i.p. would distribute source as well as binaries, and I see no
particular need to test source.  Source code is for people who intend to
do their own hacking.  But check the size of the moderated comp.virus
newsgroup; I felt a *lot* better knowing that a binary had been checked
at least a little bit, and wasn't going to smoke my HD for at least a
couple of minutes.

Whoever the new moderator is, you have my support, bill :-)  I just hope
things get rolling soon now.

bob,mon.