taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Dave Taylor) (11/23/88)
As the ex-moderator of news.announce.conferences and comp.mail.elm
(back when it was moderated) and the present moderator of comp.society
[currently inactive due to a career change of mine: drop me mail if
you're interested] I thought that I could add some ideas to this
discussion.
First off, I think that it would behoove all of us to try to keep
this discussion civil; if we have legitimate additions to the
discussion then presenting them in a calm and rational [eg. non-flame]
way will only improve things and lower the current level of
frustration.
To me, moderating a newsgroup is analogous to editing a magazine; not
only am I responsible as moderator for elimination of inappropriate
articles and duplication, but I am also tasked with the job of editorial
advisor, and `publication integrity'. On the other hand, I know that
some of the newsgroup moderators view their role as a very simple filter
(remove duplicates, and that's it).
Even seemingly straightforward newsgroups like the conference announcement
group involved a reasonable amount of work; I used to ensure that the
announcements contained critical information like what, where, when,
and how to get in touch with the organizers. A suprising number of
postings didn't contain that essential information. Further, I also
spent the time and effort to do some formatting of the postings to
ease the reading burden for users; the location of the conference was
always in a "Location:" header.
I arrived at this set of editorial policies for this group through a
process of community concensus; I had significant input from many
people in usenet-land with which we were able to develop this
particular strategy for moderation of that group.
The point here is that while I was willing to serve as a 'tool of
the masses' [gad!] it was within the context of my own approach
to things and my own ability to meet the critical needs of the
assignment.
As the quality level increases in moderated newsgroups, so does
the amount of time required to ensure this quality.
When we're talking about comp.society, for another example, I
actually put on my magazine-article-editor hat and iterate with
authors (on occasion) to ensure that the level of quality is
kept up. I have gone through phases when over 25% of the
submissions have been rejected due to inappropriate content or
style [flaming].
The price of this, just like the price you pay for the quality of
a quarterly scholarly journal, is that it takes *time* to do
this. It really is that old cliche about `a labour of love'.
If we look at the example of comp.sources.unix, we'll find that
Rich Salz has been doing his best to fit the necessary testing
and packaging (which he thankfully does, otherwise g-d knows
what sorta crap we'd have in that group!) into his schedule.
REMEMBER: Rich, like all the other moderators, has a job and
needs to keep that prioritised appropriately. Just like probably
all the people reading this... ('cept students, and they have other
impositions on their time)
I agree that it is unfortunate that Rich has had some difficulties
recently with scheduling time for comp.sources.unix, but I would be
willing to bet that a significant part of it is having to deal with
mail from people saying "what happened to c.s.u?" [1/2 :-) ]
In any case, (you were probably wondering when I'd make my point,
eh? :-) I think it would be a most interesting experiment in one
of the `tightly' moderated groups to try to work out a group
moderation scheme.
I can forsee some difficulties, however, including what I will
call the 'ask the other parent' syndrome, where a person may
submit something to one moderator, have them reject it, and then
try to submit it to the other instead.
Other difficulties center around the more individualized newsgroups,
where the people who are reading it are involved because it has a
certain `tone', largely due to the influence of the group moderator.
One scheme that comes to mind with the sources groups is to have
the sources broken into categories, and then have a moderator
assigned by category (for example, BSD versus Sys V, versus Xenix,
versus non-Unix). People submitting programs will not be
expected to understand the difference; moderators will transmit
source back and forth between each other.
If a moderator goes on vacation or otherwise finds themself
swamped with other claims on their time, they simply drop a
note to the co-moderators, who can then post an announcement
that, say, BSD sources will be delayed a few weeks.
In high-demand groups, if the gap is going to be more than,
say, three or four weeks, then it should be the responsibility of
the moderator to assign an interim moderator for newsgroup-related
transactions. This temporary assignment should be announced
to the net, as should the resumption of regular moderator.
This is a long posting ...
I welcome feedback via email or in this forum.
-- Dave Taylor