rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu (Rich Kulawiec) (06/18/88)
It would appear that there is significant interest in ascertaining how Usenet as a whole feels about this question, so, loathe as I am to generate more mail traffic -- especially when it lands in my mailbox -- this article announces a poll on total moderation. The question at hand is: Should all Usenet newsgroups be moderated? 1. Please send your "vote" to me by replying to this article; in this way, the context of the "Subject:" line will be preserved, and your letter will be correctly filed by my mail handler. 2. Please indicate clearly whether your "vote" is a yes, no, or maybe. Optionally, please indicate whether you are a "news user" or a "news administrator". (If you're both, just pick one.) 3. The term "vote" is in quotes because this is not an election or even a binding referendum. It's an opinion poll with no authority whatsoever. I will certainly make the results available, and it is possible that some future action may be motivated in part by the results, but, at the moment, this is just a poll. 4. By "Usenet newsgroup" I mean the approximately 310 newsgroups listed in the "List of Active Newsgroups" articles posted by Gene Spafford. Thus, this term does not include the "alt", "gnu", "inet", or other distributions. 5. Today is June 18, 1988; I will accept "votes" until July 9, 1988. Please mail your vote to one of the following: rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu rsk@j.cc.purdue.edu pur-ee!rsk 6. I'm not a member of the backbone; I'm not a newsgroup moderator (I was at one time); but I am a news administrator. Please do not send me long letters arguing for or against total moderation. Such discussion is probably best carried out in a newsgroup, not in my mailbox. Rich
John_M@spectrix.UUCP (John Macdonald) (06/28/88)
> >The question at hand is: > >Should all Usenet newsgroups be moderated? > Mostly. Specifically, I think that all groups outside of talk should be moderated. The talk hierarchy should be expanded to include at least talk.comp.misc, talk.rec.misc, talk.soc.misc, and talk.sci.misc. Members of the current hierarchy that can't find a moderator would be put in an appropriate place (usually their current group with talk prepended). This would make it simple for administrators who feel that unmoderated groups are too noisy and unpredictable to be worth carrying can easily drop them, while administrators who enjoy the unrestricted free flow of information can keep them. -- John Macdonald UUCP: {mnetor,utzoo} !spectrix!jmm