webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) (04/23/87)
AN ALTERNATIVE TO MODERATED GROUPS: The natural way to accomplish quality control and flow reduction is to set up a system that requires people moderate themselves. Give each user 10 transferable usenet postings a month and let them decide what they want to do with them. If that still generates too much flow after a few months, then reduce the number (by one every couple of months) until things become managable. ON WHY MODERATED GROUPS DO NOT ACCOMPLISH QUALITY CONTROL: In article <7947@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: (re future view of usenet) > They will also ask "gee, didn't that get awfully boring at times, when > people with nothing interesting to say nevertheless tried to say it?". > I'll tell them "Yes, it certainly did. As the volume rose, we had to be > more and more selective about what we read. Eventually it occurred to > many people that being selective about what was sent out would make more > sense. Wide realization of that was the beginning of the end." Moderation does not mean quality improvement, it just means that you end up with what the moderator thinks is the good stuff. Remember Sturgeon's Law, that 90+% of everything is garbage, was generated in edited journals containing the publications of professional writers. Most people disagree about what is the good stuff. Of course, if you want someone else's idea of quality, there are professionally edited publications on every subject covered by usenet (well, maybe there isn't one about stargate yet). The libraries are full of them and they don't cost a cent (that is a cent more than the taxes you are already paying). The unique aspect of usenet was that it allowed people to access a maximum amount of raw opinion and make up their own minds about what they wanted and what they didn't. ----------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; BACKBONE!topaz!webber)
mjr@well.UUCP (04/23/87)
In sympathy with both points of view here, would it not be acceptable to all concerned if Stargate did what it set out to do by feeding the moderated newsgroups and offloading them from the phone based net. This would allow the "open" usenet to continue as long as the backbone sites were still willing to carry it, and it would reduce its volume at the same time. Why can't both systems operate cooperatively in some deliberate and planned way, making the best of both worlds?
mjl@tropix.UUCP (Mike Lutz) (04/25/87)
In article <522@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU> webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) writes: > >Moderation does not mean quality improvement, it just means that you >end up with what the moderator thinks is the good stuff. Remember >Sturgeon's Law, that 90+% of everything is garbage, was generated in >edited journals containing the publications of professional writers. >Most people disagree about what is the good stuff. In my experience, the information content in all the moderated groups is significantly higher than in their unmoderated brethren. What is more, the information itself is of much higher quality. The classic example is mod.sources vs. net.sources: the simple fact that an identifiable individual will actually *try* the code has led to significantly higher quality in the former vis-a-vis the latter. I scan net.sources for the occasional jewel in the manure; I archive the moderated group because the contributions are almost guaranteed to be top-notch. I think it is psychologically easier to drop half-baked code you knocked-off yesterday into net.sources. By extension, it is easier to drop half-baked ideas into an unmoderated discussion group. Re: Sturgeon's Law -- I contend this applies to all submissions as a whole. Thus Lutz's Corallory: if two newsgroups, one moderated and the other unmoderated, deal with the same subject, 95% of the garbage appears in the unmoderated group. Mike Lutz GCA/Tropel, seismo!rochester!tropix!mjl
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/26/87)
> The natural way to accomplish quality control and flow reduction is to > set up a system that requires people moderate themselves. Give each > user 10 transferable usenet postings a month and let them decide what > they want to do with them. If that still generates too much flow > after a few months, then reduce the number... Unfortunately, this assumes that all posters are equal. Wrong. People like Guy Harris and Doug Gwyn are often able to give an authoritative answer to questions that other people just guess at; they clearly deserve a larger posting limit, if indeed they deserve one at all. And there are certainly people whose posting limit should be zero. How do we set the limits? (You can bet that everyone with a low limit will scream "fascist censorship!" no matter how the limit is chosen.) Believe it or not, your idea is not new, and the concept has been talked about (and rejected) before. > Moderation does not mean quality improvement, it just means that you > end up with what the moderator thinks is the good stuff. Remember > Sturgeon's Law, that 90+% of everything is garbage, was generated in > edited journals containing the publications of professional writers. > Most people disagree about what is the good stuff. On the contrary, there is usually general agreement about what is excellent and what is real trash; the differences of opinion arise in the broad band of quality in between. By and large, the most important role of moderators is just to exclude the trash and reduce duplication in the middle range. There is nothing particularly harmful about this, and the net improvement in average quality is considerable. > The unique aspect of usenet was that it allowed people to access a > maximum amount of raw opinion and make up their own minds about what > they wanted and what they didn't. The amount of raw opinion has already gone well beyond the point of diminishing returns, and our tools for sifting gold out of the rubbish are increasingly unequal to the task. -- "If you want PL/I, you know Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology where to find it." -- DMR {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
msb@sq.UUCP (04/27/87)
Henry Spencer (henry@utzoo.UUCP) writes: > Unfortunately, this assumes that all posters are equal. Wrong. People > like Guy Harris and Doug Gwyn ... clearly deserve > a larger posting limit, if indeed they deserve one at all. And, of course, Henry Spencer. Mark Brader
mjr@well.UUCP (Matthew Rapaport) (04/28/87)
In article <269@tropix.UUCP> mjl@tropix.UUCP (Mike Lutz) writes: >In article <522@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU> webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) writes: >In my experience, the information content in all the moderated groups >is significantly higher than in their unmoderated brethren. > >Mike Lutz >GCA/Tropel, seismo!rochester!tropix!mjl True but not exactly the point, which is that an "unregulated" forum also has value of its own and should be preserved. ++++++++
sob@academ.UUCP (Stan Barber) (05/04/87)
In article <522@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU> webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) writes: >Of course, if you want someone else's idea of quality, there are >professionally edited publications on every subject covered by usenet >(well, maybe there isn't one about stargate yet). The libraries are >full of them and they don't cost a cent (that is a cent more than the >taxes you are already paying). >----------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; BACKBONE!topaz!webber) I have yet to find a professionally editied publication that deals with the technical aspects of computing on as Masscomp computer. If you find one, please send me a note so I can inform the people who read comp.sys.masscomp. Responses that mention unix or 68000-based computers do not deal with the real-time or data-acquisition aspects of these computers and it is the consideration of all these factors that make the need for the newsgroup necessary. I chose to set it up as moderated because many Masscomp users are not on usenet, and have to have the items in the newsgroup mailed to them directly. Also, I believe that removing redundancy is simply good stewartship of the usenet resource. A moderated newsgroup affords this; an unmoderated one does not. As a moderator, I do not tend to enforce my ideas of quality, but simply attempt to provide a conduit between users. I grant that this is a monitored flow that will sometimes have my comments added in, but often that takes care of the query or stimulates other thoughts. Stan Barber, moderator of comp.sys.masscomp -- Stan uucp:{killer,rice,hoptoad}!academ!sob Opinions expressed here Olan domain:sob@rice.edu are ONLY mine & Barber CIS:71565,623 BBS:(713)790-9004 noone else's.