edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (09/19/86)
In article <215@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: >In article <15672@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) writes: >> Two highly technical groups have been made >> talk: *.{philosophy.tech,politics.arms-d}. There are NO flames in either >> such group. > > These groups, according to a consensus of backbone SA's and other long-time >netters, are NOT considered technical. Period. Gene is, of course, entitled >to his opinion; you'll never get EVERYONE to agree on the definition of >"technical". Our opinion disagrees with Gene's, that's the bottom line. Around here, ``arms-d'' is just about as technical as you can get--it has more to do with what people actually work on here at Rand than, say, mod.compilers. And I can think of a few dozen other sites where this is equally true. In fact, some of the *longest*-time netters (ever hear of ARPANET?) are at these sites. (Some are or have been backbones, too--Rand was a few years back, though we couldn't honestly justify spending taxpayer money on net.flamage so the plug was pulled.) And, wonder of wonders, there are actually sites where ``philosophy.tech'' is (or should be) considered of greater technical importance than, say, mod.protocols. Ever hear of Universities? Is there some reason why learned discourse in areas other than computer science is somehow less worthy? I think the attitude of the ruling netters is a bit narrow- minded. Welcome to the world of net-politics. And if you don't think you and those ``backbone SA's and other long-time netters'' are politicians in every sense of the word, Greg, think again. It's the smell of power that draws you as much as altruistic dedication to ``the net.'' This isn't to say that we don't owe you [all] a great debt of gratitude for your hard work in keeping the net going, or that you don't deserve the power you have. But humility isn't one of your stronger points, and I have to admit this constant chorus on just how wonderful a job you and your friends are doing of saving the net from itself is getting a wee bit tiresome--not to mention being the stimulus of literally thousands of lines of flames (yours and theirs) over the past year or so. Making no claims to humility myself, these have been mine. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) (09/19/86)
In article <13062@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: >In article <351@maynard.UUCP> campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) writes: >>But mod.politics.arms-d >>is well moderated, informational, and yes, often highly technical. > >I would have to disagree on the "well moderated" rating. There is a >lot of overlap with the risks group. It's a waste of my time to skip >over the duplicates and a waste of the network's bandwidth to send >these articles twice. Well, there's a technical problem here. Both mod.risks and mod.politics.arms-d originate as ARPANET mailing lists and are simply gatewayed (automatically, I presume) into Usenet. The concept of "cross-posting" doesn't exist on the ARPANET, so I don't see any good way to alleviate this problem. Believe me, it bugs me too, as I also read both lists. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109 UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
nazgul@apollo.uucp (Kee Hinckley) (09/22/86)
In article <215@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: > I personally think net.singles needs to > be moderated, but that seems to be a minority opinion. Finding a moderator > that would be acceptable would be tough. I can't think of anyone who reads > and posts here regularly who hasn't had at least one controversial viewpoint > (myself included). A moderator would certainly be nice, but I can't think of any way of doing it that would not result in a full-time job. The current flow seems to be about 300 or so articles a week. The other problem with moderation is it makes it harder to respond to individual items or people, something that is much more important in net.singles where the number of people and the number of topics is greater than in most moderated newsgroups. I think net.singles moderation will have to wait for either a *real* good AI program or a payed moderator. (How about it folks, I'll do it for a buck an article, any other bids?! :-) -kee -- ...{mit-eddie,yale,uw-beaver,decvax!wanginst}!apollo!nazgul Apollo Computer, Chelmsford MA. (617) 256-6600 x7587 or 499B Boston Rd, Groton MA. (617) 448-2863 I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (09/23/86)
In article <217@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: > > The facts are that we pay the bills, so we get to decide what > is worth spending OUR money on. Fine. But must you do it in a such an obnoxious fashion? The groups in question shouldn't be talk groups, and they are technical groups. Or does paying the bills also allow you to change the meaning of words? -- What's the difference between a duck? Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim Compuserve: 72257,3706 Delphi or GEnie: mnementh
cda@entropy.berkeley.edu (09/25/86)
In article <217@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: > > The facts are that we pay the bills, so we get to decide what > is worth spending OUR money on. If I'm not mistaken, MY taxes pay YOUR salary, so please tell me again where the money comes from that you've arbitrarily decided to spend on propagating net.singles. Charlotte Allen