jef@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) (02/05/90)
The top ten moderated newsgroups:
group articles last month posting delay
===== =================== ============
comp.dcom.telecom 529 ~1 day
misc.handicap 481 ~1 day
comp.mail.maps 362 ~1 day
sci.military 324 ~1 day
comp.sys.sun 310 1 to 3 WEEKS
rec.music.gaffa 275 ~1 day
comp.archives 270 ~1 day
comp.virus 234 a few days
rec.guns 176 ~1 day
soc.religion.christian 175 a few days
If I have underestimate the posting delay for some of these groups
please correct me; I doubt I have underestimated all of them. Something
is seriously wrong with comp.sys.sun.
I've been trying to gently suggest to Bob Greene, the moderator of
comp.sys.sun that he might want to consider possibly making the Usenet
newsgroup side be unmoderated while still doing his moderation thing
for the mailing list side; in other words, like rec.arts.sf-lovers.
The unusually high posting delay, which prevents information
interchange on the newsgroup, is only one reason. Some others are his
tendency to drop messages in the bit bucket instead of returning them
with a rejection note (or sometimes dropping them for no reason at
all), and the general uselessness of his moderation. Sure, he's been
doing better than Lefevre, but that doesn't say much. He has admitted
to me that his moderation consists of rejecting (dropping) junk
articles, and posting the rest in "first come first served order". For
this we wait 1 to 3 weeks?
Unsurprisingly, he has not been receptive to my suggestion of
unmoderating the newsgroup. Any suggestions on what to do about it?
---
Jef
Jef Poskanzer jef@well.sf.ca.us {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!jef
What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.hoyt@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Sir Hoyt) (02/06/90)
In article <15966@well.UUCP> Jef Poskanzer <jef@well.sf.ca.us> writes: >Unsurprisingly, he has not been receptive to my suggestion of >unmoderating the newsgroup. Any suggestions on what to do about it? Yep, Don't use the group. I stop reading comp.sys.sun when alt.sys.sun came about. I find a.s.s to be a much better place to find information. People POST answer, instead of mailing the answer to the asker. -- John H. Pochmara A career is great, UUCP: {sdsu,voder,trwind}!polyslo!hoyt But you can't run your Internet: hoyt@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU fingers through its hair -Graffiti 4/13/83
rgreene@wild.rice.EDU (Robert D. Greene) (02/06/90)
In <15966@well.UUCP>, jef@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) said: | comp.sys.sun 310 1 to 3 WEEKS I don't think this is a fair evaluation, I'd say this is more of a "worst case" scenario. The average posting delay for my entire moderatorship has been approx 3 days, and as quick as hourly for some articles. I realize that most of the readers of this group are not sympathetic to this fact (that's why you are reading this one, right? :)), but I think it's been fairly reasonable. | Some others are his | tendency to drop messages in the bit bucket instead of returning them | with a rejection note (or sometimes dropping them for no reason at | all), and the general uselessness of his moderation. Harsh criticism for one who hasn't even begun to contemplate the work that moderating this newsgroup is. Poskanzer attempts to portray the moderation of the newsgroup as a "2 minute a week job" where it actually ends up taking many many hours each day. My moderation is more than just simple editing and what Jef constantly refers to as "dropping messages in the bit bucket". When I receive messages, each one goes through a lengthy process before it actually appears in published form - first I screen out all the junk that should be on other groups {misc.forsale, comp.unix.*, etc}, then I do a lengthy cross reference on the contents of the article to try to find out if it has already been answered previously on comp.sys.sun. If, in many cases, it has, I directly send that information to the poster instead of reposting the same thing over and over. I also do checks on general spelling, grammar, etc and then the final thing is broken into it's subgroups and posted. The main criticism that started this whole controversy was that Jef was irritated that his article explaining a problem with the earlier posting about the Sparc audio connector was not posted and anothers was. I have repeatedly tried to explain to Jef that: (a) When several people all submit answers that are fairly similar, I make a judgement call on which one to post. Sometimes, I'm wrong, but I'm a human, and I make mistakes every now and then :) It's not meant as a personal insult to the poster whose article is not sent. (b) The particular article in question was never successfully submitted to comp.sys.sun. I know, we all have this ideal of a perfect network, but let's face it, things do go into the bit bucket in the sky once every blue moon. It's not really my fault for not posting something that I never got. Finally, I would beg of everyone here that feels compelled to reply to this, including Jef, to mail directly to me. I feel that this discussion is best limited to private email and not to the net in general. Bob Greene Sunspots (comp.sys.sun) Moderator RGREENEB@RICEVM1.BITNET ONCS, Information Services, Rice University RGREENEB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU all), and the general uselessness of his moderation. Houston, Texas, USA ...!psuvax1!rice!ricevm1!rgreeneb
mcb@presto.IG.COM (Michael C. Berch) (02/07/90)
Re criticism of the moderation of comp.sys.sun: In the referenced article, rgreene@wild.rice.EDU (Robert D. Greene) writes: > [...] > Finally, I would beg of everyone here that feels compelled to reply to this, > including Jef, to mail directly to me. I feel that this discussion is best > limited to private email and not to the net in general. Mr. Greene's points about the work of moderating comp.sys.sun may well be valid, but I must strongly disagree with the above paragraph. The place to discuss the conduct of a moderator, the issue of whether a group should become unmoderated, or whether a new moderator should be appointed, is right here in news.groups. This is the designated place for discussion of the nature, contents, and current status of newsgroup, and is an open forum where all affected and interested parties can comment freely. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@presto.ig.com / uunet!presto.ig.com!mcb / ames!bionet!mcb
gcrum@aludra.usc.edu (Gary Crum) (02/08/90)
In article <4579@brazos.Rice.edu> rgreene@wild.rice.EDU (Robert D. Greene) writes:
Finally, I would beg of everyone here that feels compelled to reply to this,
including Jef, to mail directly to me. I feel that this discussion is best
limited to private email and not to the net in general.
Naturally.
Here's my proposal: Make comp.sys.sun unmoderated, and if there is a
volunteer to do filtering, have a moderated group also. The content
of the moderated group could be the "best of" the unmoderated group.
That arrangement seems quite natural and superior to this situation
and the comp.sys.mac/comp.sys.mac.digest pair. Some problems I can
think of are network capacity limit and the power/policing desires of
moderators, but the capacity problem is addressed when network
speeds increase as fast as USENET volume.
With unmoderated groups, questions often elicit redundant followups.
That result is not often obtrusive, though, and I think the solution of
email-me-and-I'll-summarize is better than having one swamped human moderator.
Hey, given the arrangment I suggest, newsreaders could even be extended to
know the relationship between the groups, and readers could choose which
group (moderated or unmoderated) they want to read based on their
work queue (for example). The news reader could "catch up" the other
group based on date of writing (assuming the moderator would leave that
information _somewhere_ in the articles if he/she must change the Date:
line to be the date of posting by the moderator as has been done in
comp.sys.sun).
Cheers, to the epitome of free speech, USENET.
Gary