phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (01/26/89)
Many people have responded to the recent message by John Gilmore concerning my commentaries. Some of those comments were sent to me personally, but others were sent to the main list (presumably for posting). I have collected together the messages and made this special issue of the Sun-Spots digest. All the messages in this issue are people expresing their opinions about my little comments (the ones that appear in [[ ... ]]). If this topic doesn't interest you, you can safely skip this issue. After reading Mr. Gilmore's message, I went through the issues put out in the first two weeks of 1989 with the intent of reviewing all the moderator's comments. One by one I extracted them and evaluated them for correctness and appropriateness. I sent this review back to Mr. Gilmore along with an explanation of my opinion on the matter. I have not heard back from him. I will include excerpts from that message here. It says things that, upon reflection, other readers may be interested in hearing. ---- Start of excerpts: I have reviewed the past two weeks worth of Sun-Spots (from the beginning of the year). I found only one serious mistake in my comments. I can only recall two other serious mistakes in December: the rst[08] comment and what is available on root under 4.0. But in my review I have found about 19 comments that are stating facts (this excludes comments about editorial decisions and pointers to other digests---even if a brief explanation was provided with that pointer). Of those 19, one contained a serious error (as mentioned above). I also see at most two messages that included comments on my part which were expressing my own personal opinion. I think if you examine my "track record" closely, rather than relying on a "random accounting", you will discover that it is much better than 50%, even in the recent past. I really don't think you are being very fair in your evaluation. Of course the mistakes are going to stick out in your mind, but the correct comments will not. As I see it, one of my functions as moderator is to hold down redundant and useless postings. If I can do that by answering someone's question, why shouldn't I? You think I should type up a separate answer, mail it to "sun-spots" and process it in the same order as everyone elses? That will do nothing to cut down on the incoming traffic. If I can cut down on redundant incoming messages, my job is easier (and when my job is easier, all readers benefit because I have more time to proccess the unique messages). Whenever a handful of people provide similar answers to a question, I have to gather them together, read through them all, and decide which one to include and which ones to drop. But you don't want me answering a question with a note so that I can avoid extra redundant messages? Obviously, I don't agree. I realize that by providing incorrect information I am defeating the purpose. I promise to do better in that regard in the future. I have been "out of circulation" for awhile because of my graduate student activities. I haven't had the time or need to take a close look at 4.3 BSD or SunOS 4.0. That is different now: I am not doing graduate student things, I am supporting Suns that run 3.x and 4.0.1. I expect my knowledge about these machines to increase. This will cut down on the errors. I will also make an effort to double check what I say, and to refrain from commenting on things for which I am only partially informed. ---- End of excerpts William LeFebvre <phil@Rice.edu>