gnu@toad.com (01/16/89)
I am finding that wnl's commentaries in messages are more irksome than helpful these days. Partly this is because his error rate is way up; up to half of the recent comments, by my random accounting, are wrong in one way or another. What's worst about it is when somebody sends in a message which is correct, and wnl tears it to bits in the marginal notes, with incorrect information. With the delay in Sun-Spots, there is effectively no rebuttal possible; by the time any rebuttal comes out, the original message is long expired. This is tolerable for moderators like Peter Neumann, who only insert puns :-), but not when the moderator inserts facts and opinions that conflict with the message. I would personally prefer if the moderator's comments were limited to pointers to answers (e.g. [[ See Sun-Spots v5n33 about this....]]) without adding facts or opinions in the middle of other peoples' messages. If something really deserves comment, rather than just gossip, the moderator's comments should appear just like any other message in the digest or newsgroup -- and with the same delay. John Gilmore [[ I would insert a comment here, but Mr. Gilmore doesn't want me to. --wnl ]]