wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/18/84)
I've just looked at mod.singles and mod.motss, and noted that both moderators have explicitly stated that they would NOT include items from net.singles and net.motss (respectively). I would like to request that this attitude change, and that it be a stated purpose for both these groups, and any other mod.some-existing-group groups that are formed in the future, to copy over and include items from the net.xxx groups that the moderators find worthwhile and appropriate to include. The formation postings have stated that they were not going to copy over and include net.xxx items "to reduce duplication". I contend that the costs of duplicate storage and transmittal are minor compared to the costs in time of the readership who will have to both read the moderated group and wade through the net.xxx group in order to have a complete picture of the current discussions and follow the traffic. The purpose of the mod.xxx groups is to provide the reading community a group free of the garbage and nonsense that made reading the particular net.xxx groups unpleasant. But, unless the moderators read those groups and extract and include in their mod.xxx groups the worthwhile postings from net.xxx, the readers of "mod" groups will get a pleasant but partial view of the topic. We CAN have the "best of both worlds" if the moderators will include the good stuff from the original groups. Some of it can be summarized, of course; there's no need for a moderator to include ten separate postings, even if they happen to be rational and well-written, if they all say the same thing. But please don't ignore them entirely! I look forward to being able to read the "mod" groups and ignore the associated "net" group versions, but I cannot do that now if I wish to remain "on top" of the discussion. So I now have two groups to read instead of just one! I don't see that this will be a great imposition on the moderators, if they are given software tools to make it simple to copy over a posting and post it to their groups. Do they have such tools? The traffic in the net.xxx groups will probably die down as the mod.xxx group becomes well-known and the main location for the discussions. Probably such extraction and reposting will involve only a small number of postings after an initial surge. This seems to be the reasonable way to go. Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA