werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (06/05/84)
<can selective breeding lead to bug-free software ??> Nathan's posting to net.general, calling attention to recent abuses of net.general, leads me again to suggest, in all seriousness, that postings to some groups (like net.general), be moderated by the system administration of each machine. No message should be allowed to propagate out of a system without the approval of a knowledgable and responsable net-member. That is the only way we can protect this community from some few rotten apples who cause a lot of grief and troubles in no time in an open network like ours. We have seen a few instances of messages already, which caused a lot of fear for the continuing existence of this "free" net, and we should not wait to do something until some unfortunate event will force us to drastic measures, or to witness a forced break-up of the net or forced departure of some sites. An unfortunate specific case, I remember, is when a user at one site posted some inappropriate ethnic "humor" which resulted in such an uproar that management decided to withdraw their machine from further participation in the net, to the detriment of many, I am sure. And, to add a suggestion, how this may be achieved, a few ideas, which, unfortunately, can not address technical details of implementation under UNIX due to lack of knowledge on my part: Already some sites, particularly universities, restrict the account's capability to post messages a) at all b) to some news-groups c) to local distribution d) outsite the local net only with approval by some authority. Recently, I've also seen a header line "Approved by: ...", which suggests that some sites already have implemented an approval system. Would it be hard to have the software check an account attribute, controlling the user's capability for achieving wide distribution for his articles? Would it be hard to allow an authorized account to "approve" distribution of someone else's article, during the process of reading the news, in response to a special prompt, maybe, to solicit such approval? Wouldn't it be wise to agree and encourage, that "net-wizards" SHOULD kill inappropriate articles no matter where originating to limit their distribution? These are all half-baked ideas, to encourage a discussion, no more ... ok, now you can pounce on me, if you care to do so. BTW, I do not encourage restricting posting privileges or killing of articles LIGHTLY, but would like to see the capability to approve assigned to most users of some experience and local standings, so that article propagation is not delayed unneccessarily. werner @ ut-ngp
dman@homxa.UUCP (#D.ANDERSON) (06/05/84)
I don't know about you, werner, but I for one do not have the time to moderate net.general from the 25 machines I administrate news on. No, I'd say the answer is not a benevolent moderator, but an informed user. Netnews does nothing in the way of telling the user what a group is for in the software; the lists of active groups posted by Adam twice a month just don't cut it. A while back I proposed a group description to be printed whenever a new group was entered while reading. I see this as plausible only because most posters are readers first. It is exposure of this kind that will tell the users where articles should go. No matter how much the experienced net users bitch, we must actively inform the novices IN THE SOFTWARE of what is expected. I am not pushing new news software, just a simple mod. If anyone less busy and more concerned than I cares to write it, do it up. But the screams of pain about Joe Newuser posting on the wrong group will only affect the current readers. It will do NOTHING to catch the new user that starts reading/posting next week. Dave Anderson 201-949-5552