tp@ndm20 (07/26/85)
>It has been decided to abolish net.general. This group will be >replaced with a moderated group, mod.general, for announcements >of general interest to the net. By whom? You? There was nothing in net.news.groups about it. Last I heard, that was where such things are discussed (as a matter of fact, I believe that was discussed recently, but not with the result you favor. net.announce fulfills the function you seem to envision for mod.general. >Discussions which seem to have no appropriate newsgroup, but are not >of general interest (the recent coke discussion comes to mind) >should be directed to net.misc. That is and always has been true. Who elected you to enforce it? Thanks, Terry Poot Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers (214)739-4741 Usenet: ...!{allegra|ihnp4}!convex!smu!ndm20!tp CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPA
sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (07/26/85)
> It has been decided to abolish net.general. This group will be > replaced with a moderated group, mod.general, for announcements > of general interest to the net. Who is this "It" who has decided unilateraly to replace net.general by mod.generals? (get it? get it?) If we're going to have net coups, could the rulling junta at least introduce themselves so us lowly net mortals can pay respect where it's due. > I will be moderating the newsgroup. My uucp address is > ihnp4!abnji!nyssa. net.general's removal will follow within > a couple weeks from when you read this. > Articles submitted will either be approved, returned with a reason > given for rejection, or returned with a suggestion for a more > appropriate newsgroup. > -- > James C Armstrong, Jnr. ihnp4!abnji!nyssa > And who are YOU? why do YOU get to approve or reject articles? What is this? What's going on here? -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie
bob@plus5.UUCP (Bob Simpson) (07/29/85)
In article <755@abnji.UUCP>, nyssa@abnji.UUCP (nyssa of traken) write: > It has been decided to abolish net.general. This group will be > replaced with a moderated group, mod.general, for announcements of > general interest to the net. Come on guys! Can't you take a little joke? This guy is obviously kidding. This is the same charter that net.announce has. By now the poor fool has 10-20Mb of mail and his machine has died the True Death. However, I do advocate the creation of mod.net.gods for the discussion of what to do with all the peons on the net, I mean *REALLY* -- Dr. Bob UUCP ..!{ihnp4,cbosgd,seismo}!plus5!bob Plus Five has disclaimed any knowledge of me and whatever I might say. The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Plus Five Computer Services, its management, employees, stockholders, subsidiaries, affiliates, or related entities.
spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (07/30/85)
Okay. Let me try to either add some information, or fan some flames.
The posting by James Armstrong, Jr. about the creation of mod.general
has taken a number of people by surprise. It certainly took me by
surprise. I have received lots of letters and seen many articles
posted asking all the same questions, basically:
1) Who decided to remove net.general? I think that was an assumption
made by Mr. Armstrong, and an erroneous conclusion (more on that
later). James is currently serving as a moderator for two of the
"mod" groups, and he has been an active contributor to the net for some
time. Beyond that, I don't know.
2) Why was it decided to remove net.general? There has been a great
deal of talk over the past few years about removing net.general because
of all the bozos misusing the group. The general conclusion seems to
have always been that we need some moderated group to serve the purpose
of net.general, but we shouldn't dispose of net.general since some
software depends on it. Furthermore, many vociferous net types claim
that we need an outlet in case moderators overstep their bounds, and an
unmoderated net.general is the way. Perhaps this proves their point.
3) When was it decided to create mod.general and who decided that? I
believe the decision was made about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I got mail (from
just whom, I forget) addressed to "moderators" saying that mod.general
and mod.newprod were going to be created. I didn't really see any
discussion, either. It should have been mentioned in net.news.group
for public comment, but wasn't. There may have been some discussion in
the mail amongst some of the moderators, but if so, I missed it while
trying to get some work done on my thesis. I doubt the need for
mod.general considering the existence of net.announce and net.misc, and
I also question the existence of mod.newprod, but that's just my
personal viewpoint. Usually, the current moderators discuss creating
moderated newsgroups and then create them. If they don't get used,
they get deleted. If they do get used, the corresponding "net" groups
do not get deleted. No one seems to have objected to this before, as
befits the status of "mod" groups as experimental.
4) Is net.general going to be deleted? Gawd, I hope not! I don't see
what harm it is to leave it there. If it withers away and dies, fine,
then we can delete it. If not, at least it serves a useful purpose as
we watch all the bozos post "for sale in NJ" articles to an
international distribution. I enjoy sending mail to those people (why
do so many of them work for AT&T, by the way?). If everybody sent
mail to each person who posts something innappropriate to net.general,
maybe we'd raise the general awareness of net users. Naaaahhhhh....
5) What do we do next? I dunno. One thing you can do -- *DON'T WRITE
TO ME!* No more letters! I didn't do it! If you are interested in
getting the story, write to Mr. Armstrong and ask him to post something
to the net explaining the situation. I'm sure he's a reasonable and
intelligent human being operating under a mistaken impression. DON'T
abuse him unnecessarily -- I'm sure he's already received enough of
that. Just politely tell him that you don't want net.general to go
away. You might also register your opinions on the creation of
"mod.general". Then politely ask him to post something to both
net.followup and net.news.group explaining what happened.
In conclusion: I am assuming a mistake has been made, probably
in good faith, but nonetheless a mistake. I will not issue
any "rmgroup" messages for net.general, nor will I honor any such
request. I will not remove net.general from the list of active
newsgroups until it appears that the proper procedures have been
followed and the vast majority of responsible netters want that
to happen.
--
Gene "4 months and counting" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spafcem@intelca.UUCP (Chuck McManis) (07/31/85)
> It has been decided to abolish net.general. This group will be > ... > James C Armstrong, Jnr. ihnp4!abnji!nyssa I'm sorry, I didn't know God had died and you were next in line. But seriously folks, as you will undoubtably hear this has been proposed before. (Although in never quite the way you mangaged) And been agreed to by everyone concerned that it was not the way to go. Try this, since all of the people who care have unsubscribed to net.general anyway, just start mod.genral and announce it in net.announce. Leave net.general alone so that the kids can still have their fun and all of the reasonable people will make a beeline for the moderated group. However, attempting to send cancel control messages for net.general will certainly overflow your mail box with so many flames the disk pack on your system will spontaneously combust. Thus completely ruining your very expensive hardware. You don't want to be responsible for that do you ? --Chuck -- "Unix, the Teco of Operating Systems." - - - D I S C L A I M E R - - - {ihnp4,fortune}!dual\ All opinions expressed herein are my {qantel,idi}-> !intelca!cem own and not those of my employer, my {ucbvax,hao}!hplabs/ friends, or my avocado plant. :-}
bob@plus5.UUCP (Bob Simpson) (08/02/85)
In article <139@whuxcc.UUCP>, mda@whuxcc.UUCP (Mark Abramowitz) writes: > If mod.general works the way I think it will work (that is, users will > mail their desired post to some central site, and some demagogue will > decide if it's appropropriate to post and do so if it is), ... Don't you think that we should move this to net.news.group and out of net.general where everyone (ugh) can see it? This kind of discussion should be reserved for cooler heads. I'm sure that democracy will be handed over to the masses when they are *truly* ready. -- Bob Simpson USPS Plus Five Computer Services 765 Westwood Dr. St. Louis, MO 63105 PHONE 314-725-9492 UUCP ..!{ihnp4,cbosgd,seismo}!plus5!bob Plus Five has disclaimed any knowledge of me and whatever I might say.
tim@cithep.UucP (Tim Smith ) (08/04/85)
> Don't you think that we should move this to net.news.group and out of > net.general where everyone (ugh) can see it? This kind of discussion Shouldn't discussion about the removal of a group take place in net.news.group AND the group who's fate is being decided? One should not have to read net.news.group to follow discussions about the removal of groups that one subscribes to! Of course, this means that net.general can never be properly removed, becuase one should never cross post to net.general and another group. So I guess we just have to leave it there. -- Tim Smith ihnp4!{wlbr!callan,cithep}!tim