As long as we are taliking about rmgrouping ...

[Jim Budler]

In article <476 at brl-sem.ARPA> ron at brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) writes:
>> 
>> The problem with mod.anything has always been that the moderator
>> 'evaluates' the posting.  His criteria will vary according to:
>> 
>> 	1) His beliefs.
>> 	2) How much time he has.
>> 
>> What happened to 'the free interchange of ideas'.  
>
>Free interchange of ideas?  While I am generally opposed to moderated
>discussion groups for these reasons, these arguemnts just do not hold
>water for the sources groups.  The source groups are by definition, not
>discussion groups and a year or so ago we actually split off discussion
>
>-Ron

Since when is someone's source code not ideas?  I didn't say anything about 
discussion.  Life would be much different here without less.  

Someone posted bgrep.  A few days later someone posted bm, a better
implementation of the same algorithm.

Isn't that an interchange of ideas.

Your restricted idea of what constitutes an idea demonstrates perfectly
my point about the problem with moderated source groups.  Even
a game source has been useful to me in gleaning a subroutine or function
useful to me in my work.  I don't just take these sources and compile
them, I find out how they work and I learn from the author's experience.

I was surprised to see a well known software author come out against
the sources groups the other day.  I guess he doesn't remember
that one of the things he is best known for is work on a 'shudder' game.
Would he be as well known or respected today if his University had not
allowed him to 'waste' his time on a game, or he had not been able to 
distribute it 'free' for no 'commercial' gain across the world
America, and the world.  He learned a lot developing that game, I
learned a lot on how to use 'curses' from sources to that game,
and I'm sure that it never would have happened if the contenplated
restrictive policy had existed then.

I have a much simpler answer to most of the problems.  Eliminate the
'followup' capability from news software.  I'm sure this could be
done at backbone sites by some inteligent gleaning of headers, and 
perhaps some effort at local sites to remove the commands from the
various news reading software.  I know this won't guarantee anything, but
given human nature, the extra work needed to exit the news software, edit
a captured article, and post it will reduce traffic significantly.

Another simple change would be to prevent postings to multiple groups. Why
post six copies, choose the MOST appropriate group.  If the author of
an article feels it MUST be in more than one group, he can make the
extra effort of posting it several times.  Currently, the ease with which
you can place multiple group names in a posting almost guarentees a lack
of concern about where it actually should belong.

-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
 Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
 Compuserve:	72415,1200

Bogus newsgroup: net.news: Move to end of .newsrc[yn^L]?

Don't be disctators, use thought.