Call For Discussion #2: Unmoderation of comp.sys.sun
Bob Greene
rgreene at bnr.ca
Fri Apr 26 02:00:24 AEST 1991
Approximately one week ago, I sent the following message to comp.sys.sun,
alt.sys.sun, and news.groups:
| From: rgreene at bgrgs1.bnr.ca (Bob Greene)
| Subject: Call for Discussion: Change in comp.sys.sun
|
|I'd like to officially call for discussion on changing the status
|of comp.sys.sun from moderated to unmoderated. I've had a lot of
|people (more and more each day it seems) ask me about this - and
|I've given them the standard response: "Well, I've surveyed readers
|of comp.sys.sun before and it has always been in favor of
|moderation, sometimes as much as 3:1."
|
|Anyway, as usual, the people that want change are much more verbose
|about it than those willing to live through things they way they
|are, but those that wanted change finally got verbose enough that
|I feel it's my duty as moderator to take a binding vote. If
|moderation is doing a dis-service to this newsgroup, then by
|all means we should kick the moderator out on his rearside :) :).
|
|So: pro's and cons' of moderation (I guess this applies to almost
|any newsgroup):
|
|Pros: increases S/N ratio
| moderator can reduce duplicate querys
| moderator can reject inappropriate postings
| moderator can answer some simple querys
| reflected moderated digest to non-Usenet news subscribers
|
|Cons: the moderator is pretty slow turning articles around
| moderator may reject articles with some value
|
|I may have missed a few. I would like to hold a discussion over the
|relative merits of this for comp.sys.sun over the next couple
|of weeks (I haven't read this group in a while, so I forget how
|long the time periods are) and then hold an official binding vote;
|if the vote is in favor of non-moderation, I will issue a new
|rmgroup changing it's status to such.
Since that time (mostly because I erroneously specified followup to
poster instead of news.groups, I have received a couple of replies
by email:
|From: tarsa at decvax.dec.com (Greg Tarsa)
|Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 11:06:33 -0400
|
|I prefer the moderation, even with the slower turnaround times, even
|with the occasional long lapses.
|
|For unmoderated discussion, I monitor alt.sys.sun.
|
|Keep up the good work.
|
|Greg
|Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1991 21:07:46 -0400
|From: Mark Prior <mrp at ucs.adelaide.edu.au>
|
|I would rather have a delay while you wade through all the rubbish
|than get inflicted with it myself :-). I already have enough trouble
|with all the rubbish in sun-managers and certainly don't want
|sun-spots polluted in the same manner.
|Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 18:03:46 -0400
|From: ekrell at ulysses.att.com
|
|I don't know. I already get sun-managers and sun-nets, both unmoderated.
|If c.s.s is to remain moderated, its charter should change. It doesn't
|make sense to post "help me" messages to c.s.s if it takes a week or two
|(or more) to get them distributed. When people are having problems,
|they need immediate help and they can go to sun-managers for that.
|The question is : what should the purpose of c.s.s be? I'm not sure
|I know the answer.
|Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 20:32:41 -0400
|From: dan at sun.com
|
|Frankly, comp.sys.sun was quiescent for so long that I began
|checking around to see if an upstream link was broken
|or if someone had accidentally rmgrouped it.
|
|Also, since it is a moderated group, very interesting
|questions never seem to have their replies posted.
|I think people must respond directly to the person
|asking the question rather than following up to the forum.
|
|I would very much like to see an unmoderated comp.sys.sun.
|Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1991 04:49:16 -0400
|From: eirik at theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Eirik Fuller)
|
|Keeping the archival feature of comp.sys.sun even if it becomes
|unmoderated sounds good, but it seems as though archives are one place
|where the effect of moderation is especially handy. There is
|certainly no need for timeliness in archives. :-)
Additionally, the following notes were posted on new.groups:
|From: kaul at icarus.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rich Kaul)
|
|I'd rather see a "split." Unmoderate comp.sys.sun and leave a
|moderated version (comp.sys.sun.digest?) that provides a service
|similar to comp.sys.sun for those who are unwilling to wade through
|the volume that an unmoderated group will generate. That should leave
|everyone happy.
|From: feigin at inf.ethz.ch (Unix Engihacquer)
|Subject: Re: Call for Discussion: Change in comp.sys.sun
|
|I think this is a BAD idea. We already have an unmoderated newsgroup
|for suns. I think that most people reading/posting to both
|comp.sys.sun and alt.sys.sun have some decency (more than just some,
|since the S/N ratio is pretty high, about 80 db or thereabouts :-}.
|However, I would really hate to see comp.sys.sun turn into rec.audio
|or alt.sex, where the S/N ration is more like -6db.
|
|Please keep comp.sys.sun moderated.
|From: mcneill at eplrx7.uucp (Keith McNeill)
|Subject: Re: Call for Discussion: Change in comp.sys.sun
|
|comp.sys.sun has outlived it's usefullness as a moderated group. It should
|be unmoderated on the USENET side. I have no opinion on the mailing list
|side.
|
|Before it becomes unmoderated, it needs to be split up. The unmoderated
|traffic would be too much for one newsgroup. So I propose the following
|groups:
|
| comp.sys.sun
| comp.sys.sun.advocacy
| comp.sys.sun.announce
| comp.sys.sun.applications
| comp.sys.sun.audio
| comp.sys.sun.games
| comp.sys.sun.graphics
| comp.sys.sun.hardware
| comp.sys.sun.introduction
| comp.sys.sun.marketplace
| comp.sys.sun.misc
| comp.sys.sun.multimedia
| comp.sys.sun.networks
| comp.sys.sun.os
| comp.sys.sun.programmer
| comp.sys.sun.reviews
| comp.sys.sun.tech
| comp.sys.sun.utilities
| comp.sources.sun /* which is already there */
|
|The names are derived from the amiga groups. I changed a few of the names
|and added a few.
|
|This is a lot of groups but it should keep the traffic in the individual
|groups down to a readable level. With such a scheme people will be able
|to read what interests them.
There doesn't appear to be a lot of feeling in this one (compared to
some of the news.groups battles I've seen), so if no real controversy
arises, I would like to call for votes on unmoderating comp.sys.sun
on May 6, 1991. The voting period will be between 5/6/91 and 5/30/91.
Again, please direct all followups to news.groups.
Bob Greene Sunspots (comp.sys.sun) Moderator ESN 446-7396
LAN/WAN Engineering and Support (214) 907-7396
Bell Northern Research, Richardson, Texas, USA rgreene at bnr.ca
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