NGM: Moderation in some things

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

Moderated news groups have a charter and posting rules. Posts to such groups must be approved by a
human and/or automated moderator (as set forth in the charter).

Ah, There's the rub! Who would be willing to be a 'moderator'? And would we want to be in such a
group if moderated by 'john doe'? How do you 'automate' moderation? Where in the scheme of things do
the posts go to get 'automatically moderated'?

Quoted message said:

To create a "big-8" group, like "rec.bicycles.recumbents.moderated" there's a lot of background
work to be done. Formal RFD, CFV, and balloting.

Creating an 'alt' group, like "alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent.moderated" would be somewhat less work.
No formal RFD Going 'big-8' will take three months or so if successful, but would make it more
likely that most news servers would carry the group immediately.

If there's sufficient interest, we can investigate the requirements further and continue
discussion on-group or off.

Thanks, Jon Meinecke

For those filtering for content based on titles, NGM is short for News Group Maintenance. As
discussion about the newsgroup itself, NGM posts are meta-on-topic.

--

Cletus D. Lee Bacchetta Giro Lightning Voyager clee.orgclee.orgOpen ↗
- Bellaire, TX USA -

Howdy Jon!

Your idea is a noble one. I would probably say that I wouldn't necessarily give up on what we have
here. You know how I approach this newsgroup? I approach it like I used to handle things when I was
a kid. Let me explain: When younger, my parents would have a group of their friends over once a
month to play bridge. It was a big social deal, and mom & dad woul lay out the snacks, etc... (Of
course, us 8 kids had to stay in the tv room and were not allowed to touch the snacks... ...of
course that didn't stop us...) (lol) Anyway, I LOVED peanuts back then, but my mom always bought
party nuts; you know, the kind that has every kind of nut in there as well as peanuts... ...you see
where I'm going with this?

Back then, like now in here, I pick out the peanuts and leave the rest.

In other words, I read what I want and need, and ignore the rest.

It works for me, and can be implemented immediately, and individually. Nice and neat!

Just pick out the peanuts! (No offense to those with nut allergies!)

--
"Sea" ya! --Lars S. Mulford "You can find evil anywhere you look. The question is, why are
you looking?"

"Jon Meinecke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

Cletus Lee <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

Moderated news groups have a charter and posting rules. Posts to such groups must be approved by
a human and/or automated moderator (as set forth in the charter).

Ah, There's the rub! Who would be willing to be a 'moderator'? And would we want to be in such a
group if moderated by 'john doe'? How do you 'automate' moderation? Where in the scheme of things
do the posts go to get 'automatically moderated'?

or thank Mr Ball & BROL.

no ed, nuff sed.

Howard (do the bitshift; do the obvious to respond)

Cletus Lee said:

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

Moderated news groups have a charter and posting rules. Posts to such groups must be approved by
a human and/or automated moderator (as set forth in the charter).

Ah, There's the rub! Who would be willing to be a 'moderator'? And would we want to be in such a
group if moderated by 'john doe'? How do you 'automate' moderation? Where in the scheme of things
do the posts go to get 'automatically moderated'?

Criteria for moderation can be specified in the charter of the newsgroup. A group of people can act
as a panel for approving posts. It needn't be a fiefdom, and probably couldn't be approved for big-8
status if it were. The charter and posting rules for a moderated group can be as open or closed as
the group desires.

I'm gathering some information on the process of creating and managing such groups.

There are mod-bot programs that automate normal approval
(e.g., based on track record of the poster according to the moderating panel). (There are references
to such in the FAQs: swcp.commod faq.htmlOpen ↗)

This would be an additional recumbent newsgroup. The unmoderated alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
newsgroup would continue to exist in its current form.

Jon Meinecke

Jon Meinecke <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

not personally. are we currently experiencing serious abuse, forcing us to go moderated? if not, why
bother? :-)

we are fortunate that the great V hasn't found us. maybe he thinks that bent people wouldn't even
try in the first place. pfft.

: Moderated news groups have a charter and posting rules. Posts to such groups must be approved by a
: human and/or automated moderator (as set forth in the charter).

I'd think automated moderation would work quite smoothly in 99% of the cases. Still, somebody has to
take care of things.

NGs would get the job done very well as both moderated and unmoderated. In the vast majority of
cases, I'd prefer the unmoderated though, for simplicity and guaranteeing freedom of speech.

In general, abuse can be a real problem to cycling-related newsgroups. The question is where the
moderators would draw the line. I can see how that would get personal and political fairly easily.

Perhaps the best approach to moderation would be that all posts would be automatically approved.
Unless the post gets stuck in a spam filter, in which case the moderator would manually approve
it. In cases of extreme abuse (or just plain spamming), the person would be added to a ban list. The
ban would not be permanent and it would require very strong grounds, essentially a general
consensus that the person needs to go.

Well, I think I'm open to at least playing with the idea :-)

: To create a "big-8" group, like "rec.bicycles.recumbents.moderated" there's a lot of background
: work to be done. Formal RFD, CFV, and balloting.

: Creating an 'alt' group, like "alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent.moderated" would be somewhat less work.
: No formal RFD Going 'big-8' will take three months or so if successful, but would make it more
: likely that most news servers would carry the group immediately.

Maybe this belongs to a separate thread? :-/

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fihpv.htmlOpen ↗ varis at no spam please iki fi

"Lars S. Mulford" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"Jon Meinecke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

Quoted message said:

Howdy Jon!

[...]

Quoted message said:

In other words, I read what I want and need, and ignore the rest.

It works for me, and can be implemented immediately, and individually. Nice and neat!

Just pick out the peanuts! (No offense to those with nut allergies!)

Sorry Lars, your very common sensible idea will never appeal to the likes of Jon. He is a controller
and does not want any posts on a newsgroup that he does not approve of. He is a tin pot dictator and
there is nothing he would like more than to be the moderator of a newsgroup. Why are you all not
nominating him for the post of moderator of this new newsgroup? I can assure you, he is waiting to
hear from you. But be careful who you flock to. You may be going from the frying pan into the fire.
I myself would never trust a liberal to moderate anything.

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

Quoted message said:

Jon Meinecke <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Are people interested in a moderated recumbent newsgroup?

not personally. are we currently experiencing serious abuse, forcing us to go moderated? if not,
why bother? :-)

There have been a few times in the past and recently... You are right. Even just thinking about it
is a bother!

Quoted message said:

we are fortunate that the great V hasn't found us

I got on MV's personal emailing list (probably from him harvesting addresses from a national
organization's web site for whom I'm a local group's webmaster). MV is definitely monotopical.
Recumbents are road bikes, in general. That should appease

zone..."

Quoted message said:

I'd think automated moderation would work quite smoothly in 99% of the cases. Still, somebody has
to take care of things.

And someone has to host the modbot. We'd want a diverse panel of care takers, so that no one bias
could prevail.

Quoted message said:

In general, abuse can be a real problem to cycling-related newsgroups. The question is where the
moderators would draw the line. I can see how that would get personal and political fairly easily.

I agree that only light moderation would be desirable.

Quoted message said:

Well, I think I'm open to at least playing with the idea :-)

If there's reasonable support then I'm willing to help. Forming a moderated newsgroup is just one of
the options.

Quoted message said:

: "rec.bicycles.recumbents.moderated"
: [vs.] "alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent.moderated"

Maybe this belongs to a separate thread? :-/

I'd like to see recumbent bikes go BIG-8. It's a status thing. %^)

Jon Meinecke net.subtel-apteryx

Jon Meinecke <[email hidden]> wrote:
: On 6 Dec 2003 08:03:08 GMT, [email hidden] wrote:

:>not personally. are we currently experiencing serious abuse, forcing us to go moderated? if not,
:>why bother? :-)

: There have been a few times in the past and recently... You are right. Even just thinking about it
: is a bother!

Hmm possibly we could get something more from moderation. A group without commercial or for-sale
posts, and a 2nd one for exactly those? Or have a very nice civil group without flaming. Would we
need specialized groups by the generic range of topics? Like separate group for long FAQ postings,
or something like that... creating a resource with very high quality info but also one that needs
more serious moderation.

In any case we'll need at least one very open general discussion group, or possibly multiple of
those, split up according to topic.

:>: "rec.bicycles.recumbents.moderated"
:>: [vs.] "alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent.moderated"
:>
:>Maybe this belongs to a separate thread? :-/

: I'd like to see recumbent bikes go BIG-8. It's a status thing. %^)

There's the issue of whether any groups have been added to the real hierarchies for years. I looked
at Google and it was very confusing to me, there were all kinds of weird top-level hierarchies
listed like "redhat" that weren't there in '93. But it seems that rec has only a few hundred groups
to begin with...

Do all newsservers even deliver our group, since it's in the alt hierarchy?

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fihpv.htmlOpen ↗ varis at no spam please iki fi

<[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Hmm possibly we could get something more from moderation. A group without commercial or for-sale
posts, and a 2nd one for exactly those? Or have a very nice civil group without flaming. Would we
need specialized groups by the generic range of topics? Like separate group for long FAQ postings,
or something like that... creating a resource with very high quality info but also one that needs
more serious moderation.

Some moderated groups seem to be added in response to commercial posts.

FAQs can be handled in different ways. rec.backcountry's form of FAQ are distilled wisdom files,
posted one a day on a rotating/repeating basis.

Quoted message said:

In any case we'll need at least one very open general discussion group, or possibly multiple of
those, split up according to topic.

I don't know that we'd need to split topics too finely.

Quoted message said:

There's the issue of whether any groups have been added to the real hierarchies for years. I
looked at Google and it was very confusing to me, there were all kinds of weird top-level
hierarchies listed like "redhat" that weren't there in '93. But it seems that rec has only a few
hundred groups to begin with...

I don't know the statistics. A check for RFD and CFV in the Google archives might show some
activity. If there's support for a moderated recumbent bike newsgroup, then it would seem logical to
try a big-8 name first.

Jon Meinecke

[email hidden] wrote:

: Hmm possibly we could get something more from moderation. A group without commercial or for-sale
: posts, and a 2nd one for exactly those? Or have a very nice civil group without flaming. Would we
: need specialized groups by the generic range of topics? Like separate group for long FAQ postings,
: or something like that... creating a resource with very high quality info but also one that needs
: more serious moderation.

One more consideration is how our group appears to outsiders. Do we want to project an image of
internal flaming and bickering, as benters and cyclists? Not only would it lead to implicit theories
of "bent personality" but also it could put off prospective newcomers, leaving only (us) old farts
to try to keep up the discussion under heavy flame shelling.

Then again - can you solve this problem with moderation?

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fi~rvarankaOpen ↗ [email hidden]