Re: Moderation

[nathan@parka.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4se4qs$44r@crl2.crl.com>, Joe Kohn <joko@crl.com> wrote:
>I'm not exactly sure how to word this, but I've been on a self-imposed
>vacation from csa2 for the past several weeks. I didn't like what I saw
>before leaving, and now that I've been able to read 3 week's worth of
>messages all at once (not that I actually have read everything), I like
>what I see even less.

   I don't like it either. However, as some people insist on posting
incorrect facts, lies, and other attempts to flame [people on all
sides with halfway impartial minds will note that in Charles Turley's
second 'absence,' I did not continue to flame him. It was only after
his return and he launched many unprovoked attacks on me (such as one
in c.s.a2.programmer where he mentioned my name in a thread which I
had not contributed, would likely not contribute, and was only a slam)
that I continued], we have to clean up after them.

   As I said before, there are certain people whose behavoir makes
them flame magnets, either by their posting of flames, or refusing to
admit that they're wrong on a trivial issue (e.g. Hypercard GS only
being available on ftp.apple.com).

>I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't deal with csa2 in its
>present state of anarchy. It's as if one ego is holding all of csa2
>hostage. My suggestion will not be popular, but I think the time has come
>to have csa2 moderated. The flame fest has simply gotten too far out of
>hand.

   I helped in the proposal for a moderated Babylon 5 newsgroup,
something that took nearly 6-8 months to get working. The first
proposal was to make the existing group moderated. That went over like
a load of lead bricks. Unfortunately, there are a bunch of "free
speech must be guaranteed under all circumstances" types who refused
to allow the possibility of someone not being able to flame away, plus
reservations about the moderators. Even blatantly off-topic stuff like
spam (inappropriate advertisements being posted) was a "right" to the
most diehards in that group. 

   What eventually happened was leaving the old group intact (which
still has just as many flames), but creating a moderated newsgroup
where people who wanted an intelligent discussion safe from flames and
the like could hang out. That got through, and has worked fairly
well.

   Essentially, we have a computer program that looks at all new posts
(moderated usenet groups go through one point, which allows this to
happen), and if the author is on an "approved" list, it is allowed
through. People on the "handmoderated" list, as well as first time
posters and the first post in any thread are all human approved.

   The new moderated B5 newsgroup has worked very darn well for
reducing flammage and other crud. The old one is still used by most of
the specific people that were the cause of all the flames before, and
it's just as bad as before. These flamers _want_ the attention, and if
jumping and down while shouting lies and the like is what they need to
do, they will do so. Ignoring them is not an option; witness Charles
Turley's attempts to pour gasoline and phosphorous all over the
newsgroup on his return, even though we'd ignored him. There is no
known solution short of 'bad acid' or spiking their pot.

   There are some pretty good guidelines on what is appropriate and
what's not, and the moderators have the ability to clamp down on
threads that go too far. [Does that copyright FAQ by Brad Templeton
cover author's rights. That might put an end to the whole discussion
over restricting distribution. However, that "bull***" comment was a
flame in the first place and shouldn't have made it up.]

   With c.a.s2, there are some far more touchy subjects. Sure, piracy
is illegal, but what about discussing sites full of fairly obviously
illegal disk images? If that's not, what about people offering to
pirate disks? Definitely flamebait. And is calling someone who's just
offered to pirate a disk, publically, a 'pirate' a flame, or is it thr
truth?

   c.s.a2 is a hierarchy, which makes the above six times worse. And
what about comp.emulators.apple2, which has to deal with the whole
piracy issue as well?

   If you want details on the moderation scheme for
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, you can email the administrators at
satai@deepthot.cary.nc.us. We'd be happy to answer questions.

   As I hope I said enough times in this post, when Charles Turley was
away for a week, we had a lot of peace and quiet. Not because no
flamers were there, but because those who only flame _back_ were. In
other words, Chuck is a usenet arsonist.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein