Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site leopard.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!leopard!lat From: lat@leopard.UUCP (Laurie) Newsgroups: net.news.stargate Subject: Re: Traffic in present moderated newsgroups Message-ID: <117@leopard.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 23:14:19 EST Article-I.D.: leopard.117 Posted: Wed Feb 6 23:14:19 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 00:18:14 EST References: <347@wjvax.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, NVC, 331 Newman Springs Road, Red Bank, NJ 07701 Lines: 57 [i think i got off the subject a bit, but i decided to post it anyway and add my measly $0.000002 worth] > The point is, given a choice, do people even read the moderated > stuff? Or do they continue in their old anarchistic ways? > > I wonder if this inclination is representitive > of netters in general? > -- > > Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.) > {pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix}!wjvax!ron Well Ron, I, for one, would love to have moderated newsgroups. Unfortunalely, they do not get forwarded to us...someone up the line must not be running 2.10.2, but I don't have the time to track it down. I work full time (yes, I am one of those *nasty, despicable system administrators* :-), and there are barely enough hours in the day for me to do my job, let alone plow through 10**10 repetitive postings. I am also taking classes at night so that I can get my degree, which cuts into my "free time". I usually end up reading news (if at all) between 10pm and midnight -- not too much fun when you are bone tired. I still wonder how anyone can read the volume of stuff that goes through this network and still get their job done (i know some of you can do it, but most of us can't). After being a (mostly passive) user of the net for well over two years now, I was happy to hear that moderated groups were being tried out. There has been way too much abuse of this network; and I think Lauren, Mark, Chuq, Gene, and a few others would agree. The idea (I thought) originally behind the moderated groups was to try to get things under control. If you have been reading other newsgroups, like net.books or net.singles, (I will leave net.unix, net.unix-wizards, and a few other well known past fiascos out of this), you would see that the pornography debate and jeff sargent (no harm intended, jeff) issue has taken up most of the traffic in those newsgroups. If they were moderated, they would have (could have, whatever) been channelled off into either new newsgroups, compacted into a digest, or something, other than propagating 10**2 followups to every article, which either had nothing to do with the group they were being posted to, or said the same thing (ok, 10**2 is a bit high :-). I do not think of moderation as censorship, but it seems that there is a fine line between the two. I hope USENET can stay intact, be it through STARGATE or some other form of communication. If this means moderation, then I'm all for it, and if I can find some more time (maybe they'll change the days to allow 30 hours instead of only 24 :-) I'll try to help out any way I can. -- Laurie {ihnp4, gatech, allegra}!leopard!lat