From: jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey)
Subject: Rec.food.recipes  (was Re: Could everybody cross-post recipes...)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 07:05:14 GMT

In article <2534227@bailey.UUCP> ben@bailey.UUCP (Ben Bailey) writes:
>Instead of hand wringing(?) and worrying about what somebody might
>think, how about some action?  
>
>The whole purpose of news.groups is to allow for a vote to decide such
>items.  Or is the idea of a democratic process to decide such an issue
>too alien in todays culture?  Maybe for you, but not me!
>
>I can't believe that we are sitting here worrying about what might
>defend someone when we're basically dealing with a dead group!
>
>The real question, as someone else mentioned, is "do we need both
>a rec.food.cooking and a rec.food.recipes"?  I vote yes.  Do we
>need it moderated?  NO! THAT KILLED IT!  It's so protected IT DIED!  
>WE SUFFOCATED IT!  Why worry about SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T WORK?
>
>Heat the stove folks! Lets get on with it!


	I was one of the people who, in the wake of the long absence of
postings on rec.food.recipes, advocated unmoderating the newsgroup.  I've
been looking into the more bureaucratic side of Usenet to see just what
could be done.  It's not nearly as simple as one might think--  in fact,
its impossible (at least according to current Usenet guidelines).

	There has been a big discussion raging in news.groups about the
possibility of replacing a negligent moderator.  Apparently, the moderator
for rec.arts.erotica vanished from the face of the earth a number of months
ago.  No postings had been made, no letters replied to, nothing.  Many of the
readers of rec.arts.erotica decided that this situation was intolerable, and
one of them posted an RFD on news.groups and a few another newsgroups calling
for the existing moderator to be replaced.  The two main powers of netland,
a Dave somebody and another fellow whose name escapes me, decided not to
accord any validity to the RFD or anything that might come of it.  It 
specifically says in Usenet guidelines that the RFD/CFV process is only
for the creation of new newsgroups--  not for any other purpose, including
moderator replacement.
	How, you may ask, can a moderator be replaced?  No-one knows.  There
is no statement in Usenet policies anywhere describing how moderators could
be recalled/replaced.  Apparently such a thing has never been done in the 
entire history of Usenet, so nobody has ever drawn up a procedure for it.
Similarly, no policy (or historical precedent) exists for unmoderating an
already moderated newsgroup--  apparently it's never been done.  And since
the great netgods don't seem to know what the proper procedure for un-
moderating a newsgroup is, they will not approve any attempts to unmoderate
a newsgroup, even if a near-unanimous newsgroup readership requests it.  So
much for democratic process.
	There is some talk going on about trying to create a set procedure for
moderator replacement, and even for unmoderating newsgroups, but I wouldn't
count on it.  A lot of people with power seem eminently unwilling to do
anything that poses a challenge to existing Usenet bureaucracy. 

	So, to bring this back to rec.food.recipes---  I wouldn't really
count on it being unmoderated at anytime in the near future.  Even if there
were overwhelming support for during so (and there probably isn't), the 
bureaucratic mess that would have to be waded through would probably discourage
all but the most hardy from pursuing it very far.  Since it is possible to
post unmoderatedly on the other rec.food.* groups, and since rec.food.recipes
seems to have returned (there have been about a dozen recipes posted in the 
past three or four days, it's probably not even worth the feeling of just
anger that one gets when fighting an unreasonable bureaucracy.

	--  Jim C. <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>

P.S.  I cannot help but add, with a tip of the hat to Galileo, that it still
should be unmoderated.
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking