From: venu@cirrus.com (Venu Nayar)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala
Subject: Re: Details [Who decide what goes on ack etc]
Date: 22 Jan 93 17:51:15 GMT
Reply-To: venu@cirrus.com
Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc.

In article d100000@gwunix1.gwu.edu, tstpcc@gwunix1.gwu.edu (Paul C. Chemmanoor) writes:

[reasons for why we, the people, own the internet deleted]

however, let us take spaf's points one by one. they have been argued about endlessly on the various news.* groups, but since it is here, ok.

>Original-author: Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu)
>
>A number of moderated groups exist on the net.  These are groups which
>usually have one or more individuals (acting as editors and/or
>moderators) who must approve articles before they are published to the
>net.  

let me delete the rest of the quotes from spaf's articles, and try to summarise it more meaningfully. the points are:

1] a number of moderated news groups exist already.

2]  unmoderated newsgroups have a lot of noise, and wasted bandwidth.

3] posting to a moderated newsgroup is simple. your news reader will do it automatically or else you just have to mail it to the moderator.

4] only the moderator can post to the newsgroup.

5] if you disagree with the moderator about some issue, you take it up with the moderators' mailing list (a judging commitee of sorts).

now let us check to see what gene says. points 1 and 3 are not germane to the issue. point 2 is a given. 

however, point 4 are the main issues. the moderator has the power of censorship. not that it will be excercised indiscriminately, but if it is, then the readers' only recourse is to write to mailing list which will supposedly take action. however, gene doesn't ever say how long this committee takes to decide on action. knowing usenet, i would assume at least a month. is that acceptable every time someone disagrees with the moderator?

to some extent, this problem has been solved in newsgroups like soc.feminism by having multiple moderators. however, this makes the logistics more difficult. also, the feminism newsgroup has an unmoderated alt group as well where people do post articles rejected by the moderator.

another thing i have noticed about moderated groups is that to some extent, they cease to be discussion groups. they become purveyors of news, but  little else. is that what we want from sck?

i am not arguing either way about moderation, but the main point against it is misuse of the newsgroup by the moderator. however, it does solve the problems about noise. 

>This group of moderators would not have to be "enlightened" or 
>"self-appointed" . Any one who is willing to do the work would
>be part of the committee which would go on the ballot.
>The ballot for forming the new group would have to confirm
>their faith in these people by voting. 
>So they would be far from self-appointed. 
>I do hope they will be enlightened, though :-)

i hope so, too.

but, i guess the issue of moderation will be decided by voting, as will the issue of converting ack to the soc heirarchy. so while this discussion will help in clarifying the issues involved, finally every one has a vote, and the people will decide. usenet, at least, is a democracy. 

perhaps now is a good time to start cross-posting to the news.* groups.

---
Venu Nayar			|		Internet: venu@cirrus.com
Cirrus Logic Inc.		|		(510)-226-2100 X3737 
The problem with the gene-pool is that there is no life-guard.