From: sbhattac@wissel.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: ~.recipes; M.Shafer,opinion?
Date: 16 Aug 92 21:51:37 GMT
Organization: NYU Stern School of Business

In article <2799228@bailey.UUCP> ben@bailey.UUCP (Ben Bailey) writes:
>Mary,
>
>There is some discussion going on regarding making rec.food.recipes an
>unmoderated news group.  This group has effectively been dead for some
>time, and there appears to be some interest in reviving it.

I don't presume to speak for Mary Shafer, who speaks just fine for herself,
but Ben did solicit other opinions as well, so what the hell...

We've seen all these suggestions to unmoderate rec.food.recipes. So I ask
those who want that done: What is your vision for the unmoderated group?
What do you want to see on the group? What do you want to *NOT* see on the
group? Will it see only recipes and requests for recipes? Will follow-ups
be allowed? How far will follow-ups be allowed to diverge from algorithmic
information before a branch on the thread gets killed? Will there be such a
cut-off? Who will make that cutoff tick?

If stuff appears on rec.food.recipes that you think is inappropriate for
the group, what will you do about it? What makes you think you can do
anything about it? And if you do not want to do anything about it, or don't
think you can, why do you think it will stay different from
rec.food.cooking in the long run?

Is there any reason to expect that an unmoderated restrictive group will
stay in line, by any mechanism?

It may be worth remembering that what we are talking about is not
rec.food.recipes, revived and active and all, and exactly as it has been,
except without a moderator. We are talking about rec.food.recipes, revived
and active, in whatever form it evolves to without a moderator. If you
don't think it will change a good deal, I think you are mistaken.

I presume that this sort of thing goes into the discussions that precede
changes, but I also assume that those who want changes have already
thought about why they want things changed, and what they want the end
product to be.

I have little personal interest in what happens to rec.food.recipes. I find
it too restricted to be interesting. I'm a general purpose food enthusiast,
not a recipe enthusiast. But plenty of people apparently like a recipes
only group. Does it have any real hope of staying the same without a
moderator?

Rec.food.recipes seems to be reviving. What will unmoderating it achieve
that cannot be achieved on rec.food.cooking? I think you have to answer
that last question in pretty persuasive fashion to make a case that the
group should be unmoderated.

Heck, if just the two Carol[e]s were to add header information which
identifies recipes as to type, for just the wealth of recipes with which
they bless us, all by their twosome, an unmoderated rec.food.recipes
becomes essentially irrelevant right away. 

I'm not suggesting that we gang up on them specifically and demand that
they do it, just that most of the recipes come from a fairly small number
of people, and if we established conventions for headers here, and just the
frequent contributors of recipes followed them, we would have about as much
compliance as we are likely to get on any unmoderated recipes group. If you
want more compliance, or better control of followups and such, you need a
moderator.

- Shankar
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking