From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: changing a newsgroup's moderator (was: 3-week discussion period?)
Date: 13 Aug 92 13:31:15 GMT
Distribution: news
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <JIK.92Aug9003525@pit-manager.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu
(Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:

>In article <1992Aug7.200605.12514@ennews.eas.asu.edu> sridhar@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Sridhar Venkataraman ) writes:
>
>   If a vote for change for moderator happens to carry a 'majority'
>   favoring a change in moderator, what is wrong with it? 
>
>1) As I have already pointed out in a previous posting, using the
>newsgroup creation guidelines to change the moderator of a newsgroup
>against his consent is not legitimate because those guidelines allow
>no provision for officially asking the moderator to present his point
>of view.  Therefore, any "majority decision" to change the moderator
>of a newsgroup might very well be done without people hearing his side
>of the debate, or even quite possibly without him KNOWING that the
>debate is taking place.
>
>Unless some provision is made for bringing the current moderator into
>the discussion, the result of the discussion can't possibly be
>considered valid.

This is very easily dealt with. Make it a requirement that the discussion
request for the change of moderator be posted to the group concerned,
clearly marked in the subject field as requiring the moderator's attention.
There should probably be some insurance against email failure - e.g.
possibly there should be at least two RFDs and they should be forwarded to
the group moderator by the news.announce.newgroups moderator rather than
posted directly, to ensure that the email starts from a fairly "central"
site.

The moderator should see the posting concerned, and therefore has a chance
to defend himself. If he doesn't see it, it's presumably either because he's
inactive or because email access to him is very unreliable - both IMHO good
reasons to replace him. If he does see it and doesn't respond, he presumably
doesn't regard it as necessary or desirable to defend himself. If he does
respond, he's been brought into the discussion.

There may be special considerations for groups with special moderation
policies - e.g. I believe news.answers has some arrangement whereby you
authorise people to approve their own articles rather than approving them
yourself, doesn't it? But all such groups should have some centrally known
contact address for the "real" moderator: I don't think there should ever be
any problem about sending a message that will either be seen by the
moderator or, by not being seen, act as prima facie evidence that the
moderator needs to be changed.

>2) As I have also pointed out, if we make it EASY for people to
>challenge the current moderator of a newsgroup and force him to
>explain and defend himself, then we'll be having people forcing
>moderators to defend themselves every time they reject a message in
>their newsgroup.  This is unacceptable.  The job of moderating a
>newsgroup is a pretty thankless one that involves a lot of work.  Any
>procedure for changing the moderator of a newsgroup against his will
>must take this into account quite seriously, and deal with it in a
>manner that will prevent the moderator from spending more of his time
>defending his decisions than making them.
>
>The current guidelines do not do that.  They are, quite simply, not
>sufficient.

The 6 month rule, if extended to such votes, would ensure that the moderator
doesn't get bothered too often. You could even use a stricter version of the
rule - e.g. prohibiting the discussion being restarted for 6 months even if
it wasn't taken to a vote - or a longer moratorium period.

A requirement that such a proposal passes a "feasibility" vote of some sort
before it even starts to be discussed is another possible way to weed out
frivolous proposals.

I agree that the task of moderating a group is often a thankless one. This
doesn't mean that it should be a job for life, let alone that a moderator
should be able to insist on "dog in the manger" rights - i.e. that the job
is *his*, despite the fact that he's not doing it. Note I am *not* saying
that this is necessarily happening at the moment - just that it could happen
if we have a "never replace the moderator without his approval" policy.
Think of the possibilities it would provide for an opponent to sabotage a
moderated group proposal - i.e. keep quiet about your real feelings, step
forward as moderator, then never accept any postings after the vote has
passed...

So some procedure is potentially needed for replacing a moderator when
necessary. Given that the question is actually being raised at present, on
serious grounds rather than spurious ones (like "He rejected my posting"), I
believe it's not just a *potential* need, but an actual one. So let me
suggest a possible procedure:

(1) The proposer asks for a "no confidence vote" in the existing moderator.
    This should use a fixed form of words, along the lines of "IMHO, the
    moderator of <groupname> is not doing his job properly. Should we start
    the process of looking for an alternative moderator?". This is posted to
    news.announce.newgroups and news.groups, and the news.announce.newgroups
    moderator is also asked to forward it to the moderator's contact
    address. (I expect the moderator to approve it for posting to the group
    concerned, though this cannot be an essential part of the process:
    otherwise, a recalcitrant moderator could block the whole process by
    refusing to approve it.)

    A vote is held on this immediately, without discussion. (So far, the
    moderator should know that the process has started, but neither he nor
    the proposer has had a chance to present arguments yet.) If the vote
    passes by the usual Usenet rules, the process moves on to stage (2).

    There is a 6 month rule about such no confidence votes: for any
    particular moderated group, they may not be held for the first 6 months
    after the group was initially created, nor for the first 6 months after
    a previous use of this process (whether successful or not).

    The 6 month rule and the no confidence vote can be bypassed by the
    moderator himself, if he wants to step down. 

(2) If the no confidence vote passes, a discussion/search for moderator
    period starts. This is again announced on news.groups and
    news.announce.newgroups and forwarded to the existing moderator's
    contact address. It lasts at least 3 weeks.

    Discussion continues until it is clear who the candidates are and that
    none of them want to withdraw. The existing moderator is automatically
    deemed to be a candidate unless he specifically says he is withdrawing.

    If there are no candidates left at this stage, the existing moderator
    keeps the job and the process stops and cannot be re-opened for 6
    months. If there is just one candidate, that candidate is now the
    moderator. Otherwise, the process moves on to stage (3).

(3) Finally, a vote is held. All remaining candidates from stage (2) are put
    on the ballot. The vote is announced on news.groups and
    news.announce.newgroups and forwarded to the existing moderator's
    contact address.

    The vote takes the form of a separate YES/NO/ABSTAIN choice for each
    candidate. The winner is the candidate with the largest (number of YES
    votes)-(number of NO votes).

    (Possibly the winning criterion should be biased towards the existing
    moderator when he is a candidate, to try to avoid the disruption caused
    by a change of moderator. One possibility that if the existing moderator
    gets more YES votes than NO votes, he automatically wins regardless of
    what the other candidates' totals are.)

I think this addresses Mr. Kamens' objections.

Any comments?

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...