From: dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: in favor of a moderated physics group
Date: 12 Jan 93 00:53:25 GMT
Organization: Novell Inc., San Jose, Califonia

In article <1isp7vINNb2j@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> leffler@physics.ubc.ca (Steve Leffler ) writes:
>dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman) writes:
>
>>What is "junk?"  Who are the "crackpots?"  I can understand completely that you
>>do not like to read some posts on the net, but maybe I do.  I do not think it
>>unreasonable to ask you to press the 'n' key a few dozen (hundred, thousand,
>>etc...) times, or to set up your kill file appropriately.  "Junk" as you (or
>>maybe as i) would describe it is not so to others, and there arguably are NO
>>"crackpots" in the world (please allow me to play devil's ---read Abian's---
>>advocate for just a moment).
>
>>You are your own best moderator.  If you don't like what your are reading, 
>>either sound off and try to point out what is wrong, or just don't read it.  But
>>do not try to get it banned from the net as you may be curtailing the interest
>>of another.
>
>   Whoa!  Nobody is trying to ban ANYTHING from the net.  The moderation 
>discussion is about creating a new group to supplement sci.physics, not
>replacing sci.physics with a moderated group.  Those who want to read junk and
>crackpot articles are welcome to continue reading them on sci.physics.  Those
>of us who do not want to have to push the n key a few hundred times to skip
>over junk can read serious physics on sci.physics.research.
>
>				     ---Steven Leffler
>					leffler@physics.ubc.ca
>

I know you are not proposing to "touch" SCI.PHYSICS but rather to introduce
SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH.  But in the body of the first posting, the statement
was made that SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH absolutely has the possibility of becomming
as "wild" or rather "speculative" as this forum (SCI.PHYSICS) is today.  

In the attempt to keep SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH "clean," you will at some point have
to filter a posting or two from that forum.  It is this process that I think is
doomed to failure before you start.  It just doesn't make sense to stem the free
flow of information, no matter how "non-serious" you happen to believe it is.

If you were to say the moderators would simply make the choice concerning which
forum to post an article I would possibly buy into that idea.  In other words,
if someone posted an article to sci.physics.research, and it was dubbed not
serious enough, the moderator would simply post the article automatically to
sci.physics and send back a note to the original poster detailing the reasons
for re-directing the work to another group.  Even here, you run into problems
with cross-posting; who gets to? and who was cross-posted but didn't want to be?
We then would need to consider replies and follow-ups (can you hear my feet
dragging?).

I think you are all just asking for much more of a head ache than you really
want or rather a bigger head ache than anyone needs.  Just let everyone go about
their business.  

I know you and most of the other posters on this thread will probably disagree
with these sentiments.  That is the main reason I have tried to stay mostly 
clear of it.  That is fine for in the morning time we shall all wake up, 
notice the day's beauty and wonder if there is any honey for the morning's break
fast.  That is as it should be.  

Moderated or un-moderated?  New forum or old forum? It really doesn't mean much.
So please, just relax and have a cookie and smile when you listen to kooks ;-)
(Now *there* is flame bait if ever there was such a thing...;-)

dks.

ps.  If your forehead hurts when hit by a hammer, stop hitting yourself!  Don't
hit the back of your head with a bigger hammer to distract yourself, you'll just
end up with a brused head!
Newsgroups: sci.physics