On Mar 8, 1:09 pm, "
wrote:
On Mar 8, 8:30?am, "KC4UAI" wrote:





On Mar 6, 8:04 pm, John Smith I wrote:

To Whom It May Concern:

Following is a message taken from RRAM. ?My REJECTED response to that
message. ?And, a message from the automaton on WHY the message was rejected.
snip
Your message has been rejected because you posted into a thread that had
strayed off topic and was closed by the moderators. All messages from
all posters, posted to this thread, are autorejected, and this rejection
does not single you out in any way.

Please read the charter of rec.radio.amateur.moderated at:

? ? ? ?http://www.panix.com/~rram/usenet/rram/index.html

Please direct any queries to .
snip

John,

So your message was rejected because the thread was closed.... I don't
see a problem with that.

Not if one is a moderator. :-(

I suppose you can claim bias because I'm a moderator... Even if it's
not true, how do you go about disproving that charge?

Try understanding that not everyone is a daily participant
in any newsgroup. They may be absent for several days.
Those non-daily participants MAY have something cogent
and meaningful about a discussion topic. A solution to the
"closed thread" could be a simple posting that a particular
thread has been closed by "the moderators."

I'll take that as a valid suggestion, that we post a message to the
thread that says it is closed to further posting. I'll bring that up
to the group and see what they say.

I've been a participant in computer-modem communications
for 23 years on BBSs, private networks, and the Internet
carried "usenet" newsgroups. Yes, I've also been a moderator
on some large local BBSs and know what it is like. You WILL
get angry denunciations from the dissatisfied. TS. The skin
MUST grow tough and thick to do the job.

Don't think my feathers are ruffled here. I too have been involved in
BBS activities for over two decades and had multiple fido-net nodes
over the years. I do care that *constructive* critics are listened
to, but I'm not offended when somebody disagrees with me.

Now there is a "board" of moderators...more likely one has
their "turn in the barrel" for a day, checking up on content.
If the "board" wanted to do a good job, go out on PATROL;
i.e., roam the territory and, if something irritates them, try
sending warning messages privately, then publicly. It is
better than simply "closing the doors" and not saying
anything to anyone in public.


Well, this is not how our policy works from your point of view. There
is no way you could tell if the board is actively looking at the
individual moderation decisions or not. I can assure you that the
moderation software keeps logs, and the logs are being reviewed by the
board on a regular basis. We have had regular discussions about
decisions that where considered "border line" though just this avenue.

However, if you feel a decision was improper, we have provided you a
means of calling a specific event to their attention. That is the
point of the appeals process.

If you do, please appeal the decision and it will be reviewed by the
board, who are not involved in any of the day to day moderation
decisions.

The "board" ought to get its act together as a unit...work
on this "moderation" as a cohesive unit, not a disparate
collection of individuals relying on some (unknown)
program "robocop" checking out the post content of
those NOT on the "white list," sending out private e-mail
notices, and generally wasting time with all this "appeals"
busy work which can take days.

So you would propose that we handle every message on the group one at
a time though a single filter? I'm sorry, but that is not very
workable in the real world. We are trying to maintain a reasonable
discussion with a minimum of delay and what you propose might cause
very large delays in getting posts approved. We decided that it was
more important to be timely and depend upon a group of moderators
making individual decisions. What you propose is a group of
moderators debating every choice every time. Automation has it's
limits and problems, I won't argue that point, but it's much better
than doing this all by hand and having to deal with the delays
involved with doing it that way.

Snip the Orwell referance..

On "moderation" I've been there, got lots of T-shirts,
wore out a few. The "moderated newsgroup" idea is
nice only in theory but, in practice, it is just trying to
re-invent a wheel...one that has lots of flat sections
on it. That's been done before and hasn't worked well.
The "board" may be an innovation but all those "appeals"
are just time-wasting busy work. Think about it.

Well I have only one T-Shirt and one Hat for my past efforts.... And
we have thought about this quite a lot as a group. I'm satisfied that
we have a reasonable compromise on how we are going about this. Is it
perfect? Perhaps not, but what human endeavor is? We are open to
suggestions on how to improve, and over time we surely will if we keep
trying.

-= bob =-