On Mar 24, 11:18 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
"Mike Terry" wrote in message
...

"JeroenK" wrote in message
...
HFguy schreef:

What would it take to add a moderator to this group?

I have no idea, but this NG being moderated would be something I would
defenitally vote for.

--
JeroenK

Hi - I agree, it would be wonderful if someone volunteered to be
moderator.

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:47:40 -0400, "Paul Zak"
wrote in
:

I hereby volunteer.

Read the FAQ on how moderation works.http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.p...aqs:moderation

Then decide if you truly desire to faithfully approve or reject ALL
the hundreds of articles posted daily to rec.radio.shortwave. If a
moderator is appointed by the newsgroup readership, the readership
will be entirely dependent upon the moderator for ALL content that
appears in that newsgroup. So a moderator of a busy newsgroup like
this must be willing to devote the requisite effort of moderation
several times daily for as long as the newsgroup exists.

Personally, I'd prefer to take personal responsibility for what
newsgroup content I see, rather that have another censor my news, for
it is the unique egalitarian nature of Usenet that is its strength.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Good points all.

One arrangement I'd consider is where the group is allowed to go on as
it always has, only where someone is available who can delete obvious
and persistent attempts at trolling. If this group ever has a
moderator, I'd like it to be a manageable job for him and not
something that'll have him tearing his hair out.

Telamon wrote:

You had better think about this a little more. Right now posts show up
pretty quickly. If it has to go through a moderators computer that will
slow things down even if one was to use computer automated rules instead
of human intervention.

What if the moderators or his ISP has a problem? The news group comes to
a halt. What if the moderator gets sick, busy, or wants to take a
vacation? Does the news group come to a halt or do things run like they
do now until he gets back?

Moderating a public news group is no small thing.

Translation:

If this group had a moderator I wouldn't be able to continue my HD war
with David or participate in other OT threads.

In article prnNh.1375$l96.928@trndny06,
Finetime wrote:

Telamon wrote:

You had better think about this a little more. Right now posts show up
pretty quickly. If it has to go through a moderators computer that will
slow things down even if one was to use computer automated rules instead
of human intervention.

What if the moderators or his ISP has a problem? The news group comes to
a halt. What if the moderator gets sick, busy, or wants to take a
vacation? Does the news group come to a halt or do things run like they
do now until he gets back?

Moderating a public news group is no small thing.

Translation:

If this group had a moderator I wouldn't be able to continue my HD war
with David or participate in other OT threads.

Nope. I meant what I posted thank you very much. Those are very real
problems.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:41:13 GMT, HFguy wrote in
ZqkNh.579$Rp2.288@trndny04:

That's why I've come to the
conclusion that this group needs a moderator if it is to survive as a
viable source of information on shortwave and other related topics.

How does the off-topic content threaten the survival of this
newsgroup?

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:41:13 GMT, HFguy wrote in
ZqkNh.579$Rp2.288@trndny04:

That's why I've come to the
conclusion that this group needs a moderator if it is to survive as a
viable source of information on shortwave and other related topics.

How does the off-topic content threaten the survival of this
newsgroup?

Dissuades people from posting or reading the news group.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"HFguy" wrote in message
news:WskNh.580$Rp2.130@trndny04...
Paul Zak wrote:

"Mike Terry" wrote in message
...

"JeroenK" wrote in message
...

HFguy schreef:


What would it take to add a moderator to this group?

I have no idea, but this NG being moderated would be something I would
defenitally vote for.

--
JeroenK

Hi - I agree, it would be wonderful if someone volunteered to be

moderator.

I hereby volunteer.

That's great Paul. What can we do to support you with this?

I need to put some time into reading the updated info found at
news.announce.newgroup pointed out by a previous poster, as apparently I had
old info on how to create a new NG. If anyone has more or other updated
info on how to do so, let me know!

Mark Zenier ) writes:
In article ,
Paul Zak wrote:
To answer the question "why is it such a PITA": From
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/crea...sgroups/part1/

How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 16:25:28 GMT

This is ancient history. Go read the current FAQ in news.announce.newgroup.

They just created a moderated ham radio group because of some of the
same people who infest this group, so you could use that as an example
of how it's done now.

ANd ironically, one reason I was against the creation of that newsgroup
wsa that it left the mess intact, they moved into their closed newsgroup
and left the fools that cross-posted. They only thought in terms of
the rec.radio.amateur.* hierarchy and not in terms of the rec.radio.*
hierarchy.

Obviously those cross-posted make up some of the problem, though it
ebbs and flows.

Then there's all the digital radio posts. The problem with that, like
any problem that rises up in a newsgroup, is that it starts small
and when it gets big it's much harder to stop. And then there are
the "regulars" who should know better but instead post off-topic
junk.

I should point out that it's gotten so bad that someone posted about
their weather thermometer, when it has absolutely no relevance to
the newsgroup, and to compound the problem people actually offered
up answers rather than to tell the guy to post somewhere else.

Every time this happens, people rush to the notion that a moderated
newsgroup is the answer. That Big Control is the only solution. But
there is intermediate area. The fact that nobody is posting a faq or
a guideline all these years lets the people who think rec.radio.shortwave
is to discuss politics (because some private shortwave stations are
about politics), or the people who think this is about amateur radio
(because of the "shortwave" in the title) or the people who think since
this is about radio then digital radio applies. Or even the people who
think this is some hangout to talk about just about anything, simply
because they can sound like they have an interest in the long distant
reception of radio.

It's gotten so bad that then when people have on-topic posts about FM
DXing or even longwave beacon reception, they erroneously think they
need to preface their post with an apology about the "off-topic" post.
Yet, the intent of this newsgroup, despite the name, is to include
those, while discussing politics isn't the intent. It's one thing
to discuss a radio show heard over shortwave, it's another to ignore
the radio show and simply discuss whatever was being discussed on
that radio show.

ANd I should point out, that too often when people think a moderated
newsgroup is the solution, they are only thinking in terms of getting
rid of junk, they don't really give thought to actual content for
the moderated newsgroup. I know I won't move, and I've been here a lot
longer than many. Witness when Mark Holden created a "yahoo group"
for discussion of synchronous detectors, as if that couldn't be discussed
in any number of existing newsgroups. It started out active, but soon
trickled off to nothing.

Michael

"Steve" ) writes:
On Mar 24, 11:18 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
"Mike Terry" wrote in message
...

"JeroenK" wrote in message
...
HFguy schreef:

What would it take to add a moderator to this group?

I have no idea, but this NG being moderated would be something I would
defenitally vote for.

--
JeroenK

Hi - I agree, it would be wonderful if someone volunteered to be
moderator.

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:47:40 -0400, "Paul Zak"
wrote in
:

I hereby volunteer.

Read the FAQ on how moderation works.http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.p...aqs:moderation

Then decide if you truly desire to faithfully approve or reject ALL
the hundreds of articles posted daily to rec.radio.shortwave. If a
moderator is appointed by the newsgroup readership, the readership
will be entirely dependent upon the moderator for ALL content that
appears in that newsgroup. So a moderator of a busy newsgroup like
this must be willing to devote the requisite effort of moderation
several times daily for as long as the newsgroup exists.

Personally, I'd prefer to take personal responsibility for what
newsgroup content I see, rather that have another censor my news, for
it is the unique egalitarian nature of Usenet that is its strength.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Good points all.

One arrangement I'd consider is where the group is allowed to go on as
it always has, only where someone is available who can delete obvious
and persistent attempts at trolling. If this group ever has a
moderator, I'd like it to be a manageable job for him and not
something that'll have him tearing his hair out.

And you can't retroactively cancel messages, not to any level of having
it work.

There is no central storage of messages. They are accumulated at your
ISP or wherever your newsserver is, and then passed on to the next newsserver,
where they take in new messages and pass on their new messages along with
your new messages, and so it goes. That's the way it's worked since 1979 when
Usenet was created.

A lot of sites will no longer accept cancel messages. At the very least, it
takes time for those cancel messages to propagate through the system, so
many will see the off-topic messages before the cancel would arrive (and
cancel it if the cancel works). So those people reply, even if the
original might disappear.

The fact that google archives the messages is irrelevant to this discussion.
They are just yet another news site, that happens to have a permanent
retention of the messages. But google is not Usenet.

Michael

Telamon ) writes:

You had better think about this a little more. Right now posts show up
pretty quickly. If it has to go through a moderators computer that will
slow things down even if one was to use computer automated rules instead
of human intervention.

What if the moderators or his ISP has a problem? The news group comes to
a halt. What if the moderator gets sick, busy, or wants to take a
vacation? Does the news group come to a halt or do things run like they
do now until he gets back?

Or, the moderator or moderators disappear, and the newsgroup becomes
unuseable. That happened to one newsgroup a decade ago, and it seemed
like people talked about it (in a related newsgroup, but had no clue of
how to fix it. I started posting to it, and that caused others to
fix the problem.

But, that moderated newsgroup is pretty dead. A handful of posts each month,
virtually no traffic. If someone posts a question, then there will be
replies, but there usually isn't much more than one question a month, if
that. I posted for a while, but the moderators felt their job was not
to ensure that off-topic junk and flaming not appear, but also to slap
people for quoting too much. When I had one post rejected for that, I
abandoned the newsgroup. They can't afford to reject people for that,
not when they are providing answers, yet they do.

SOme people think moderating is the solution, but I suspect many of
them don't come from a long history with Usenet. Despite the junk,
there is a liveliness to a newsgroup that often gets lost in a moderated
newsgroup. The moderated newsgroups often become sterile.

Michael

Telamon ) writes:
In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:41:13 GMT, HFguy wrote in
ZqkNh.579$Rp2.288@trndny04:

That's why I've come to the
conclusion that this group needs a moderator if it is to survive as a
viable source of information on shortwave and other related topics.

How does the off-topic content threaten the survival of this
newsgroup?

Dissuades people from posting or reading the news group.

That may be the effect, but it can be countered. If people so gung
ho about moderating put their effort into posting on-topic posts,
at the very least it would raise the level of on-topic posts.

Michael