Robo-Moderation of alt.home.repair

[Dick Adams]

In my rarely humble opinion, alt.home.repair is the best of the USENET newsgroups. Unfortunately, it suffers from spam and other worthless stuff. Is it time to implement robo-moderation? You decide!

Benefits: Minimal garbage (No SPAM and mimimal other stuff) A pre-approved list of posters A burn-before-read list of wankers both lists are subject to change.

Problem: Lots of posts from people who are not on either list

Costs: Volunteer co-moderators to approve posts from people who are not on either list. Voluntary donations to cover server costs. Volunteer to deal directly with wankers

When I went to Australia in November 2007, Misc.Taxes.Moderated went to robo-moderation and now requires less than an hour a week of my time. It was always SPAM & garbage free. Nothing has changed.

Dick

-- Richard D. Adams, CPA Moderator: Misc.Taxes.Moderated Moderator: Misc.Legal.Moderated

[Existential Angst]

I dunno.... some of the antics are fun. If people didn't let the spam affect/deter them, it really shouldn't affect the group. rec.crafts.metalworking, rec.autos.tech are other very good groups, with super-knowledgeable people. As long as people keep posting quality stuff, the group should thrive. However, malicious spam can indeed destroy a group.

[Moe DeLoughan]

I did. I use filters. You don't need a moderator to make your decisions for you, you want a moderator to decide what everybody else gets to see. Use a decent newsreader with filters and just choose for yourself. Let everyone else choose how they wish to deal with it.

Usenet newsgroups are like hanging out in a bar or a bus stop. There's a lot of conversations going on, and you aren't going to be interested in a lot of them. Once in awhile you'll get a drunk or a crazy yelling about something. In real life you ignore them. You can do that here, too.

[G. Morgan]

IAWTP

[The Daring Dufas]

Don't be a dick, Dick. Setup your own filters instead of worrying about what everyone else looks at. ^_^

TDD

[HeyBub]

A similar thing happened to alt.comp.freeware.

A couple of serious posters started a moderated newsgroup on Yahoo and rid themselves of the trolls, cut-purses, nit-pickers, pollywogs, squints, nay-sayers, goblins, scrots, stink-eyes, and people circling the drain.

[Home Guy]

I don't know where you're seeing spam.

Outside of google-gropes (which nobody should be using to experience usenet) I see very little spam posted here.

My definition of spam is posting made by an automated process or bot, or posts of a commercial or traffic-driven nature (that usually is posted from IP's located in india, pakistan, and other similar places).

Please cite some examples of spam.

I suggest that you create either

misc.home.repair.moderated

or

alt.home.repair.moderated

And see how many people participate.

[G. Morgan]

And the attendance is low, plus the content gets stolen from the Usenet group.

[G. Morgan]

Good luck getting the goons @ the "big-8" doing a new group cmdmsg. Skirvin thinks he owns it.

[Stormin Mormon]

Set up a parallel list, and see if anyone posts.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Benefits: Minimal garbage (No SPAM and mimimal other stuff) A pre-approved list of posters A burn-before-read list of wankers both lists are subject to change.

Problem: Lots of posts from people who are not on either list

Costs: Volunteer co-moderators to approve posts from people who are not on either list. Voluntary donations to cover server costs. Volunteer to deal directly with wankers

When I went to Australia in November 2007, Misc.Taxes.Moderated went to robo-moderation and now requires less than an hour a week of my time. It was always SPAM & garbage free. Nothing has changed.

Dick

-- Richard D. Adams, CPA Moderator: Misc.Taxes.Moderated Moderator: Misc.Legal.Moderated

[hrhofmann]

No, you can always filter if certain spammers become a real problem.

[Jon Danniken]

Yep. The guitar group (alt.guitar) has also flown the usenet coop, but in their case they made it a damn facebook group, which, IMNSHO, is the worst option available. Apparantly most of the contributing inhabitants of the group made the switch, however.

As for a moderated group, OP is always free to make an "alt.home.repair.moderated" group, and seeing how that goes (I think a lot of the legitimate posters would contribute), but the likelihood of modifying the existing a.h.r. group is pretty much nil.

Jon

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yep, and I'm free not to go there. I don't like the idea of a moderator. Will we have to wear brown shirts when posting?

[Jon Danniken]

I don't know, Ed; you'd have to ask OP about uniform specifics. .

If I was to set up something like this, I would whitelist the overwhelming majority of posters (like yourself) who post actual content, so basically you wouldn't even notice it.

The point would just be to filter out people who come to bicker about things like politics/current events, while allowing pretty much anything else relating to home repair and/or general tinkering and/or general handymanliness/tools/metalworking/woodworking/auto repair/appliance repair/computers/networking/cableTV/, those sorts of topics. Basically whatever people want to talk about that isn't political BS.

But that's just me, and I'm not the one setting this up. ;)

Jon

[Kurt Ullman]

Which you already have the power to do with filters that come with Usenet readers.

But you could, at least on your computer.

[Jon Danniken]

How about we let naked girls dance on the median strip on the freeway? You are, of course, free to ignore them, so it won't be any problem for you, right?

Jon

[Kurt Ullman]

Gee if you keep up with these ridiculously outrageous comparisons, I may have to exercise my filters and take you out. Not sure how something that goes against many laws and endangers people going 70 mph or more even remotely compares to sitting on your ass in a chair and demanding others bow to your wishes.

[MurphyM]

[e-mail] (Dick Adams) wrote in news:k7bt4s$70e$1 @reader1.panix.com:

I see what you want. Your're the guy who loves to have posters in M.T.M refer to you as "esteemed moderator" and who loves to remind people that your word is law.

If anyone is considering this suggestion, go to M.T.M and take a look at how this guy "moderates". It's a classic example of a man without a dick (no coincidence there) trying to make people he has one.

[Vinny From NYC]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2012 16:25:17 -0500, "Existential Angst" wrote in Re Re: Robo-Moderation of alt.home.repair:

Exactly

[Vinny From NYC]

On Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:26:55 -0600, Moe DeLoughan wrote in Re Re: Robo-Moderation of alt.home.repair:

Well put.