Robo-Moderation of alt.home.repair

[Home Guy]

What spam is being posted to this group?

Do you people even know what spam is - in the usenet context?

[micky]

I can surely see the need for moderation in the two groups you moderate (one of which I often reed, as you probably know.)

But here I just wish people were reliable about putting OT at the start of the subject line and ALSO as the first word in the text, when it's not about home repair. On principle, I rarely reply to an off-topic post that isn't correctly labeled OT.

I see newsgroups as more of a community, for discussing things that interest people, and there are a lot of topics I fined interesting for which either A) no active newsgroup is it on topic , B) I don't want to hunt for a newsgroup just to ask one question, C) If I ask one question on another newsgroup, I won't know of those who answer, who is a crackpot, who is an idiot, who makes up "facts" versus those whose opinion is usually correct and at least sensible and based on facts.

Even the political discussions here, which have some malarkey and some obnoxiousness are, afaict, more sensible than in political newsgroups which have large numbers of idiot ideologues on both or all sides.

I have filters in my software to remove the few real wankers and vulgar people who post here.

Yes, there seem to be a lot of new visitors here, who have a new problem with their home repair.

We really don't get that much spam or garbage here, and because the topic here, home repair, is ethnic or religious, we get few if any hate posts. Normal spam is not that much and not a problem. It's hate that I hate.

[TomR]

I think that's an interesting question, and I have some thoughts and questions of my own regarding the idea.

How difficult would it be to create an alt.home.repair.moderated newsgroup? How is that done? And, if I were to set up a similar moderated newsgroup (not related to alt.home.repair), with me as one of the moderators, where could I find out about getting the robo-moderation software you mentioned and how to set it up and use it?

Overall, I agree that this alt.home.repair newsgroup is one of the best Usenet newsgroups around. I use it all the time along with a very few others. I have seen other newsgroups get overrun with nonsense to the point that either the newsgroup rarely has any on-point posts among the mass of off-topic posts (such at rec.boats that I used to frequent), or they get completely annihilated by spammers such as at the alt.social-security-disability newsgroup (that one used to be great but got killed off by some relentless psycho). And, I see a trend here of more and more people posting political opinions, off-topic articles, etc. and I wonder if eventually this group will go the way of groups like rec.boats. Some of the people who post political and off-topic opinion crap at rec.boats and help make it become useless are posting the same stuff here more and more.

I do use Misc.Taxes.Moderated and Misc.Legal.Moderated from time to time. They are excellent in the sense that there is no crap on either group. But, robo-moderation or not, the reality is that it takes a long time for new posts to appear on those groups -- often a few days or more. I know that you are a volunteer moderator there, and your criteria regarding moderation seems to work well. But, for some reason, new posts only appear every few days or so. That makes me think that the robo-moderation part isn't working well. I only post anonymously on any newsgroups, and many others do the same. Maybe that's why the robo-moderation doesn't work, meaning maybe anonymous posters like me can't get "whitelisted" -- I don't know.

Can the robo-moderation software for any newsgroup be set up so that all posts are whitelisted until there is a problem poster, and then only the problem poster get blacklisted and moderated before their posts go through? And, can the robo-moderation software be set up to moderate/blacklist certain MAC ID numbers rather than just the poster's username and/or email address? That way, people who just keep changing their name to post complete sick and malicious crap from the same computer would get automatically blacklisted.

Thanks. I look forward to your reply and feedback.

[TomR]

To: Dick Adams

You started this thread, and I wrote the follow I think that's an interesting question, and I have some thoughts and questions of my own regarding the idea.

How difficult would it be to create an alt.home.repair.moderated newsgroup? How is that done? And, if I were to set up a similar moderated newsgroup (not related to alt.home.repair), with me as one of the moderators, where could I find out about getting the robo-moderation software you mentioned and how to set it up and use it?

Overall, I agree that this alt.home.repair newsgroup is one of the best Usenet newsgroups around. I use it all the time along with a very few others. I have seen other newsgroups get overrun with nonsense to the point that either the newsgroup rarely has any on-point posts among the mass of off-topic posts (such at rec.boats that I used to frequent), or they get completely annihilated by spammers such as at the alt.social-security-disability newsgroup (that one used to be great but got killed off by some relentless psycho). And, I see a trend here of more and more people posting political opinions, off-topic articles, etc. and I wonder if eventually this group will go the way of groups like rec.boats. Some of the people who post political and off-topic opinion crap at rec.boats and help make it become useless are posting the same stuff here more and more.

I do use Misc.Taxes.Moderated and Misc.Legal.Moderated from time to time. They are excellent in the sense that there is no crap on either group. But, robo-moderation or not, the reality is that it takes a long time for new posts to appear on those groups -- often a few days or more. I know that you are a volunteer moderator there, and your criteria regarding moderation seems to work well. But, for some reason, new posts only appear every few days or so. That makes me think that the robo-moderation part isn't working well. I only post anonymously on any newsgroups, and many others do the same. Maybe that's why the robo-moderation doesn't work, meaning maybe anonymous posters like me can't get "whitelisted" -- I don't know.

Can the robo-moderation software for any newsgroup be set up so that all posts are whitelisted until there is a problem poster, and then only the problem poster get blacklisted and moderated before their posts go through? And, can the robo-moderation software be set up to moderate/blacklist certain MAC ID numbers rather than just the poster's username and/or email address? That way, people who just keep changing their name to post complete sick and malicious crap from the same computer would get automatically blacklisted.

Thanks. I look forward to your reply and feedback.

[MurphyM]

"TomR" wrote in news:k7rubg$7ij$ [e-mail]:

If you want a reply, you must refer to him as "esteemed moderator". Now that you have been reminded, he may reply.

[TomR]

It may be that some of the totally unnecessary personal attack posts caused him to not want to bother getting back into the discussion.

[MurphyM]

"TomR" wrote in news:k7s4jk$g1h$ [e-mail]:

Or it may be that he is smart enough to realize that there isn't much interest here in A.H.R. for an "esteemed moderator" style of moderation. I can't imagine that type of autocratic dictatorial nit-picking moderation and the concomitant fawning toady posting style of participants would appeal to many people here. In comparison A.H.R. is the wild-west. Go to misc.taxes.moderated and do a search on the term "esteemed moderator" and see what I mean.

[Moe DeLoughan]

If he doesn't like what certain people have to say, he can filter them. But he doesn't want to control his actions, he wants to control other people's. That's the issue here.

Filters are for people who want to take charge of what they read. Moderators are for people who want to take charge of what everybody reads.

[MurphyM]

Moe DeLoughan wrote in news:k7tjjg$ntc$ [e-mail]:

Very well put Moe.

[Wes Groleau]

As an "outsider," I wouldn't be able to reliably distinguish between sarcasm and fawning without lurking far longer than my interest could handle, i.e., about thirty seconds.

[Dick Adams]

To get a moderated USENET newsgroup, you have to prepare a charter and have it put to a vote. I will ask my robo guy to send you an e-mail,

I always take exception to the terms 'white list' and' black list'. My lists are 'Marginally Sane' and 'Burn Before Read'.

Dick

[Dick Adams]

You'd only wear a brown shirt if you're a brown shirt kind of guy. Moderation is not censorship and censorship is not moderation.

As Moe wrote "Usenet newsgroups are like hanging out in a bar ...". That's an excellent analogy because as you like it, it's your kind of bar - and that's what counts.

[Dick Adams]

There are people who are polite and the are people who are ignorant. It's been a rare day over the past 17 years that a submission was rejected except for being illegal, spam, or an ad hominum attack. Insulting people is not one of the ways to make friends and influence people.

Dick

[A Michigan Attorney]

I lurk here, but I often post in misc.legal.moderated. I take your comments as objection to moderation in general, not to Dick's work in particular. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me. FWIW, Dick does a fine job of moderating M.L.M.

Your statements, while nice sound bites, are misleading. Moderation is actually a form of filtering. It's intelligent and is essentially done at the server level.

The root of your objection to moderation seems to be that you don't get to control the filtering. That's a legitimate concern, but you should consider the upside too -- which is that many readers are uninterested (or unable) to implement or effectively manage their own filters. That impacts a newsgroup as a whole because spam and trolls drive away potential contributors to the newsgroup. And moderation -- when done properly -- only blocks junk mail. So by opposing moderation, what you are really doing is goring everyone else's oxen to preserve your own sense of freedom.

[John C]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2012 20:49:32 +0000 (UTC), [e-mail] (Dick Adams) wrote in Re Robo-Moderation of alt.home.repair:

So, in your rarely humble opinion is AHR going moderated or not?

[ChairMan]

NO, if he wants it to be moderated he would have to start a new group. It's my understanding that once a group has a charter and has been established it can't be changed. I believe the answers can be found in alt.news.config and is also the group to establish a new moderated a.h.r. I could be wrong, as my memory is not as good as it used to be

[gregz]

AHRM

Greg

[Home Guy]

Something you need to realize is that there is a lot of off-topic chit-chat here, in between posts answering people's questions about drywall or power washers or generators.

Here's an idea about moderation that I dare you (or anyone else) to shoot down.

Any usenet newsgroup that is moderated should operate this way:

Any post that is "rejected" by the moderator should automatically be posted in a secondary group.

For example, we are currently discussing alt.home.repair. Because of usenet charter and past conventions, it will never be possible to convert this into a moderated group. You would have to tack on ".moderated" to the end of the group-name (I would think). I also

*believe* that moderated groups in the alt hierarchy is frowned upon for ideological reasons.

So let's suppose we are talking about rec.home.repair.moderated - I haven't checked but I assume that it doesn't exist. So we have a moderated group about home repair. Any posts that are rejected by the moderator should automatically be posted in the companion group "rec.home.repair.rejected". That way, anyone who is interested can see which posts are being rejected - and can react accordingly.

All moderated usenet newsgroups *should have* been set up that way, from day one.

[MurphyM]

"ChairMan" wrote in news:xAVos.85699$mg6.23122 @fed02.iad:

Well, nice try at a power-grab Dicky Boi, but as ChairMan points out, you can see the posters here are a different, more robust breed than the sycophants in your tax group.

[A Michigan Attorney]

Yes, I know that from lurking. Whether OT chit-chat would be allowed in a moderated group would be a policy matter. Moderation doesn't have to be draconian. It can be as liberal as the chartering members decide to make it.

I think that's a great idea. The posts are diverted instead of destroyed.