Paul W. Schleck <pschleck@novia.net> wrote:

In my opinion, Big-8 Board rules and generally accepted Usenet customs
would appear to discourage overruling a moderator's prerogative over
their newsgroup. However well-meaning and sincere a third party's
offer to take over the moderation of newsgroup would be, I would
hesitate to vote for that option unless there was either one, or both,
of the following conditions met:

- The former moderator gave his consent to the transfer of
moderatorship.

Garbage! This is a case of a moderator threatening to shut down the
group 15 months ago, changing his mind and continuing it, and then after failing to clean up the spam in the group, he shut it down 3 weeks ago
with no further notice or warning in the group and prior to the posting
of the RFD.

- The readership strongly wanted to continue the newsgroup and had
concrete plans to do so, including one or more replacement
moderators (this could include endorsing you as a replacement
moderator).

This, on the other hand, is a legitimate argument. If there is a
readership that wants to use the group, they should be able to endorse
or reject a proposed moderator (in this case, me). With traffic as low
in the cesspool of a group as it has been over the past year, any
readership probably only checks in once or twice a month, so it may take
a while for anyone to notice the RFD.

It's also quite possible that there is no longer any readership, in
which case the group should be removed. Just don't be in an indecent
rush to remove it. The fact that those who have moved to Facebook are
no longer interested in the Usenet group does not necessarily mean that
no one is interested in it.

--
Kathy

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Big 8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

2nd REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group misc.writing.screenplays.moderated (remove)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the moderated newsgroup misc.writing.screenplays.moderated.

NEWSGROUPS LINE:
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated Craft/business of screenwriting. (Moderated)

RATIONALE FOR REMOVAL:

Over the past few years many of the posters to misc.writing.screenplays.moderated have moved to a FaceBook group. The moderator feels that there is no longer sufficient interest in the
newsgroup so it should be removed. This RFD is to determine whether
there is, in fact, enough interest to retain the group plus a qualified volunteer who wishes to take over the moderation.

I suspect that in order to have the interest to retain, the moderation absolutely has to get rid of the spam so that worthwhile posts can be
found.

I am hereby volunteering to take over the moderation, using the Robomod moderation platform hosted by Brian Edmonds. I would have volunteered
sooner, but I needed to make sure first that Brian would be willing to
host the group. He is willing to do so, and Robomod is a proven
successful platform.

To be qualified, the volunteer should be acceptable to the community intending to use misc.writing.screenplays.moderated and have the
technical knowledge to be able to perform the moderation duties.

I currently moderate or co-moderate a number of groups, most of which
are mostly dead now due to lack of submissions but have been active in
the past. These include:

news.newusers.questions, hosted on HuHu
news.announce.newusers
news.admin.net-abuse.policy, hosted on Robomod
news.groups.proposals, using WebSTUMP hosted by Jonathan Kamens
news.admin.moderation, using WebSTUMP hosted on Panix by B8MB
comp.software.shareware.authors, hosted on Robomod
comp.software.shareware.announce, hosted on Robomod

Note: The group is currently shows a great deal of Usenet and Email
spam. A candidate to take over the moderation should, in addition to
the moderation policy listed in the charter below, plan to use implement measures to reduce/eliminate the spam.

I totally agree! The spam is inexcusable and has got to go! Robomod uses
Bayes filters which are extremely effective. There is almost none that
makes it past the filters for me to reject for the three groups that I
already moderate using Robomod.

In fact, I would expect that at first there will be a number of false positives, causing messages to be rejected that should be posted. (I
suspect some of the screen play excerpts that regulars have posted in
the past would trigger spam filters.)

I would plan to work with the regulars in mwsm to re-train the filters
as needed to make sure their posts get through or develop some kind of
"token" that helps posts get to me.

misc.writing.screenplays.moderated will probably continue to be very low volume, and maybe this is an exercise in futility, but I'd like to give
it a try.

If you are a current or previous poster to
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated and would like for me to try to save
mwsm by taking over the moderation, please followup to this in news.groups.proposals to let the Big 8 Management Board know. They will
be voting on this RFD, and if there doesn't appear to be support for
continuing the group with me as moderator, it will almost certainly be
removed.

--
Kathy Morgan
cc'd in email to some of the prior mwsm supporters, in case you missed
the RFD in the group

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In <1m8t6es.zvcpvu5hcftdN%kmorgan@spamcop.net> kmorgan@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan) writes:

Big 8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

2nd REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group misc.writing.screenplays.moderated (remove)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the moderated
newsgroup misc.writing.screenplays.moderated.

NEWSGROUPS LINE:
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated Craft/business of screenwriting.
(Moderated)

RATIONALE FOR REMOVAL:

Over the past few years many of the posters to
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated have moved to a FaceBook group. The
moderator feels that there is no longer sufficient interest in the
newsgroup so it should be removed. This RFD is to determine whether
there is, in fact, enough interest to retain the group plus a qualified
volunteer who wishes to take over the moderation.

I suspect that in order to have the interest to retain, the moderation >absolutely has to get rid of the spam so that worthwhile posts can be
found.

I am hereby volunteering to take over the moderation, using the Robomod >moderation platform hosted by Brian Edmonds. I would have volunteered >sooner, but I needed to make sure first that Brian would be willing to
host the group. He is willing to do so, and Robomod is a proven
successful platform.

Kathy,

Thank you for your generous offer to take over moderation of misc.writing.screenplays.moderated. As you are an experienced former
Board member, long-time moderator of multiple newsgroups, and with
access to a working moderation bot provided by Brian Edmonds, this is
certainly a credible offer to be seriously considered.

Unfortunately, whatever support for transferring moderation and
continuing the newsgroup that was expressed by the former moderator
and the newsgroup's readership back in May of 2014 appears to have
disappeared today. The newsgroup's former moderator and readership
also appear to have since decamped to the "MWS" Facebook page to
continue on-topic discussion there.

In my opinion, Big-8 Board rules and generally accepted Usenet customs
would appear to discourage overruling a moderator's prerogative over
their newsgroup. However well-meaning and sincere a third party's
offer to take over the moderation of newsgroup would be, I would
hesitate to vote for that option unless there was either one, or both,
of the following conditions met:

- The former moderator gave his consent to the transfer of
moderatorship.

- The readership strongly wanted to continue the newsgroup and had
concrete plans to do so, including one or more replacement
moderators (this could include endorsing you as a replacement
moderator). In short, if a moderator's requested rmgroup would
likely be immediately followed by an RFD and newgroup to reinstate
the newsgroup, it would appear to be sensible to jut allow the new
moderator(s) to immediately take over, even over the objections of
the former moderator, and not make the Usenet readership and news
server network suffer through unnecessary bureaucratic process and
control message whiplash.

Right now we do not have either of these conditions met. These
conditions can arguably only be met by posts to Usenet, including news.groups.proposals, and not Facebook or private e-mail.

I would recommend that any supporters of retaining the newsgroup,
possibly appointing you replacement moderator, make their intentions
known via posts to Usenet newsgroups, and in the next week or so
before the Last Call for Comments is published.

- --
Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger pschleck@novia.net for PGP Public Key

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