• Re: 2nd RFD: Charter/moderation policy change, news.groups.proposals

    From Paul W. Schleck@21:1/5 to board@big-8.org on Mon Jun 20 11:27:48 2022
    XPost: news.groups.proposals

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    In <t87ec9$o4b$1@dont-email.me> Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

    REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
    moderated group news.groups.proposals

    This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) to suspend the charter and >moderation policy of the Usenet newsgroup news.groups.proposals.

    [...]

    DISCUSSION SO FAR

    D Finnigan argues that aside from occasional technical difficulties, >news.groups.proposals is working fine, in contrast with news.groups,
    which is cluttered with off-topic posts. They recommend that the Board >continue its work on improving the moderation system.

    Paul Schleck suspects that the off-topic spam posts to news.groups may
    be putting off people from posting there. He also wonders whether
    returning configging discussion to news.groups would provide people with
    an unrestricted forum to advance fallacious arguments about moderated >newsgroups. Furthermore, he argues that the problems that led to the >creation of news.groups.proposals could emerge again even in a smaller >Usenet, and that the purely technical issues with moderation software
    are solvable.

    Computer Nerd Kev says that as long as there's still spam on
    news.groups, then keeping discussions moderated is worthwhile. They
    also draw attention to disruptive troll posting on alt.config.

    meff expresses concern about what would happen if the moderators became >unavailable. Given the current posting levels and the ability of current >users to filter messages, they tend to agree with the proposal in the RFD.

    [...]

    This thread has been awfully quiet, with few replies. In particular,
    those who had the strongest opinions about moving back to news.groups
    are currently absent in this discussion. If the Board acted on comments
    so far, it would appear to favor the status quo of retaining news.groups.proposals.

    I don't wish to overspeculate, but possible explanations for this
    include:

    - Some may feel that they have already sufficiently commented on this
    matter in the past, and it is the Board's responsibility to gather up
    all posts on this subject from the deep and noisy past article
    history of news.groups, even if they are ambiguous, contradictory,
    and/or not clear if they are the individuals' current opinions on
    this matter, or even opinions that would be applicable to the
    specific context of this current RFD. This could lead to accusations
    of, "That's not my current opinion," or, "You took my remarks out of
    context," or possibly even, "I was playing devil's advocate."

    - Some may not want to give the Board, and the RFD, legitimacy by
    participating in this process, especially if they feel that the Board
    is likely to make a "wrong" decision.

    - Conversely, advocating for change, then getting that change, may
    undermine a commenter's ability to criticize the Board for their
    actions in the future.

    - Some may feel that it doesn't matter, either because they believe
    that Usenet is "dead," or that their opinions will not be fairly
    considered.

    Or perhaps even:

    - Some actually want the Board to make a "wrong" decision, to set them
    up for future criticism.

    If there are better/different explanations, others are certainly welcome
    and encouraged to weigh-in here, at this time, and in response to this
    specific RFD. Absent that specific, current discussion, there is a good
    chance that the Board may choose to make a decision based on current
    discussion so far, which appears to favor the current status quo, a
    position which I support.

    - --
    Paul W. Schleck
    pschleck@panix.com

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  • From D Finnigan@21:1/5 to Paul W. Schleck on Wed Jun 22 08:00:47 2022
    XPost: news.groups.proposals

    On 6/20/22 12:27 PM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

    Absent that specific, current discussion, there is a good
    chance that the Board may choose to make a decision based on current discussion so far, which appears to favor the current status quo, a
    position which I support.


    It's a logical decision in light of the present conditions of
    news.groups; merely some technical difficulties with moderation which
    can be overcome.

    The other difficulties, namely low participation rate in the
    news.groups.* hierarchy and the number of off-topic postings, are not so
    easily overcome in comparison.

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  • From Steve Bonine@21:1/5 to Paul W. Schleck on Wed Jun 22 08:00:57 2022
    XPost: news.groups.proposals

    Paul W. Schleck wrote:

    This thread has been awfully quiet, with few replies. In particular,
    those who had the strongest opinions about moving back to news.groups
    are currently absent in this discussion. If the Board acted on comments
    so far, it would appear to favor the status quo of retaining news.groups.proposals.

    I don't wish to overspeculate, but possible explanations for this
    include:

    ...

    - Some may feel that it doesn't matter, either because they believe
    that Usenet is "dead," or that their opinions will not be fairly
    considered.
    Bingo.

    I think it's fair to say that I am one of the folks "who had the
    strongest opinions". Back in the mists of time, when
    news.groups.proposals was established, there was a reason to create it.
    Many did not agree with that rationale, and their opinion was justified.
    It was a "lesser of two evils" decision. I think that it worked
    pretty well in terms of providing a place to have a coherent discussion
    on creating newsgroups. As an aside, during the years when I was a part
    of the moderation team, we probably rejected less than a dozen
    submissions. Flamers and trolls just didn't bother.

    But those days are gone. Volume in news.groups is vanishingly low, so
    the concerns about the Board not wanting to follow discussions there no
    longer exist. These discussions are "make work" anyway; look at what has
    been accomplished in the past few years. By my count, one new newsgroup
    with marginal volume and a lot of chatter about resurrecting dead
    groups. Hell, the submission mechanism to news.groups.proposals was
    broken for months if not years, and no one even noticed.

    The reason there's no opinion being expressed is that there is no one
    left to express them. Or the tiny population who peaks in here from
    time to time just doesn't care. My preference would be for the Board to dissolve itself and find more productive things to do with their time.
    Usenet will sink further into oblivion, with or without the "actions" of
    the Board; one of these days the folks who are providing news feeds will
    lose interest (or the hardware will croak) and then it will all be moot.

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  • From Tristan Miller@21:1/5 to Paul W. Schleck on Wed Jun 22 08:00:22 2022
    XPost: news.groups.proposals

    Greetings.

    On 20/06/2022 19.27, Paul W. Schleck wrote:
    This thread has been awfully quiet, with few replies. In particular,
    those who had the strongest opinions about moving back to news.groups
    are currently absent in this discussion. If the Board acted on comments
    so far, it would appear to favor the status quo of retaining news.groups.proposals.

    I don't wish to overspeculate, but possible explanations for this
    include:

    - Some may feel that they have already sufficiently commented on this
    matter in the past, and it is the Board's responsibility to gather up
    all posts on this subject from the deep and noisy past article
    history of news.groups


    This RFD was prompted in part by suggestions we received from two or
    three people in the past couple years. One of these people has
    participated in the current discussion, though hasn't repeated or argued
    for their suggestion to dispense with news.groups.proposals.

    I can't speak for the other Board members, but I certainly won't be
    conducting any research into what opinions people have expressed on this
    issue in the time between the creation of news.groups.proposals and the
    current RFD. My own decision will be based primarily on the discussion
    of this RFD, considered against the background of the original reasons
    for creating news.groups.proposals (as summarized in the RFD), and
    possibly any further facts or arguments raised by the other Board
    members during the voting phase.

    If there are better/different explanations, others are certainly welcome
    and encouraged to weigh-in here


    You left out another, more charitable, possible explanation, which is
    that the proponents of moving back to news.groups have been swayed by
    the recent arguments to the contrary, and so have abandoned or changed
    their opinions.

    In any case, if anyone (still) agrees with the proposal set forth in the
    RFD, I would love to hear their views, and particularly what they think
    about the arguments raised thus far by opponents of the proposal.

    Regards,
    Tristan

    --
    Usenet Big-8 Management Board
    https://www.big-8.org/
    board@big-8.org

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