Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 07:20:33 -0500 Message-Id: <199703051220.HAA27542@delorie.com> From: DJ Delorie To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il CC: jbennett AT ti DOT com, djgpp AT delorie DOT com In-reply-to: (message from Eli Zaretskii on Wed, 5 Mar 1997 10:37:08 +0200 (IST)) Subject: Re: c.o.m.djgpp retro-moderated? > DJ, can you please explain what would retro-moderation mean for > subscribers to the mailing list? Thanks. For posts that would be AUTO-retro-moderated, there would be no change, since I already filter out spam and heavy cross-posts (which is all that can be auto-R-M'd). For other posts that are manually R-M'd, unless they're caught *real* quick, they'll make it to the mailing list before they get a chance to get cancelled. The big change will be that (hopefully) off-topic threads that won't die and aren't useful will come to a stop. > > postings to be anonymously canceled with no accountability. There are > > I think you are pushing this issue way too far. The authority to > cancel messages is not given to everyone: the news group has to come In addition, the *ability* to cancel posts already exists, so your concerns are also valid in a non-moderated group. Have they happened yet? If so, I haven't noticed. > My real concern is how well *trustworthy* and *well-meaning* > individuals can indeed classify the borderline postings in a way that > doesn't prevent useful information from getting to people who might > find it helpful. And how likely they are to err the wrong way. > The *real* issue here is not whether a bunch of criminals will take > control of this news group's traffic, the issue is this: how much are > we annoyed by the noise that we get on an unmoderated group, and how > much can we trust our trustees to let them cancel and/or re-route > some of the messages. That is the issue that DJ was talking about; > FWIW, I agree that it *should* be raised and discussed by everybody > who cares to make their views public. Which is why I've been freely admitting the bad aspects of retro-moderation.