Subject: RE: Moderated List Issue(s)

From: "Colin J. Raven" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 10:23:05 -0700

Fellow List Members;
I shot from the hip a short time ago re moderating this list and asked 
(rhetorically) what was involved in moderating a list.....I forget who even 
*owns* this list...perhaps I ought to have directed my remarks to that person. 
(If I could find my subscription email I might be able to answer that myself)
Maybe moderation might solve this stream of less than relevant stuff that seems 
to be streaming over the transom of late. A set of list guidelines published at 
the time of list subscription might also be of some further help.
Or maybe I'm just a star-struck naive idealist!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
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Colin J. Raven
Network & Systems Administration
HDS Lab, Inc
Costa Mesa CA, 		Harrison NY
(714) 428 0300			(914) 835 2200
email: [email-masked]			[email-masked]
http://www.hdsskin.com				http://linus.uhmc.sunysb.edu/~colin/

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From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Sep 1997 01:47:35 +0200

>> Colin J Raven writes:

CJR> Maybe moderation might solve this stream of less than relevant
CJR> stuff that seems to be streaming over the transom of late.

AFAIK, it's "always" been like this. Oddly enough, there haven't been
any "how do I set iso-blablabla" or "there's a severe security bug"
postings lately.

CJR> A set of list guidelines published at the time of list subscription
CJR> might also be of some further help.

Umm, yeah. But then again, Joe Random Luser isn't subscribed. Besides,
pine isn't all that easy to understand. I screwed up a Linux
installation *big* time 2 days ago (actually, it wasn't me but the
Novell net, but that's a different story >,->) and had to use pine
instead of Gnus. Guess what, it took me about 1 hour to set it up in a 
way that was barely useable. Ok, my needs are rather esoteric
(filtering, anti-spam, pgp...), but it definitly wasn't easy. Programs 
like, say, xfmail are a lot easier (i.e. more intuitive) to set up and 
use. Blabla...

What I actually wanted to say was: It's ok for a newbie to post a
newbie question. Depending on how stupid he is, he'll be lightly
toasted or badly flamed, and pointed in the general direction of both
the netiquette and the faq. Voila. I only wish the faq were numbered:
it's much nicer to be able to say "read 4.5" than c&p all that boring
stuff.

One thing I've already suggested in the past (sometimes I wonder if
the pine guys are actually a script - but maybe they're just too busy
coding to make pine keep pace with mutt) was to split the mailing list 
and the newsgroup. This way, a moderated group *could* be brought into 
existance, provided enough people would be silly enough to take on
that project. Moderating a mailing list is a lot of work.

One nice feature for pine would be if it could include the OS, version
number and varios other stuff by pressing a button. I find it rather
unnerving to have to look up the headers to find out which version of
pine the poster has been using.

CJR> Or maybe I'm just a star-struck naive idealist!

Guess so. There are just not enough people out there who are willing
to learn the basics of the usenet... err... sorry - the information
super highway. I've seen a lot of whining about how impolite giving an 
rtfm-answer is, but I've rarely seen useable answers by the very same
people. 

What a totally depressing evening...
Robin

-- 
Robin S. Socha, M.A.
Political Science Dept., Bonn University, Bonn
It my life to ruin my own way.

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:51:46 -0700 (PDT)

> it's much nicer to be able to say "read 4.5" than c&p all that boring

Good idea.  I'll pass the suggestion along.  BTW, specific suggestions
for the FAQ will probably get faster attention if you send them to
[email-masked]... 

> that project. Moderating a mailing list is a lot of work.

As I mentioned in a message last week, it looks like the split took
place a couple months ago.  Unfortunately, at least part of the Pine
Team was on the other side of the non-existant gateway :-(

> pine the poster has been using.

I just set the default-viewer-hdrs to include the Message-ID, which
includes the Pine version and platform.  Pine will send the user's
complete configuration if they use the Report Bug command.  What else
do you need? 

-- 
David L. Miller <[email-masked]> | When ideas fail, words come in
Software Engineer, Pine Development Team | very handy. -- Goethe
Box 354841, University of Washington     |
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA  |
Phone: (206)685-6240  FAX: (206)685-4045 |