XPost: news.groups.proposals

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In <t87ec9$o4b$[email protected]> Usenet Big-8 Management Board <[email protected]> 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
[email protected]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iEYEARECAAYFAmKvEuIACgkQ6Pj0az779o6ZoACgiwN3yLfvEzKX3KYcyxdfYnHP 7T0AoLK6oSJMsN1+7seIBovoeL8mRyhW
=5n3o
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

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.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

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.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

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/
[email protected]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)