From: jimrtex@pipeline.com 
  
 On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:30:28 +0000 (UTC), jtbellj3p@presby.edu (Jon 
 Bell) wrote: 
  
 >In article , 
 >RonB   wrote: 
 >> 
 >>But you *have* changed unmoderated newsgroups to moderated ones in the 
 >>past. Shouldn't an exceptional situation warrant at least a casual 
 >>investigation? I ask for this because I *know* you would find that this 
 >>problem is not the run of the mill internal squabble with which many 
 >>newsgroups are afflicted. We don't care about normal trolls or flame 
 >>wars. It's Jai Maharaj that is the problem and there is nothing 
 >>*normal* about his problem. 
 > 
 >I'm acquainted with Jai Maharaj's antics because he sometimes spreads them 
 >to sci.physics which I read.  Fortunately, sci.physics is a very active 
 >group to begin with, so he doesn't make much of a dent there.  I can see 
 >that in a less-busy group, his presence could be very disruptive. 
  
 We already have a precedent of an /in place/ conversion of a group to 
 moderated to deal with Jay Stevens.  It appears to continue be a most 
 successful group (soc.culture.hawaii). 
  
 >Nevertheless, the technical problems with converting unmoderated groups to 
 >moderated ones "in place" are now very real.  Once upon a time, when ISPs 
 >etc. usually had news server administrators who knew what they were doing, 
 >it wasn't so much of a problem.  Now, most ISPs have marginalized Usenet 
 >to such an extent that they don't have clueful news administrators any 
 >more; it's just one job among many that their harried technical staff have 
 >to cover somehow, most of whom don't use newsgroups themselves.  BarB has 
 >mentioned the problems that news.newusers.questions had, when it went from 
 >unmoderated to moderated.  We even had problems with AOL, and had to work 
 >through back channels to get them straightened out.  That was seven years 
 >ago!  I shudder to think of what it would be like now. 
  
 Are these problems for the poster/reader or for the moderator(s)? 
  
 If a site is (mis)configured as unmoderated, then readers will be able 
 to see approved posts, along with unapproved posts.  A poster can 
 submit his posts directly to the moderators. 
  
 >I can understand at a gut level that it would stick in one's craw to have 
 >to "abandon" an existing group to a persistent troll or "mission poster." 
 >Nevertheless, you have to consider what is best for the people who really 
 >want to talk about screenwriting.  Would it be better for them to make a 
 >clean jump to a new moderated group, which can be propagated to news 
 >servers in a relatively straightforward fashion (although still requiring 
 >some nagging), or to have to put up with the confusion of a group that is 
 >marked as unmoderated on some servers and moderated on others, providing 
 >only one-way communication between two groups of people?  Think about the 
 >difficulties in explaining to them what's going on, well enough so *they* 
 >can explain the problem to their own clueless news server administrators! 
  
 The audience for misc.writing.screenplays is presumably more 
 Usenet-wise than that found on news.newusers.questions, so that they 
 could more actively participate in contacting news admins for their 
 ISPs. 
  
 Alternatively, they can use news.independent.net if their ISP is too 
 incompetent to configure the group correctly. 
  
 -- 
 Jim Riley 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)