From: joe@sfbooks.com 
  
 This is a "line-by-line" set of comments, based on reading the 
 thread to date and on my experience as a nine-year regular reader 
 of news.groups.  I am not familiar with rec.woodworking and 
 normally make it my practice not to go visiting relevant groups 
 during a newsgroup debate.  So take my comments with at least 
 that much salt. 
  
 In article <1094517458.28066@isc.org>, Vito Kuhn  
 wrote: 
  
 >                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) 
 >               moderated group rec.woodworking.moderated 
 > 
 > Newsgroup line: 
 > rec.woodworking.moderated Woodworking discussion group for all ages. 
 (Moderated) 
  
 As Ru Igarashi noted, you're wasting space in this line; unless 
 otherwise noted, all newsgroups are assumed to be discussion groups. 
  
 > RATIONALE: rec.woodworking.moderated 
  
 No comments, except to note that whoever it was who told you not 
 to use rec.woodworking-ese was, um, being ignorable. 
  
 > CHARTER: rec.woodworking.moderated 
  
 > The purpose of the newsgroup is to facilitate open discussion of 
 > woodworking in a family-safe environment. This group is open to 
 > woodworking enthusiasts of all ages, genders, and nationalities. 
  
 Again to echo Ru Igarashi:  you should define 'woodworking' here. 
  
 > Moderation Policy: This newsgroup is moderated the old fashioned 
 > way, by live human beings. The moderators of the group reserve the 
 > unconditional right to reject any post if it violates any part of 
 > the newsgroup charter. All rejections will be at the sole discretion 
 > of the moderators. 
  
 Quoted for reference below. 
  
 > Posts to this newsgroup should be limited to the topic of woodworking. 
 > No off-topic articles will be accepted. 
  
 Um...  Does "limited to the topic of woodworking" mean that, for 
 example, 
  
 "You should really consider using this technique my uncle, who 
 recently passed away alas!, taught me, where you grip the wood in a 
 C-vise and then ..." 
  
 would have to be edited down to 
  
 "You should really consider using this technique where you grip 
 the wood in a C-vise and then ..." 
  
 ?  Consider, please, that that's what your words are implying, and 
 you may understand some of the hostility towards your proposal. 
  
 > Posts originating from E-mail To News services or known anonymous 
 > re-mail operators will be rejected. 
  
 Whyever for?  If you're hand-moderating everything anyway, what's 
 the incentive to reject these? 
  
 See, they're *normally* banned, when they *are* banned, because 
 people are using robomoderation.  The moderators are betting that 
 there will be few, if any, acceptable posts from these sources, 
 so why even read them in the first place?  But your situation, 
 despite your announced plans to use ReadySTUMP, is different:  you 
 claim you're going to read everything.  In that case, what 
 defensible reason is there to reject that blue-moon on-topic post 
 that happens to come from a mail-to-news source? 
  
 Realistically, I think you should get rid of the "all-hand-moderated" 
 line rather than this one.  I don't know whether ReadySTUMP even 
 *can* be configured to accept anonymous posts, for one thing.  But 
 my point is that the two lines effectively conflict.  To put it 
 another way - why would you put yourselves to the trouble to read 
 a post, especially one coming from a source that usually produces 
 only bad posts, if you're planning to reject it based solely on 
 its source anyway? 
  
 > MODERATOR INFO: rec.woodworking.moderated 
 > 
 > Moderator: Susan Welchel  
 > Moderator: Vito Kuhn  
 > 
 > Administrative contact address:  
 > 
 > Article submission address:  
 > 
 > The moderation team will maintain a world wide web site with 
 > up-to-date e-mail addresses. 
  
 I concur in the general unease about two moderators living in 
 the same place as the sole team.  However, I have to point out, 
 we've already seen that this group isn't attracting a lot of 
 support from prolific posters.  In the unlikely event that it 
 passed, it probably wouldn't get *that* many posts, and it may 
 well be that until the inevitable emergency hit, the group could 
 function with a single point of failure. 
  
 The backup moderator should really be named in some way. 
  
 General comment:  I'm intrigued by the example in this thread of 
 culture clash between the kind of "clean media" concerns normally, 
 in the US, associated with Christians (especially evangelical ones), 
 and the kind of "free speech or die" concerns traditional on Usenet. 
 I've sometimes wondered why people didn't show up here more often 
 looking to create moderated groups as a way of cleaning up a toxic 
 environment, from the evangelical point of view; now I have some 
 idea.  I have to admit my sympathies are somewhat on the proponent's 
 side in this respect.  No reason the Big 8 shouldn't be open to 
 that sort of group.  Although this doesn't look like a promising 
 proposal with which to advance that openness. 
  
 Joe Bernstein 
  
 -- 
 Joe Bernstein, bookseller and writer                   joe@sfbooks.com 
  
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)