23 September 1999
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group news.admin.moderation
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup news.admin.moderation.
This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Procedural details are below.
Newsgroup line: A forum for moderation.
RATIONALE: news.admin.moderation
Since the introduction of group moderation (1980) members of the
Usenet community have always had different opinions about moderation:
some users think newsgroup moderation means censorship; others do
it as work with no pay. What is needed is a specific forum where this
topic can be talked about.
At the moment there is no appropriate newsgroup for discussion of this
topic, so posts on the subject are debated mainly in other places like
news.groups, news.admin.net-abuse, news.admin.censorship and the
debate tends to go nowhere. The purpose of news.admin.moderation
is to provide a focal point of discussion on this issue.
In the Big Eight hierarchies there are almost 300 moderated groups:
this should offer sufficient traffic for such a forum. As we all
know, the future will bring increased flows of messages and more and
more moderated newsgroups. Two mailing lists for moderators already
exist. The newsgroup will be something more and will involve normal
users bringing their personal know-how to this specific group.
CHARTER: news.admin.moderation
The news.admin.moderation newsgroup is intended to be unmoderated
to allow users who don't think their message is off-topic to come
into the proposed group and show their message there: "People of
news.admin.moderation, why can't this message of mine be approved
in this newsgroup?" And, of course, the newsgroup can also be used
by moderators to justify their work.
Here new moderators can ask for advice from experienced ones about
the best way to moderate a newsgroup or how to behave with certain
kinds of posters. Users who would like to open a moderated newsgroup
can ask in the group about all the problems that moderation can
include or find out about the help that robo-moderation can give to
save a lot of work (thanks, for instance, to the pre-approved list).
Information on moderation's software tools will be welcome here.
If a moderator disappears, or any other problems occur, posters from
that group can come into the newsgroup and discuss how to deal
with this matter, deciding what to do and who can replace the old
moderator. The goal of this newsgroup is to preserve the freedom
of one and all, users and moderators alike.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.
DISTRIBUTION:
news.announce.newsgroups
news.groups
it.news.moderazione
Proponent: Giovanni Greco