RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Archive-Name: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
moderated newsgroup sci.physics.acoustics.moderated.

NEWSGROUPS LINE:
For your newsgroups file:
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated Topics in acoustics and vibrations.
Moderated

RATIONALE:

The group alt.sci.physics.acoustics in the same topic space was started
in 1995 and has been a successful group with

productive discussion, but recently spam has become a disruptive
problem. Participants from alt.sci.physics.acoustics would like to move
to a moderated Big 8 newsgroup.

CHARTER:

This news group is intended for preliminary discussion on all technical
fields of acoustics and vibration as indicated by the Acoustical Society
of America. See page B1 in the 2006 (Green) ASA membership directory.

These are:

Architectural Acoustics
Engineering Acoustics
Musical Acoustics
Noise Acoustics
Physical Acoustics-
Animal Bioacoustics
Psychological & Physiological Acoustics
Structural and Vibrations Acoustics
Speech Communications Acoustics
Underwater & Propagation Acoustics
Biomedical Ultrasound Acoustics
Bioresponse to Vibration Acoustics
Signal Processing Acoustics

0/ Consider this news group to be where our first 'Hello' is exchanged
and where knowledgeable discussion on any given

question may evolve. However, detailed repartee on simple problems such
as loudspeaker design and amplified audio problems

should be discussed elsewhere on hobby groups, etc.

1/ Our discussions should be concise, involving relatively short
messages; a few screen-loads usually suffice.

2/ Avoid public debate that switches to smaller and smaller matters.
Private E-Mail is for that. Rather, stick to main

issues from which all of us will learn and also enjoy the benefits of
this public medium.

3/ Resist the temptation to author large treatises here. Save that
energy for a separate E-mail file targeted to a recipient, or the telephone

4/ When including a copy of the message to which you respond, DELETE all
extraneous, non-germane lines. Leave only pertinent succinct lines that
will precede your learned response.

5/ AVOID quarrelsome and profane language that ultimately detract from
the credibility of the arguments and the validity of the information
presented.

6/ AVOID ad hominem and defamatory comments.

7/ Brief "Jobs Available" or "Help Needed" postings may be welcome in
periods of economic malaise.

In these ways, we will all welcome and enjoy each other's thoughts.

MODERATION POLICY:

The group will be hand moderated. Messages which in the opinion of the
moderators are off topic, profane, spam, inflammatory, personal attacks,
unduly argumentative, or repeating recent "Jobs available" announcements
will be rejected.

If the rejected submission includes a valid address in the "From: " or
"Reply-To: " line, a notice explaining why the

submission was rejected will be sent. Moderation will be based on
content of the message.

MODERATOR INFO:
The initial moderation team will consist of the proponent and two other
moderators, proposed as:

Angelo Campanella <***@att.net>
Robert Bristow-Johnson <***@audioimagination.com>
Noral Stewart <***@sacnc.com>

The submission address is to be determined.

PROCEDURE:

For more information on the newsgroup creation process, please see:

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation

Those who wish to influence the development of this RFD and its final
resolution should subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in
the relevant threads in that newsgroup. This is both a courtesy to
groups in which discussion of creating a new group is off-topic as well
as the best method of making sure that one's comments or criticisms are
heard.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups.proposals

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
news.groups.proposals.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the discussion
may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure
that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as well.

We urge those who would like to read or post in the proposed newsgroup
to make a comment to that effect in this thread; we ask proponents to
keep a list of such positive posts with the relevant message ID (e.g.,
Barney Fife, <***@sysmatrix.net>).
Such lists of positive feedback for the proposal may constitute good
evidence that the group will be well-used if it is created.

DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
alt.sci.physics.acoustics

PROPONENT:

Angelo Campanella <***@att.net>

CHANGE HISTORY:
2009-06-14 1st RFD.

GregS

2009-06-15 15:48:30 UTC

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

I wonder if I will be able to get in. I can't get in rec.audio.high-end
because of some kink in this system. I tried
to correct it but failed. Surprisingly low spamm in this group.
Can't even post to proposals, not in my group list.

greg

Angelo Campanella

2009-06-15 23:26:29 UTC

Post by GregS

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

That seems to be a quirk of your individual server that you must
purvey. I have had some complaints that their "comapny server" did not
allow "alt." groups through. Our migration to a sci.nnnnn "big 8" group
is a step in the direction that will reduce that truculence by
theserver-meisters.... One never knows... For an in-depth discussion of
the News Net methodology, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USENET

Read through to the end... Very interesting..

Angelo Campanella

Post by GregS
greg

Kathy Morgan

2009-06-16 03:19:02 UTC

[F'ups set to news.groups.proposals]

Post by GregS

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

It sounds like the server you are using is rather poorly run, or it may
be one of the servers that only adds groups when one of their users
requests the group. Try sending an email to whoever provides new
support for your server, asking them to add the *moderated* group
news.group.proposals. Be aware that if sci.physics.acoustics.moderated
is created, you will probably have to go through the procedure again to
get that group added.

I also am seeing almost no spam in this group on the Individual.net
server, so it may be that a new group is not really needed.

--
Kathy, member of B8MB but speaking only for myself.

Helmut Wabnig

2009-06-15 17:02:41 UTC

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:37 EDT, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Positive, but

news.groups.proposals is not on my server.

w.

Kathy Morgan

2009-06-16 03:23:48 UTC

[F'ups set to news.groups.proposals]

Post by Helmut Wabnig
On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:37 EDT, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Positive, but

Do you plan on posting to the new group if it is created?

Post by Helmut Wabnig
news.groups.proposals is not on my server.

Some news servers will only add a group at the request of one of their
users. If you send an email to the support address for your news server
requesting that they add the *moderated* group news.groups.proposals,
there's a fair chance that they will do so. If
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated is created, you'll probably need to send
an email requesting it as well.

--
Kathy, member of B8MB, speaking just for myself.

Brian Mailman

2009-06-15 18:20:00 UTC

How do you define "spam?" That's usually taken care of on the server level.

Why a Big 8 group, instead of aspa.moderated, so potential readers can
see it tidily in a group list?

B/

Angelo Campanella

2009-06-15 23:32:46 UTC

How do you define "spam?" That's usually taken care of on the server level.
Why a Big 8 group, instead of aspa.moderated, so potential readers can
see it tidily in a group list?

We want to get out from under the "alt." stigma. I'm working on a papal
dispensation to truncate the "moderated" suffix. It showed up in
response to my simplistic request for a vetting capability (certainty in
anti-spamming).

Angelo Campanella

Brian Mailman

2009-06-16 17:25:04 UTC

How do you define "spam?" That's usually taken care of on the server level.
Why a Big 8 group, instead of aspa.moderated, so potential readers can
see it tidily in a group list?

We want to get out from under the "alt." stigma.

And exactly what "stigma" is that?

Post by Angelo Campanella
I'm working on a papal
dispensation to truncate the "moderated" suffix. It showed up in
response to my simplistic request for a vetting capability (certainty in
anti-spamming).

Sorry, I don't understand that in the least and what it had to do with
my questions.

And again, what is "spam?" As pjr points out, that occurs on a server
level.

Your moderators will be inundated at their submission address, and
that's *with* filtering.

B/

Angelo Campanella

2009-06-16 21:44:05 UTC

Post by Angelo Campanella
We want to get out from under the "alt." stigma.

And exactly what "stigma" is that?

We, the users of alt.sci.physics.acoustics, have found that access by some
colleagues is not possible through their work computers because of the alt.
prefix. I have termed that paradigm as a stigma. We want more universal access
by the worldwide acoustics community, therefore we should establish a more
conventional news net group; sans "alt.".

Post by Angelo Campanella
I'm working on a papal dispensation to truncate the "moderated"
suffix. It showed up in response to my simplistic request for a
vetting capability (certainty in anti-spamming).

Sorry, I don't understand that in the least and what it had to do with
my questions.

The news net hierarchy suggests up front that a moderated group title should
correspondingly contain the .moderator suffix. We are requesting that this not
be the case for sci.physics.acoustics, since many other moderated groups do
not contain that suffix. That we should, will or shall, from time to time,
announce on that group the precepts of operation including moderation for
sci.physics.acoustics. This should be sufficient notice of the moderation mode
extant.

Post by Brian Mailman
And again, what is "spam?" As pjr points out, that occurs on a server
level.

I have considered "spam" to include any uninvited unrelated advertisement,
nonsense, trash and vile or insulting language to be under the umbrella of
spam, a more polite term.

Post by Brian Mailman
Your moderators will be inundated at their submission address, and
that's *with* filtering.

Hopefully not too severely so.

Sincerely,

Angelo Campanella

Kathy Morgan

2009-06-17 05:02:35 UTC

[news.groups.proposals added and f'ups set there]

Post by Angelo Campanella
The news net hierarchy suggests up front that a moderated group
title should correspondingly contain the .moderator suffix. We are
requesting that this not be the case for sci.physics.acoustics, since many
other moderated groups do not contain that suffix.

I suggested that the group name should contain ".moderated" because
there is no corresponding unmoderated Big 8 group meant for discussion
of acoustics. I feel (but could of course be out-voted) that
sci.physics.acoustics should be reserved for unmoderated discussion of
acoustics. If people later wanted to talk about acoustics in an
unmoderated group, they shouldn't have to pick a name like
sci.physics.acoustics.unmoderated or sci.physics.acoustics.general.

--
Kathy, member of B8MB, speaking just for myself

Brian Mailman

2009-06-17 17:26:27 UTC

Post by Kathy Morgan
[news.groups.proposals added and f'ups set there]

Attention aspa... please don't pay attention to the followup tricks of
some posters. It's simply being done to control your conversation.

B/

Ken Plotkin

2009-06-17 04:46:07 UTC

On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:44:05 GMT, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
We, the users of alt.sci.physics.acoustics, have found that access by some
colleagues is not possible through their work computers because of the alt.
prefix...

[snip]

It's my understanding that some of the large commercial ISPs are
eliminating alt groups from their servers. I don't know how
widespread that is in the overall scheme of things.

Where is this discussion supposed to take place? I posted something
in reply to your original post, which specified followup to
news.groups.proposals. I see that this discussion is taking place in
news.groups and alt.sci.physics.acoustics.

Ken Plotkin

Adam H. Kerman

2009-06-17 06:06:53 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
It's my understanding that some of the large commercial ISPs are
eliminating alt groups from their servers. I don't know how
widespread that is in the overall scheme of things.

It's not widespread at all. It was true of one. Other ISPs dropped Usenet
altogether, ceasing to outsource it or unplugging the News servers on
their networks. But the main sources of text Usenet offer all text groups.

Post by Ken Plotkin
Where is this discussion supposed to take place? I posted something
in reply to your original post, which specified followup to
news.groups.proposals. I see that this discussion is taking place in
news.groups and alt.sci.physics.acoustics.

It's because the hierarchy administrators attempt to force RFD
discussion to take place in a moderated newsgroup,
news.groups.proposals, hence the followup-to header. Quite frankly, the
discussion should be taking place in the original newsgroup, given the
odd reports we've been hearing about an alleged problem with spam as
rationale for a replacement moderated newsgroup.

I wonder if you appreciate exactly how disruptive to the flow of
conversation the moderation scheme proposed would be, with messages
approved one at a time, perhaps only once a day.

Thomas Lee

2009-06-17 08:47:10 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
It's my understanding that some of the large commercial ISPs are
eliminating alt groups from their servers. I don't know how
widespread that is in the overall scheme of things.

It's not widespread at all.

In places. Certainly more ISPs seem to be dropping alt.* than before.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
It was true of one. Other ISPs dropped Usenet
altogether, ceasing to outsource it or unplugging the News servers on
their networks. But the main sources of text Usenet offer all text groups.

Indeed.

It's because the hierarchy administrators view RFD
discussion in a moderated newsgroup,
news.groups.proposals, hence the followup-to header.

fixed.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Quite frankly, the
discussion should be taking place in the original newsgroup, given the
odd reports we've been hearing about an alleged problem with spam as
rationale for a replacement moderated newsgroup.

Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals, as has been the case for several years. You
should know better.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
I wonder if you appreciate exactly how disruptive to the flow of
conversation the moderation scheme proposed would be, with messages
approved one at a time, perhaps only once a day.

Depends on the volumes of posts.

Thomas

--
Thomas Lee - ***@psp.co.uk
A member of, but not speaking for, The Big-8 Management Board

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-06-17 17:31:00 UTC

... Certainly more ISPs seem to be dropping alt.* than before.

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:binary_problem

As I understand it, AT&T dropped binaries last year and is now
dropping all of Usenet this year.

Marty

--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.

Adam H. Kerman

2009-06-18 01:39:29 UTC

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ

... Certainly more ISPs seem to be dropping alt.* than before.

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:binary_problem
As I understand it, AT&T dropped binaries last year and is now
dropping all of Usenet this year.

So Thomas's claim with regard to text alt groups being dropped "on more
ISPs" is utterly unsupportable? I'm sure he'll correct himself any moment.

Brian Mailman

2009-06-17 17:25:26 UTC

Post by Thomas Lee
Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals,

No, Thomas. Yet again, the correct place for the discussion is where
it's being discussed. In news.groups, and in the originating group.

B/

Peter J Ross

2009-06-17 20:26:33 UTC

[f'up set, since wrangling between hierarchy admins and their
opponents is unlikely to be of much interest to readers of an
alt.sci.* group]

In news.groups on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:47:10 +0100, Thomas Lee
<***@psp.co.uk> wrote:

<...>

Post by Thomas Lee
Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals, as has been the case for several years. You
should know better.

But here you are, participating in the discussion outside NGP, while
telling somebody who's doing precisely what you're doing that he
should know better.

IMO, the correct place for a proponent to discuss a proposal is
wherever the proponent can find good advice about how to improve his
proposal. Some, if not all, of the good advice the S.P.A.M (amusing
acronym!) proponent has received has been posted in news.groups, not
in the poorly propagated moderated group that you like to advertise as
news.groups' official replacement.

Not for the first time, Thomas, I ask you to admit that useful
discussions of RFDs typically occur in news.groups at least as often
as in news.groups.proposals. Not for the first time, I ask you to help
future proponents by making the usefulness of news.groups clear on your
www.big-8.org wiki.

--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader v0.9.9p1: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator

Adam H. Kerman

2009-06-18 01:38:52 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
It's my understanding that some of the large commercial ISPs are
eliminating alt groups from their servers. I don't know how
widespread that is in the overall scheme of things.

It's not widespread at all.

In places. Certainly more ISPs seem to be dropping alt.* than before.

Fascinating. Kindly provide your secret list of servers that recently
removed all alt groups.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Quite frankly, the discussion should be taking place in the original
newsgroup, given the odd reports we've been hearing about an alleged
problem with spam as rationale for a replacement moderated newsgroup.

Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals, as has been the case for several years. You
should know better.

I'm not interested in your need to force through this RFD, Thomas. Let
the affected users hash it out among themselves. At the moment, the
rationale for the proposed group has nothing to do with any alleged
problems.

Depends on the volumes of posts.

Uh, no, Thomas. Depends on the time the moderator has to approve such
messages. The typical experience in such groups is once a day, until the
moderator burns out.

Brian Mailman

2009-06-18 18:08:56 UTC

Depends on the volumes of posts.

Uh, no, Thomas. Depends on the time the moderator has to approve such
messages.

Exactly. Since the submissions come in via email, it's just a matter of
checking it. One could even filter into a "moderation" folder as a
priority.

My concern is the response I saw when I warned them the moderation
address will be swamped with the spam they're trying to avoid.

B/

Adam H. Kerman

2009-06-18 01:38:52 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
It's my understanding that some of the large commercial ISPs are
eliminating alt groups from their servers. I don't know how
widespread that is in the overall scheme of things.

It's not widespread at all.

In places. Certainly more ISPs seem to be dropping alt.* than before.

Fascinating. Kindly provide your secret list of servers that recently
removed all alt groups.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Quite frankly, the discussion should be taking place in the original
newsgroup, given the odd reports we've been hearing about an alleged
problem with spam as rationale for a replacement moderated newsgroup.

Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals, as has been the case for several years. You
should know better.

Depends on the volumes of posts.

Uh, no, Thomas. Depends on the time the moderator has to approve such
messages. The typical experience in such groups is once a day, until the
moderator burns out.

Peter J Ross

2009-06-17 20:26:33 UTC

Post by Thomas Lee
Again, you are mistaken. The correct place for this discussion is in
news.groups.proposals, as has been the case for several years. You
should know better.

--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader v0.9.9p1: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator

Peter J Ross

2009-06-15 19:50:20 UTC

In news.announce.newgroups on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:37 EDT, Angelo

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Archive-Name: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

How the hell did this mess get approved by the NAN moderators? Header
lines are duplicated in the body of the post, and broken wrapping
occurs throughout.

Post by Angelo Campanella
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group sci.physics.acoustics.moderated
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
moderated newsgroup sci.physics.acoustics.moderated.
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated Topics in acoustics and vibrations.
Moderated

The word "Moderated" should be parenthesised and not wrapped, and,
again, I wonder how such a mess came to be approved. IMO, the NAN
moderators ought to reject such posts as this and help proponents to
improve them before the rest of us are asked to comment.

For your newsgroups file:
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated Acoustics and vibrations. (Moderated)

I've omitted "Topics in", because it's meaningless as part of a
description.

Post by Angelo Campanella
The group alt.sci.physics.acoustics in the same topic space was started
in 1995 and has been a successful group with
productive discussion, but recently spam has become a disruptive
problem. Participants from alt.sci.physics.acoustics would like to move
to a moderated Big 8 newsgroup.

If you have a problem with spam, use a news server that filters spam.
If your have a problem with flaming, trolling or off-topic posting,
please say so. Such nuisances are *not* spam.

<...>

NAN moderators, is there any way you can arrange for future RFDs to be
less broken than this one?

--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader v0.9.9p1: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator

Tony

2009-06-18 10:54:02 UTC

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,
alt.sci.physics.acoustics Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Archive-Name: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

news.groups.proposals is not available on my ISP's news server, and the
procedure for requesting an addition is slow and uncertain, so I tried
Google Groups. But strangely, Google seems to archive only a handful of
posts from news.groups.proposals, and nothing from this thread is among
them. I can get news.announce.newgroups but that does not seem to be the
place for discussion. Therefore, sorry, I am commenting here. (Follow-up
ignored and no new follow-up set.)

Personally I have no general problem with spam on this group but I do have a
great interest in speedy responses, which have been very useful to me in the
past. Moderation is an onerous task, and it is obviously impossible to
guarantee that there will always be, not just a moderator but a satisfactory
one. My vote is therefore to leave things as they are. If there is a
genuine reason to move from the alt heirarchy, that is another matter from
spam and should be a separate discussion.

IMHO, far more of a nuisance than spam were the personal attacks and
vendettas that plagued this group some years ago. Should such things recur
in a moderated group they could well result in attacks being made on the
moderators in other forums. I believe that they are best dealt with by the
kill file.

--
Tony Woolf
My e-mail address has no hyphen
- but please don't use it, reply to the group.

Angelo Campanella

2009-06-18 18:33:14 UTC

Personally I have no general problem with spam on this aspa group but I do have a
great interest in speedy responses, which have been very useful to me in the
past. Moderation is an onerous task, and it is obviously impossible to
guarantee that there will always be, not just a moderator but a satisfactory
one. My vote is therefore to leave things as they are. If there is a
genuine reason to move from the alt heirarchy, that is another matter from
spam and should be a separate discussion.

Thanks for your comments, and I will indeed keep looking at this aspa group
for development ideas.

One of the characteristics of opinions to be found on site, is that one never
knows the opinions of those that could use this medium, but do not have access
to it! for now, all we have is our imagination to go on. Comments such as
yours provide knowledge of at least part of that unknown audience.

On that same tack:

1-Can we agree that moving away from the alt. group status and into a Big 8
status will be an improvement?

2-Do we have consensus as to whether the sci.physics.acoustics (SPA) should
be UNmoderated?

3-This leaves the door wide open for spam to flow as we are now experiencing.
One can suspect that the spammers like to work in the alt arenas, but judging
by past behavior, they relish just as much in disrupting formal channels as
they do the entertainment channels. Nothing seems to be off limits, so my
suspicion is that the volition to be rogues is independent of the target.
Anything goes.

4-I have heard mention of spam filters being installed by the Server
operators. On that basis, it will do one well to enlist with a service
(vendor?) for Usenet access. That area seems to be moving in place now for we
att.net users... we have to buy access "on the street" now (SBC Yahoo is mum
on the subject right now). Here there seems to be opportunity to do the job
well. But this is in the future.

5-Moderation may well be a blind alley in the long run. It offers some
protection while loosing a lot of freedom... The issue is still open, and a
straw vote may be order.. To moderate is to have protection but hamstrings. To
UNmoderate brings freedom and occasional harassment. That is the question.

IMHO, far more of a nuisance than spam were the personal attacks and
vendettas that plagued this group some years ago. Should such things recur
in a moderated group they could well result in attacks being made on the
moderators in other forums. I believe that they are best dealt with by the
kill file.

6-This is a powerful argument... Perhaps you can reflect on all of this further???

Sincerely,

Angelo Campanella

Tony

2009-06-18 20:31:38 UTC

Personally I have no general problem with spam on this aspa group but

The "word" aspa has been interpolated in what I wrote.

Post by Angelo Campanella
One of the characteristics of opinions to be found on site, is that one
never knows the opinions of those that could use this medium, but do
not have access to it! for now, all we have is our imagination to go on.
Comments such
as yours provide knowledge of at least part of that unknown audience.

Sorry to disappoint you but I am an old usenet hand, so I think I am part of
the known audience. I have no problem with getting alt groups on my ISP's
server, it was news.groups.proposals that I can't get. (Hence this message
will not be cross-posted there.)

Post by Angelo Campanella
1-Can we agree that moving away from the alt. group status and into a
Big 8 status will be an improvement?

I don't know as I don't use the big 8 much. The groups I use regularly are
uk groups or else specials with limited circulation. In fact, like many
others I think, I regularly read very few newsgroups now, while 10 years ago
I read many.

--
Tony Woolf
My e-mail address has no hyphen
- but please don't use it, reply to the group.

Angelo Campanella

2009-06-18 18:33:14 UTC

6-This is a powerful argument... Perhaps you can reflect on all of this further???

Sincerely,

Angelo Campanella

Noral Stewart

2009-06-20 19:53:10 UTC

Long time followers of alt.sci.physics.acoustics will recognize me as a
major contributor over about a 10 year period though I have been less active
over the past three years. Angelo has asked me to be one of the moderators
if a moderated group is formed and I will do so if that happens.

As I see it, there are two and possibly three arguments that favor moving
away from an "alt" group, a couple of problems that may be resolved with a
moderated group but with others created, and some disagreement over the name
of a moderated group.

Two problems raised with regard to the alt group have to do with access.
Some employers apparently do not allow access to alt groups on computers in
their businesses. Some newsgroup servers may not carry alt groups. If
those two arguments are true, then I would favor forming a
sci.physics.acoustics group to succeed the current alt.sci.physics.acoustics
group.

The third argument I have seen for moving away from the alt family is that
there may be a greater tendency for the spammers to attack alt groups.
alt.sci.physics.acoustics has always had some spam, but in recent months in
spurts it has become worse. From what I am hearing all newsgroups are
subjected to such spam and it is the server operator that should be
filtering the spam out. If that is the case, then some of us are getting
more spam than others depending on where we get our newsgroup feed. Some of
the spam we have gotten regularly would be difficult for a server operator
to recognize and filter out as spam. It looks like a legitimate posting,
but has nothing to do with acoustics.

The spam is one of the problems that would supposedly be resolved with a
moderator. If I understand the system, the moderators would then become the
first and only spam filter. The moderators may find themselves inundated
with much more spam than is currently seen in alt.sci.physics.acoustics
since sever operators may be filtering out most of what is submitted by the
spammers. It might become a burden for the moderators to search out and
find legitimate posts hidden in a sea of spam.

The other problem we have had at times is a very small number of sometimes
prolific contributors who are not capable of carrying on a civilized
conversation without attacking people. It is frustrating because some of
the people guilty of this are very qualified technically and make some good
contributions, but just cannot resist attacking anyone they have a
disagreement with. As has been pointed out, if the moderators censor such
people, they may find other ways to attack the moderators.

The proposal has been made to name the new moderated group
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated and it has been pointed out this could be
ironically be abreviated s.p.a.m. At least one person has objected to
having "moderated" in the name even if it is moderated simply because the
name would be longer. I believe those who mangage the newsgroup system
prefer to have "moderated" in the name of moderated groups to preserve the
name without "moderated" for possible use by a similar non-moderated group,
though such a rule has not been rigidly enforced. I see no problem in
having "moderated" in the name if it is moderated. The only problem I would
see would be if some users must repeatedly type the group name for access.

Having moderators does potentially slow down response and that is not good.
Perhaps with three or so moderators the problem could be minimized but it
would certainly restrict the interaction that can exist in a free flowing
discussion. Responses would potentially come in groups with those
responding not havning the opportunity of seeing responses from others.
This could lead to duplication of responses.

I am hoping that some of the people who may have experience with moderated
groups can provide some guidance on the pros and cons of moderation.

Noral Stewart

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-06-20 21:11:17 UTC

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:53:10 CST, "Noral Stewart"

Post by Noral Stewart
Some employers apparently do not allow access to alt groups on computers in
their businesses.

I wonder how many employers have the capacity to discriminate
between alt.* and other hierarchies.

They would essentially have to be running an in-house news server.
Not impossible, but not terribly likely.

Post by Noral Stewart
Some newsgroup servers may not carry alt groups.

That is the case.

I have no statistics.

I made a table from an article about the NY state attorney
general's crackdown on distribution of child pornography
through Usenet.

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:binary_problem

Verizon was the big leader who got some press coverage (and
my personal admiration) for distinguishing between alt.*
and other hierarchies. Someone there knows how to
configure a news server.

Post by Noral Stewart
If
those two arguments are true, then I would favor forming a
sci.physics.acoustics group to succeed the current alt.sci.physics.acoustics
group.

That might be a place to start. It's cheaper than running
a moderated group.

I doubt the spam would diminish. So far as I know, there is
no technical difference between alt.* and other hierarchies.
The same hardware and software are involved.

A human instinct: folks who are injecting binary ads
(do they do that?) might target the binary newsgroups.
( have text-only access.)

Post by Noral Stewart
The spam is one of the problems that would supposedly be resolved with a
moderator.

It should be diminished a great deal.

Post by Noral Stewart
If I understand the system, the moderators would then become the
first and only spam filter.

Not necessarily. It depends on how the moderators set up
the system. I think the more normal order is that they
are the last spam filter before the posts go to the group;
some use very aggressive filters upstream so that the
obvious spam is discarded automatically or with very
little work from the moderators.

Post by Noral Stewart
... It might become a burden for the moderators to search out and
find legitimate posts hidden in a sea of spam.

I've helped to moderate a newsgroup for about eleven years.

The spam is noticeable, but not unmanageable.

Post by Noral Stewart
The other problem we have had at times is a very small number of sometimes
prolific contributors who are not capable of carrying on a civilized
conversation without attacking people. It is frustrating because some of
the people guilty of this are very qualified technically and make some good
contributions, but just cannot resist attacking anyone they have a
disagreement with. As has been pointed out, if the moderators censor such
people, they may find other ways to attack the moderators.

That's a tough nut to crack. Some moderation policies enforce
standards of civility; some don't. I won't vote for or against
the creation of s.p.a.m on the basis of which way the proponents
go.

Post by Noral Stewart
... I believe those who mangage the newsgroup system
prefer to have "moderated" in the name of moderated groups to preserve the
name without "moderated" for possible use by a similar non-moderated group,
though such a rule has not been rigidly enforced.

That's where Kathy and I stand.

I'm following her lead.

Her argument makes sense to me.

Kathy and I may be in the minority on this issue.
Other board members haven't said anything about
it (that I noticed anyway).

Post by Noral Stewart
I see no problem in
having "moderated" in the name if it is moderated. The only problem I would
see would be if some users must repeatedly type the group name for access.

I've never used a newsreader that required that--although
I'm sure they exist. I believe lots of free newsreaders
are available that should obviate the problem.

Post by Noral Stewart
Having moderators does potentially slow down response and that is not good.
Perhaps with three or so moderators the problem could be minimized but it
would certainly restrict the interaction that can exist in a free flowing
discussion. Responses would potentially come in groups with those
responding not havning the opportunity of seeing responses from others.
This could lead to duplication of responses.
I am hoping that some of the people who may have experience with moderated
groups can provide some guidance on the pros and cons of moderation.

You should read Allbery's "Pitfalls" if you haven't already:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/moderation/pitfalls/

Marty

--
Member, Big-8 Management Board--but speaking only for myself
For more information, see http://www.big-8.org

Steve Bonine

2009-06-21 16:20:11 UTC

Post by Noral Stewart
Two problems raised with regard to the alt group have to do with access.
Some employers apparently do not allow access to alt groups on computers in
their businesses. Some newsgroup servers may not carry alt groups. If
those two arguments are true, then I would favor forming a
sci.physics.acoustics group to succeed the current alt.sci.physics.acoustics
group.

There is no doubt that access to the big-8 is "better" than access to
alt. That has been true since alt was created; there are sites that
carry the big-8 but not alt, but I have never seen a site that carried
alt but not the big-8.

The question is whether this difference is significant and whether it
will become even less significant in the future.

There are few corporations that allow access from within their firewalls
to Usenet, and this number continues to decline. As Martin points out,
the only way to restrict access to alt while granting it to the big-8 is
to run a news server in house, and vanishingly few companies find it
economically feasible to do so these days because so few of their
employees use Usenet for business-related reasons. (I suppose that
there could be an exception to this in the field of acoustics, but I
doubt it.) The alternative is to allow access to a/all news servers
through the corporate firewall, which isn't a particularly appealing
alternative either. Bottom line, I have to ask how many of the
participants of the current alt newsgroup do so from their work systems,
and of those, how many are affected by whether the group is in alt.

The reason that the difference may become even less significant is the
trend for Internet service providers to drop Usenet as part of their
product offering. Some of them have just dropped alt, and kept the
big-8, which argues for moving. But there is a definite trend to just
drop Usenet; AT&T is doing so. In this case, the participants need to
find a Usenet provider. Finding a provider is not difficult, expensive,
or complex; but these providers all provide alt in addition to the
big-8. So if in the future people see their Usenet access from their
ISP go away, and they have to find a provider, the distinction between
alt and the big-8 is diminished.

Post by Noral Stewart
The third argument I have seen for moving away from the alt family is that
there may be a greater tendency for the spammers to attack alt groups.

I have seen no evidence that this is the case.

Post by Noral Stewart
alt.sci.physics.acoustics has always had some spam, but in recent months in
spurts it has become worse. From what I am hearing all newsgroups are
subjected to such spam and it is the server operator that should be
filtering the spam out. If that is the case, then some of us are getting
more spam than others depending on where we get our newsgroup feed. Some of
the spam we have gotten regularly would be difficult for a server operator
to recognize and filter out as spam. It looks like a legitimate posting,
but has nothing to do with acoustics.

The effectiveness of spam filtering varies greatly between the
providers. There was a spurt of spam a few weeks ago that appeared in
one of my news feeds but was completely removed by another.

But as you point out, no automated process will ever remove all the
spam. If you want a spam-free group, it needs to be moderated.

Post by Noral Stewart
The spam is one of the problems that would supposedly be resolved with a
moderator. If I understand the system, the moderators would then become the
first and only spam filter.

As Martin mentioned, whether they are the only spam filter depends on
the moderation setup. The submissions to a moderated newsgroup are sent
by email to the moderators. Most moderation setups include a spam
filter at this point to remove the obvious stuff so that the moderators
don't see it.

Post by Noral Stewart
The moderators may find themselves inundated
with much more spam than is currently seen in alt.sci.physics.acoustics
since sever operators may be filtering out most of what is submitted by the
spammers. It might become a burden for the moderators to search out and
find legitimate posts hidden in a sea of spam.

I don't think they'll have to cope with a sea of spam, especially if
some high-level spam filtering is put in place to weed out the obvious
stuff. But yes, the moderators will see spam. That's one of the tasks
of Usenet moderators -- to weed out spam.

Based on my personal experience moderating Usenet groups, spam is not a
big issue. Assuming that there are several moderators, each of them
sees a few spams per day. But this is predicated on three things:
having enough moderators so that each of them can take part of the load,
having spam filtering in place that removes the obvious spam, and having
an easy-to-use moderation platform so that spam can be rejected quickly
and without undo effort on the part of the moderators.

Again, that's what moderators are for. It's not a glamorous job, but
the result is a newsgroup that is more pleasant for all participants
except perhaps the people who are trying to make it unpleasant.

Moderated groups have their advantages and disadvantages. I hope you've
read the article that Martin referenced. If you're looking for a
freewheeling discussion where people can post and have their
contribution appear in the newsgroup instantly, moderation is a poor
choice. If you're looking for a focused discussion where personal
attacks are curbed and someone is there to keep the discussion on topic,
then moderation is a good alternative. Both of these have their merits.
That's one reason why there are cases in Usenet where the same topic
is discussed in both moderated and unmoderated newsgroups.

Post by Noral Stewart
The proposal has been made to name the new moderated group
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated and it has been pointed out this could be
ironically be abreviated s.p.a.m. At least one person has objected to
having "moderated" in the name even if it is moderated simply because the
name would be longer. I believe those who mangage the newsgroup system
prefer to have "moderated" in the name of moderated groups to preserve the
name without "moderated" for possible use by a similar non-moderated group,
though such a rule has not been rigidly enforced. I see no problem in
having "moderated" in the name if it is moderated. The only problem I would
see would be if some users must repeatedly type the group name for access.

Once someone subscribes to the newsgroup, they're not going to have to
type the name again. The length of the name of the newsgroup is not
significant.

Whether the name of a moderated newsgroup contains the characters
".moderated" is rather a religious issue in Usenet, somewhat like
whether the name of the base newsgroup in a topic hierarchy should
contain the characters ".misc". My personal preference is "yes". Both
Martin and Kathy share that preference, and their opinion actually
matters since they're going to vote for or against creation of the
group. But I doubt that anyone on the board would base their vote
completely on this issue of having .moderated in the newsgroup name.

The delay is one of the disadvantages of moderation. As you say, this
delay can be reduced by having multiple moderators; there are several
other reasons to have multiple active moderators. But the issue of
moderation, like everything else in life, is a tradeoff. Given what I
know of the current status of the group, my inclination would be to
create an unmoderated group in the sci hierarchy and encourage people to
ignore spam. If you have a real problem with incivility that is
discouraging qualified people from participating, a moderated newsgroup
is justified, but that's something that you the proponents need to
decide, based on understanding the pros and cons of moderation.

Post by Noral Stewart
I am hoping that some of the people who may have experience with moderated
groups can provide some guidance on the pros and cons of moderation.

I hope that my comments have helped. They are, of course, only comments.

GregS

2009-06-22 18:56:44 UTC

Post by Noral Stewart
Long time followers of alt.sci.physics.acoustics will recognize me as a
major contributor over about a 10 year period though I have been less active
over the past three years. Angelo has asked me to be one of the moderators
if a moderated group is formed and I will do so if that happens.
As I see it, there are two and possibly three arguments that favor moving
away from an "alt" group, a couple of problems that may be resolved with a
moderated group but with others created, and some disagreement over the name
of a moderated group.

There seemed to be a stigma attached to alt groups back in time.
I think in another 10 years there will be a lot less traffic, perhaps
more spam. SO I would vote on keeping this here as
it is. As I said earlier, there is a problem at this system for
posting to moderated groups, and we could not find an answer
to correct it. It would be cool to have moderated posts go
to both groups, and only this group would see spam and unmoderated
posts.

greg

robert bristow-johnson

2009-06-21 05:35:47 UTC

With regard to the proposed moderators, I object to Robert Bristow-
Johnsone as a moderator on several grouds.

there is no "e" in "Johnson". just in case anyone has trouble
googling.

now, i case someone is curious as to whom "The Ghost" is, you should
look up "Gary Sokolich" (Google Groups is fine). then make your own
judgment regarding reasonableness. (this guy stalks people. there
was a previous acquaintance named "Bob Cain" that this guy followed
from who knows what other newsgroups to comp.dsp, an unmoderated ng
that suffers some spam but remains a high S/N despite that fact. i
didn't know what Gary's axe to grind was, but was not happy he dragged
his beef with Bob Cain from a.s.p.a or wherever to comp.dsp.)

Interesting feedback. Thanks.

Firstly, RBJ is an expert in
digital signal processing, but has no education, little knowledge and
and little if any first-hand experinece in the areas of
acoustics/sound/vibration.

I don't see this bit as relevant. I am on the moderation
team for news.groups.proposals yet I'm not a news
administrator. I'm a UNIX SysAdmin. Thus my work
in a related field parallels RBJ's experience.

whether it's the wave equation, Sabine's room reverberation model, or
similar there are some common mathematical roots (such as Linear
System Theory) between the acoustical models of vibration and
representing those vibrations as "signals" and the physical models
that influence such vibrations as "systems", often "linear systems".
when you do that, you have a signal processing model and all sorts of
nice things we learn in signal processing can apply, like Fourier
Transforms, spectra, frequency response, convolution, etc.

Secondly, RBJ is not a regular participant
and has not contributed anything substantive to alt.sci.physics.acoustics
during the past ten years.

Moderators should definitely be regulars whenever
possible. Are any other regulars willing to volunteer?

Lastly, RBJ is a totalitarian elitist whose
long-standing interest is to put himself in a position that will enable
him to silence the voices of those in alt.sci.physics.acoustics that
either annoy or disagree with him.

This is an accusation that calls for a response by the
accused, the proponent and/or anyone else involved.
Tight moderation policy isn't a problem as long as it is
consistant and fair. Tight moderation often draws the ire
of those whose posts get rejected. This becomes a matter
that gets obvious to the regulars in a group and I don't have
enough history on the group to know what to think about
it.

my attitude toward moderation is to weed out obvious spam and, on very
loose terms (probably looser than Angelo might expect) see to it that
threads have *something* to do with the subject of which the newsgroup
is named. i do not believe in editing posts that don't conform
sufficiently closely to reasonable guidelines (such as deleting
unnecessary lines of quoted text). if someone gets patently abusive,
and there are times that Gary (The Ghost) has such as

i don't do tinyurl, so some may have to unwrap this URL:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/msg/b7a0442b6961d90e

in thread

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/thread/45624b333e265f39/b7a0442b6961d90e

to which he crosses over from a.s.p.a to comp.dsp with this thread (he
left the "No-Archive" bit set, but enough people quoted the original
which was just a pointer to my post in the a.s.p.a thread. with the
words "sick fuck" in both threads, we can clearly see who posted it.

here's another:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/thread/bb4a4d6603c54975/58ca843a521341df

lastly, i am not highly invested that the ng be moderated, but
something (perhaps deleting the "alt." and moving it to a Big 8 ng
that gets less spam posts) should be done about the spam. leaving it
there in the alt. hierarchy is, i think, abandoning this legitimate ng
to the spammers and trolls. if the S/N ratio gets low enough,
thoughtful acousticians and other contributors (like Gary or me) will
just go elsewhere. i think that this ng should be saved and making it
sci.physics.acoustics should help in saving it. i do *not* like
appending ".moderated" to the name, because it makes it long and there
are two other moderated ngs in the sci.physics.* hierarchy that do not
have "moderated" in the name. in that particular hierarchy
(sci.physics.*) there are *no* newsgroups with "moderated" in the name
whether they be moderated or not.

so my proposal is: either a moderated or unmoderated ng at
sci.physics.acoustics . i do not favor any ng called
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated at this time. if moderation is
necessary for sci.physics.acoustics to just work at all without the
spam and abuse maladies, then i am willing to contribute to that
effort (but need not, if there is objection from a broader
constituency that only Gary S.). if no moderation is needed for
sci.physics.acoustics to work, that's even better. but i'm willing to
help if need be.

r b-j

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-06-21 16:21:10 UTC

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:35:47 CST, robert bristow-johnson

...perhaps deleting the "alt." ...

One of the foibles (or stengths) of Usenet is that it
is difficult to remove an existing group.

News admins, of course, may remove any groups they want
from their own news server. But no one is in charge
of all news admins. Some act together in concert;
others do not.

The same principle applies to the request issued by
the board to create a new newsgroup: some admins will
readily accept the request, some will consciously
ignore it, and some won't even know that a request
was made.

... i think that this ng should be saved and making it
sci.physics.acoustics should help in saving it.

This is not like a file on your own computer, which you
can move from folder to folder by renaming it.

The alt.* newsgroup exists on thousands (tens of
thousands?) of news servers. Every news admin in the
world would have to agree to having the group removed
and a new group created on their servers for the
transition to be complete.

That won't happen.

So the only alternatives are additive:

-- add an unmoderated big-8 group
-- add a moderated big-8 group
-- add both (at the same time or down the road)

i do *not* like
appending ".moderated" to the name, because it makes it long and there
are two other moderated ngs in the sci.physics.* hierarchy that do not
have "moderated" in the name. in that particular hierarchy
(sci.physics.*) there are *no* newsgroups with "moderated" in the name
whether they be moderated or not.

I understand your distaste for the ".moderated" tag.

The big-8 hierarchies date to 1986-87 ("The Great Renaming"):

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=history:timeline

I wasn't here then. I don't know why so many moderated
groups aren't tagged with the ".moderated" label. Moderation
dates from 1983--four years after the first Usenet post.
I imagine that standards (tastes) have changed over the
years.

".moderated" is an accurate description of the proposed new
group. Adding ".unmoderated" to a group seems even uglier
than adding ".moderated". I've been a moderator of a
".moderated" group for 11 years. I know how hard it is
to add that tag when doing Google searches. I've lived
with it well enough and imagine that you can live with
it, too--if, in fact, you want a moderated group.

Marty

so my proposal is: either a moderated or unmoderated ng at
sci.physics.acoustics . i do not favor any ng called
sci.physics.acoustics.moderated at this time. if moderation is
necessary for sci.physics.acoustics to just work at all without the
spam and abuse maladies, then i am willing to contribute to that
effort (but need not, if there is objection from a broader
constituency that only Gary S.). if no moderation is needed for
sci.physics.acoustics to work, that's even better. but i'm willing to
help if need be.
r b-j

--
Member, Big-8 Management Board--but speaking only for myself
For more information, see http://www.big-8.org

robert bristow-johnson

2009-06-21 23:36:52 UTC

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:35:47 CST, robert bristow-johnson

...perhaps deleting the "alt." ...

One of the foibles (or stengths) of Usenet is that it
is difficult to remove an existing group.
News admins, of course, may remove any groups they want
from their own news server. But no one is in charge
of all news admins. Some act together in concert;
others do not.
The same principle applies to the request issued by
the board to create a new newsgroup: some admins will
readily accept the request, some will consciously
ignore it, and some won't even know that a request
was made.

... i think that this ng should be saved and making it
sci.physics.acoustics should help in saving it.

This is not like a file on your own computer, which you
can move from folder to folder by renaming it.
The alt.* newsgroup exists on thousands (tens of
thousands?) of news servers. Every news admin in the
world would have to agree to having the group removed
and a new group created on their servers for the
transition to be complete.
That won't happen.
-- add an unmoderated big-8 group
-- add a moderated big-8 group
-- add both (at the same time or down the road)

I understand your distaste for the ".moderated" tag.

...

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
I don't know why so many moderated
groups aren't tagged with the ".moderated" label. Moderation
dates from 1983--four years after the first Usenet post.
I imagine that standards (tastes) have changed over the
years.
".moderated" is an accurate description of the proposed new
group.

the issue is if it is necessary.

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
Adding ".unmoderated" to a group seems even uglier
than adding ".moderated". I've been a moderator of a
".moderated" group for 11 years. I know how hard it is
to add that tag when doing Google searches. I've lived
with it well enough and imagine that you can live with
it, too--if, in fact, you want a moderated group.

i still do not see the necessity and, since naming these groups seem
to have an effect of carving into stone, it is vital that the
newsgroup name be well chosen at the get go. long ago, i've seen
misspelled newsgroup names in USENET with the newsgroup correctly
spelled residing beside the earlier created and misnamed, misspelled
group. for whatever reason (that you alluded to), it's like the tar-
baby, once you have it, it seems you can't get rid of it. but i
thought there were control messages:

"rmgroup" control message:

http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0105.htm

and "mvgroup" control message:

http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0107.htm

that that can be sent downstream and most legit newsservers will
eventually abide by these control messages. i do not know what keeps
a recalcitrant from illegitimately putting such control messages into
USENET or what newsservers use to differentiate legit control messages
from unauthorized control messages.

lastly, Martin, i want to reiterate that both sci.physics.research and
sci.physics.foundations are moderated and, obviously, neither have
".moderated" appended to the newsgroup name. sci.physics.research has
been around for quite a while, more than a decade, maybe more than two
decades, but sci.physics.foundations is quite new, i remember when it
was established just a couple years ago. it is recently created, is
in the sci.physics.* hierarchy, is moderated, and is not appended with
".moderated" in its name. why cannot sci.physics.acoustics be treated
similarly if it *does* come out as being moderated? there is little
good reason, as far as i can see.

r b-j

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-06-22 04:07:56 UTC

On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:36:52 CST, robert bristow-johnson

... for whatever reason (that you alluded to), it's like the tar-
baby, once you have it, it seems you can't get rid of it.

Yes.

... but i
http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0105.htm
http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0107.htm
that that can be sent downstream and most legit newsservers will
eventually abide by these control messages.

Once people started issuing hostile rmgroup control messages,
the number of servers that honored the control messages
dropped dramatically.

tale generated a signing key that is pretty well established
for the big-8. Some news admins will remove groups when
they receive a control message signed with tale's key.
Some will not.

Those who do not follow the control messages are just
as "legitimate" as those who do. No one can tell any
news admin how to configure that admin's news server.

lastly, Martin, i want to reiterate that both sci.physics.research and
sci.physics.foundations are moderated and, obviously, neither have
".moderated" appended to the newsgroup name.

Understood.

I did vote to create sci.physics.foundations.

Kathy was not on the board at that time (if I remember correctly).

No other board members seem to care much either way.

Since we cannot get rid of the alt.* group, maybe it
makes sense to say that that is the only unmoderated
physics.accoustics group that is needed or wanted
so that s.p.a (moderated) would not really do any
harm to the namespace.

Marty

--
Member, Big-8 Management Board--but speaking only for myself
For more information, see http://www.big-8.org

Dave Sill

2009-06-22 17:31:30 UTC

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:36:52 CST, robert bristow-johnson

Post by robert bristow-johnson
lastly, Martin, i want to reiterate that both sci.physics.research and
sci.physics.foundations are moderated and, obviously, neither have
".moderated" appended to the newsgroup name.

Understood.
I did vote to create sci.physics.foundations.
Kathy was not on the board at that time (if I remember correctly).
No other board members seem to care much either way.

I won't vote against a good proposal just because the name doesn't
include ".moderated".

The current situation is inconsistent, with plenty of moderated Big 8
without ".moderated" in the name. Those aren't going away any time soon,
so consistency won't be achieved by requiring ".moderated" for all new
moderated groups.

In the event that an unmoderated sci.physics.acoustics group is created,
I see no overwhelming reason that it couldn't be named
sci.physics.acoustics.unmoderated.

-Dave

robert bristow-johnson

2009-06-22 18:33:27 UTC

Post by Dave Sill

Post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:36:52 CST, robert bristow-johnson

Understood.
I did vote to create sci.physics.foundations.
Kathy was not on the board at that time (if I remember correctly).
No other board members seem to care much either way.

I won't vote against a good proposal just because the name doesn't
include ".moderated".
The current situation is inconsistent, with plenty of moderated Big 8
without ".moderated" in the name. Those aren't going away any time soon,
so consistency won't be achieved by requiring ".moderated" for all new
moderated groups.
In the event that an unmoderated sci.physics.acoustics group is created,
I see no overwhelming reason that it couldn't be named
sci.physics.acoustics.unmoderated.

dunno if that is meant to be fecicious, but if it was, i get it. the
scope of the subject matter is narrow enough, that there will never be
the need for two groups to be created. i think the concern is that if
sci.physics.acoustics is created as a moderated ng, and later we wish
it was unmoderated, or otherwise, if s.p.a is created as an
unmoderated and later we wish it was moderated, then the more concise
and prime name is wasted.

so we should be very careful about deciding if it should be moderated
or not. Angelo, would you like to pipe in on this question?

r b-j

Steve Bonine

2009-06-22 23:52:22 UTC

Post by robert bristow-johnson
so we should be very careful about deciding if it should be moderated
or not.

Yes, this is the real issue. Don't get hung up on whether the name
should have the characters ".moderated" in it; instead, spend your
effort deciding whether you want a moderated or unmoderated newsgroup.

There appear to be two things that are driving this proposal -- a desire
to "move" the newsgroup from alt to the big-8, and a desire to reduce
spam and off-topic traffic.

Obviously either a moderated or unmoderated newsgroup in sci will
accomplish the first goal.

You need to decide if you want to accomplish the second goal bad enough
to justify a moderated newsgroup. If it's Really Important to get rid
of spam and noise, then the way to do that is to moderate. But you have
to find a moderation platform and moderators to accomplish that, and you
introduce all the disadvantages of a moderated newsgroup including a
delay in articles being posted. It's a tradeoff, and the potential
participants in the new newsgroup need to reach a consensus about
whether to go for a moderated newsgroup or an unmoderated one.

Or if you can't find someone who's willing to host the moderation,
and/or cannot find enough people willing to be moderators, then your
decision is rather easier.

Angelo Campanella

2009-07-02 07:40:24 UTC

Post by Steve Bonine
You need to decide if you want to accomplish the second goal bad enough
to justify a moderated newsgroup. If it's Really Important to get rid
of spam and noise, then the way to do that is to moderate.

So I decided to run a quick test of feasibility of being Unmoderated in that
big-8 domain. I subscribed to sci.physics.electromag, and there it was... spam
of about the same intensity as aspa has been receiving recently. So, either
spe is unmoderated, or it's moderated and the moderators have given up...
Which is it Marty?

Along with my spam test, I had a twinge of curiosity as to what's being
discussed these days on spe. But I never took the trouble to follow that
thread since there was much spam present... True, I could have constructed a
filter to weed it out.

So I tried an abbreviated filter: I typed in key words. How about
superconducting magnets. "super" netted nil, so they are talking about that.
How about cooled magnets?... "cool" also netted nil. Looks like the activity
is now minimal....

Spam filter construction and testing would have drained away all the energy I
cared to apply at the moment.

So, the needle again points to a spa (mod) group.

Post by Steve Bonine
But you have
to find a moderation platform and moderators to accomplish that, and you
introduce all the disadvantages of a moderated newsgroup including a
delay in articles being posted.

I don't think that the delay is a pivotal problem. Many of us struggle with
problems that have been around for some months or years, and a few hours or
days delay is not going to nix our interest. It's different from wasting time;
induging in aspa and soon spa (mod) is not a waste of time (IMHO).

Post by Steve Bonine
It's a tradeoff, and the potential
participants in the new newsgroup need to reach a consensus about
whether to go for a moderated newsgroup or an unmoderated one.

To repeat, this acoustics news group quest is not about repartee only. It's
intended (IMHO) t fill the gap between phone calls and formal letter writing.

Post by Steve Bonine
Or if you can't find someone who's willing to host the moderation,
and/or cannot find enough people willing to be moderators, then your
decision is rather easier.

If I may say so, Noral and Robert have committed to be founding moderators.
Our software choice is the next concern.

Ange

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-07-02 17:15:38 UTC

... I decided to run a quick test of feasibility of being Unmoderated in that
big-8 domain. I subscribed to sci.physics.electromag, and there it was... spam
of about the same intensity as aspa has been receiving recently. So, either
spe is unmoderated, or it's moderated and the moderators have given up...
Which is it Marty?

Unmoderated.

You can check these things for yourself in various and sundry
ways. I have a list that is updated erratically:

http://moleski.net/newsgroups/checkgroups/list.htm

Two other methods here:

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:big-8_list

Marty

--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.

robert bristow-johnson

2009-07-04 03:36:16 UTC

I don't think that the delay is a pivotal problem. Many of us struggle with
problems that have been around for some months or years, and a few hours or
days delay is not going to nix our interest.

yeah, you might not even want to have a rapid response conversation
about it. as long as *someone* sees the post within a day, to approve
it. anyway, the traffic of a.s.p.a was pretty low before the widespead
USENET spam contamination seemed to begin in earnest (in the last
year). so maybe there will be two posts a day or something. even if it
was 20, my attitude would be to spend four seconds each deciding if it
wasn't obvious commercial spam or obviously off-topic. essentially, if
it is superficially on-topic, that should be quick to tell and
sufficient for approval.

Post by Angelo Campanella
It's different from wasting time;
induging in aspa and soon spa (mod) is not a waste of time (IMHO).

and the Big-8 groups most certainly were not immune. comp.dsp was a
high-traffic group, now, when you view it with Google Groups, it
became this calamity of on-topic traffic and nearly an equal measure
of spam. but people who use a legit newsserver (not Google Groups)
tell me that they don't see most of the spam i see at GG.

however, the traffic for a.s.p.a pretty much went to near zero, except
for the really obnoxious spam and *this* thread (and Ghost's reply to
me). that's what appears to me to be a sad corruption of something
that used to be good, to where it may have lost its utility (if no one
is watching it because all it became is obnoxious spam).

it might be a little better for an unmoderated Big-8 newsgroup if the
newsservers carrying B8 have more aggressive spam filtering, but maybe
not (if comp.dsp is an example).

Post by Steve Bonine
It's a tradeoff, and the potential
participants in the new newsgroup need to reach a consensus about
whether to go for a moderated newsgroup or an unmoderated one.

To repeat, this acoustics news group quest is not about repartee only. It's
intended (IMHO) t fill the gap between phone calls and formal letter writing.

Post by Steve Bonine
Or if you can't find someone who's willing to host the moderation,
and/or cannot find enough people willing to be moderators, then your
decision is rather easier.

If I may say so, Noral and Robert have committed to be founding moderators.

i'm confirming that. i'm also happy if someone else does it and,
despite what The Ghost says, am not interested in controlling any
newsgroup or conversation or people. but i *am* interested in
defeating spam in the most cost-effective manner and for a really low
traffic group, moderation might be cost effective.

Post by Angelo Campanella
Our software choice is the next concern.

which is some research someone more knowledgeable than i can do. i
dunno the first thing about software to do this. i think there needs
to be something that receives the posts and distributes them to the
moderators.

L8r,

--

r b-j ***@audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-07-04 05:17:33 UTC

... it might be a little better for an unmoderated Big-8 newsgroup if the
newsservers carrying B8 have more aggressive spam filtering, but maybe
not (if comp.dsp is an example).

It's not so much a question of "the newsservers carrying the big-8"
as it is the question of how YOUR news service provider filters
the traffic in the newsgroups carried by that provider.

Imagine Usenet as a flood of information pouring into
a news server.

From that flood, the news admin may select a subset of

streams (hierarchies and newsgroups) to pass on to
subscribers. The rest of the flood goes into the bit
bucket as far as the local service is concerned (the
server sends the whole flood off to its peers, more
or less).

Within each selected stream, the news admin may choose
to filter out binaries and spam. As you've noticed,
the "spool" of posts in a newsgroup looks different
with different news providers.

Moderators get to filter the stream of posts in their
newsgroup (if the system works correctly).

Marty

--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.

Angelo Campanella

2009-07-02 07:38:43 UTC

Post by robert bristow-johnson
so we should be very careful about deciding if it should be moderated
or not. Angelo, would you like to pipe in on this question?

We are still torturing the same two questions: Can an Unmoderated group
achieve our objectives?

1- It will achieve the visibility (Big-8) objective.

2- But from what I am hearing here, it will not provide significantly better
spam protection. That protection seems to be more a function of the Server
Provider to which we individually subscribe. And that is just as applicable
now to aspa, I think. So, my view of an unmoderated group is that we certainly
have that right now with aspa, which already supplies abundant opportunity to
rap freely.

What we don't have now is a protected zone (free of spam and harassment). I
say that on margin, we should go with a moderated group to get that protected
zone. We will have to wait-and-see whether it provides a big and facile
umbrella we can all be proud of and use freely.

The aspa group will persist as noted by others. We can either let it play
indefinitely, or we can campaign to get severs to not purvey it any more...
our choice.

The choice for an unmoderated group remains open indefinitely as far as I can
perceive.

It remains to be seen the amount of traffic spa (mod) will purvey. It does
indeed provide a sanctuary for those of us that may want it.

Angelo Campanella

Ken Plotkin

2009-07-03 07:32:29 UTC

On Thu, 2 Jul 2009 01:38:43 CST, Angelo Campanella
<***@att.net> wrote:

[snip]

Post by Angelo Campanella
2- But from what I am hearing here, it will not provide significantly better
spam protection. That protection seems to be more a function of the Server
Provider to which we individually subscribe. And that is just as applicable

[snip]

Maybe Cox's servers do a better job than yours, but I don't see much
of a problem with spam. The spam I see is easy to ignore. It's
obvious from the subject heading, so there's no need to open spam
threads at all. They don't seem to stick themselves into real
threads.

Off-topic and personal feuds are, IMHO, easy to avoid. If the feuders
bother you, that's what kill files are for. I do well with
surprisingly few entries in my kill file. There just aren't that many
bad apples.

Ken Plotkin

Angelo Campanella

2009-07-03 14:01:05 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009 01:38:43 CST, Angelo Campanella

Off-topic and personal feuds are, IMHO, easy to avoid. If the feuders
bother you, that's what kill files are for. I do well with
surprisingly few entries in my kill file. There just aren't that many
bad apples.

OK.. I examined my Netscape 7.1 aspa kill file just now, to find just six
entries. But this Netscape reader does not allow one to pull previously
downloaded messages off of the menu display for that news group. It gets
complicated.

For me, personally, I like to review past messages read from time to time.
It's annoying to see old downloaded spam messages, now filtered (against
future download) but not erasable except by turning off all read messages
which defeats the ability to view old good messages without the clutter of old
spam.

I do ot know of the capabilities of other news readers, since I like to have
systems, once developed for me, to be be on hand indefinitely into the future.

Back to the filtering capability, I had found that in order to clear a
subscribed news group of old spam clutter, I have to unsubscribe from that
news group, subscribe to it again, but before re-downloading, I have to build
a new kill file listing all the undesirables, then download. It gets labor
intensive.

Perhaps other news readers have fexibilities different from Netscape?

Angelo Campanella

Ken Plotkin

2009-07-03 19:39:13 UTC

On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:01:05 CST, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
OK.. I examined my Netscape 7.1 aspa kill file just now, to find just six
entries. But this Netscape reader does not allow one to pull previously
downloaded messages off of the menu display for that news group. It gets
complicated.

[snip]

Netscape? Didn't realize that was a newsreader. FWIW, Netscape is
now obsolete...support ended over a year ago. In its last years it
was owned by AOL, which does not speak well at all for its relation to
usenet.

Not to advocate one brand, but I've been using Agent for quite some
time. When you set a filter, it gives the option of filtering
existing articles as well as future. When groups were getting flooded
with that M-I5 junk it was a joy to create the filter and watch them
all disappear.

I presume any newsreader whose primary role is to read news has
similar capabilties.

You might consider just spending $30 or so on a genuine newsreader,
rather than setting people to work filtering spam for you.

I still think moving to Big 8 is a good idea. The group should have
been there in the first place.

Ken Plotkin

robert bristow-johnson

2009-07-04 03:36:46 UTC

On Jul 3, 3:39 pm, Ken Plotkin <***@nospam-cox.net> wrote:
...

I still think moving to Big 8 is a good idea. The group should have
been there in the first place.

that, i have believed ever since i first discovered a.s.p.a . it
should be s.p.a and, the irony *is* pretty thick if the next one had
".moderated" appended and was abbreviated s.p.a.m . that's funny.

r b-j

Don Pearce

2009-07-03 19:37:53 UTC

On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:01:05 CST, Angelo Campanella

Post by Ken Plotkin
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009 01:38:43 CST, Angelo Campanella

OK.. I examined my Netscape 7.1 aspa kill file just now, to find just six
entries. But this Netscape reader does not allow one to pull previously
downloaded messages off of the menu display for that news group. It gets
complicated.
For me, personally, I like to review past messages read from time to time.
It's annoying to see old downloaded spam messages, now filtered (against
future download) but not erasable except by turning off all read messages
which defeats the ability to view old good messages without the clutter of old
spam.
I do ot know of the capabilities of other news readers, since I like to have
systems, once developed for me, to be be on hand indefinitely into the future.
Back to the filtering capability, I had found that in order to clear a
subscribed news group of old spam clutter, I have to unsubscribe from that
news group, subscribe to it again, but before re-downloading, I have to build
a new kill file listing all the undesirables, then download. It gets labor
intensive.
Perhaps other news readers have fexibilities different from Netscape?
Angelo Campanella

You should use some thing like I use - NewsProxy. This is not a filter
that demands that the message be downloaded before it operates. It
examines the small subheader on the ISP server and makes its choices
of what to download. I, for example, choose not to download anything
that originates from Googlegroups. That means that I never see 99% of
Usenet spam. NewsProxy allows me to make exceptions for individuals
posting from Googlegroups, but I can't say I have had to make many of
those.

I know this doesn't solve your current problem, but it will stop it
recurring.

d

Kathy Morgan

2009-07-04 03:34:47 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin
On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:01:05 CST, Angelo Campanella

Post by Ken Plotkin
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009 01:38:43 CST, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
2- But from what I am hearing here, it will not provide significantly
better spam protection. That protection seems to be more a function of
the Server Provider to which we individually subscribe.

(snip description of problems with Netscape filtering functionality)
Perhaps other news readers have fexibilities different from Netscape?

You should use some thing like I use - NewsProxy. This is not a filter
that demands that the message be downloaded before it operates. It
examines the small subheader on the ISP server and makes its choices
of what to download.
Not to advocate one brand, but I've been using Agent for quite some
time. When you set a filter, it gives the option of filtering
existing articles as well as future. [...]

There are many free and low cost choices for newsreaders with filtering
capabilities much more robust than Netscape's.

I've been subscribed to alt.physics.acoustics since early in this
discussion to see for myself what the group is like. What I am seeing
is a low traffic group with very little off topic posting and little to
no spam; those who are seeing a lot of spam should probably consider
getting their news from a news server with better filtering. (There are
a number of free and low cost news server alternatives better than using
your ISP or Google.)

If a Big-8 moderated group were created, I suspect that those using
poorly filtered news servers would still see some spam, since some
spammers forge approvals to moderated groups. It seems to me that a
moderated group would split the discussion for little to no benefit so
I'm leaning towards voting NO to a moderated group.

Post by Ken Plotkin
I still think moving to Big 8 is a good idea. The group should have
been there in the first place.

What percentage of the conversation would be likely to move to a Big 8
group if an unmoderated group were created?

The alt group can't be removed; it will still exist on the same servers
that currently carry it. If a significant portion of users move to the
new group, and a significant portion stay in the old group, the
discussion would be split to the detriment of both groups. It only
makes sense to create a new unmoderated Big 8 group at this time if most
users of the alt group are likely to move to the new one.

--
Kathy, member of B8MB, speaking only for myself

robert bristow-johnson

2009-07-04 17:52:25 UTC

On Jul 3, 11:34 pm, ***@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan) wrote:
...

I've been subscribed to alt.sci.physics.acoustics since early in this
discussion to see for myself what the group is like. What I am seeing
is a low traffic group with very little off topic posting and little to
no spam; those who are seeing a lot of spam should probably consider
getting their news from a news server with better filtering.

IMO, the traffic is so low *now* because people have fled the
newsgroup since the recent onset of the horrible, horrible spam.

There are a number of free and low cost news server alternatives
better than using your ISP or Google.

i wouldn't mind knowing of a specific free news server i can connect
my mail client to (that has *some* anti-spam filtering).

If a Big-8 moderated group were created, I suspect that those using
poorly filtered news servers would still see some spam, since some
spammers forge approvals to moderated groups. It seems to me that a
moderated group would split the discussion for little to no benefit so
I'm leaning towards voting NO to a moderated group.

i can live with that. i *would* like it without the ".moderated" in
any case (and without the "alt."). even unmoderated, it should always
have been simply "sci.physics.acoustics".

and my hope would be maybe we could get some academics from places
like Penn State to participate, if they saw it as "more legit" (not
too say anything bad about what you created Ange, it's just that it
doesn't look as legit in the "alt." hierarchy, IMO).

I still think moving to Big 8 is a good idea. The group should have
been there in the first place.

What percentage of the conversation would be likely to move to a Big 8
group if an unmoderated group were created?

i might bet all of it. if s.p.a is created, Ange can make a clear
announcement of it to a.s.p.a and that might remain at the top of the
list except for the additional porn spam that will pile on top of it.
such an announcement can be posted monthly for the first year and then
we should just forget it.

The alt group can't be removed; it will still exist on the same servers
that currently carry it.

where is the counterpart to the B8MB for the alt hierarchy (if there
is one)? how do newsgroups get established there? can't a similar
"rmgroup" control message:

http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0105.htm

be issued for alt.sci.physics.acoustics?

or why not a "mvgroup" control message:

http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0107.htm ?

i know of an alt.* group that had been removed and is only good for
archiving, it is the alt.music.ecto ng which is now a mailing list
with a USENET "gateway" called fa.music.ecto . i made the mistake of
"posting" to that a.m.e ng several times (and Google Groups displayed
the posts) and wondered why my posts *never* had any responses. i
found out later why.

If a significant portion of users move to the
new group, and a significant portion stay in the old group, the
discussion would be split to the detriment of both groups. It only
makes sense to create a new unmoderated Big 8 group at this time if most
users of the alt group are likely to move to the new one.

i'll continue to say, i can live with that (and hope that it takes
some time for spammers to discover the existence of s.p.a) and i can
live with it moderated, even if it means that i get to share
moderation chores with 2 or 3 other folk. i have always thought that
the "sci.physics.acoustics" was the appropriate title to the newsgroup
in the first place. if it *does* get created, let's make sure the
spelling is checked and rechecked. it would be a shame to "newgroup"
this thing with the wrong spelling.

thank you to all for your discussion and time (and thanks to Ange for
starting this discussion here as well as creating a.s.p.a in the first
place).

r b-j

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-07-04 19:24:03 UTC

Post by robert bristow-johnson
i wouldn't mind knowing of a specific free news server i can connect
my mail client to (that has *some* anti-spam filtering).

Here's a list of some news service providers:

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:news_providers

Post by robert bristow-johnson
where is the counterpart to the B8MB for the alt hierarchy (if there
is one)?

The big-8 is a set of eight managed newsgroup hierarchies.

Alt, by design, was intended to be unmanaged:

<http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:other_hierarchies&s=managed%20hierarchy>

You can get help with alt.* from alt.config.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.config/about?hl=en

Post by robert bristow-johnson
how do newsgroups get established there? can't a similar
http://www.mibsoftware.com/userkt/usefor/03/0105.htm
be issued for alt.sci.physics.acoustics?

You can issue them all that you want.

You may start issuing them today--for any alt group
you wish to see removed from the alt.* hierarchy.

No one can stop you from sending control messages to
any hierarchy (including the big-8).

People noticed this fact a while ago (I wasn't there,
but I'd guess it was within six months of the rmgroup
control message being invented). Some folks started
sending rmgroup control messages to get rid of groups
they didn't want on the spool. Others would then
send control messages to recreate the group.

That's when most news admins chose to take their
systems off autopilot. They can add and remove groups
manually, if they wish, or accept all creation requests
and block all removal requests across the board or
for specific hierarchies.

The seven hierarchies that later became the eight
hierarchies known as the "big-8" (for good or for
ill) have always had some measure of control over
the "official" list of newsgroups:

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=history:big-8_management

That's why there are only ~2300 big-8 newsgroups
compared to tens of thousands of newsgroups in the
alt.* hierarchy.

Post by robert bristow-johnson
... i made the mistake of
"posting" to that a.m.e ng several times (and Google Groups displayed
the posts) and wondered why my posts *never* had any responses. i
found out later why.

Google's news admins have chosen how their server operates,
just like the thousands (tens of thousands?) of news admins
around the world who are sovereign over their servers. No
one can tell a news admin how to configure the server (except,
maybe, on a good day, the news admin's employer).

Post by robert bristow-johnson
... hope that it takes
some time for spammers to discover the existence of s.p.a ...

It will take about 90 seconds for their lists to
be updated. Do you think they are technically inept?
Spam is their BUSINESS, and they work hard with state
of the art tools to git 'er done.

Marty

--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.

Steve Bonine

2009-07-05 03:46:40 UTC

Post by robert bristow-johnson
IMO, the traffic is so low *now* because people have fled the
newsgroup since the recent onset of the horrible, horrible spam.

I'm sorry, but when I see comments like "horrible, horrible spam", it
leads me to the conclusion that you're ceding entirely too much power to
spammers. You are allowing these people to run your life. Spam is a
fact of life these days; it's not going away, and rather than bemoaning
it or letting it interfere with your activities, I'd suggest finding
coping methods. And yes, creating a moderated newsgroup in the big-8 is
indeed a coping method, but is it driving a carpet tack with a sledge
hammer?

This comment might seem off topic, but what you're proposing is creating
a new moderated newsgroup because you are seeing what you consider
"horrible" spam in a newsgroup that has a reasonable signal/noise ratio
if you simply filter out the spam. Is the effort really justified to
find a server, investigate potential moderation software, install the
software, train moderators, and then have an unending commitment to
moderate and nuture a newsgroup . . . simply because you are unwilling
to address the issue of spam?

Post by robert bristow-johnson
and my hope would be maybe we could get some academics from places
like Penn State to participate, if they saw it as "more legit" (not
too say anything bad about what you created Ange, it's just that it
doesn't look as legit in the "alt." hierarchy, IMO).

And I would hope be maybe warm in Minnesota in the winter.

Seriously, do you have any tangible indication that such academics would
participate in a Usenet newsgroup if it were "more legit"? Have you
asked anyone? Put out feelers? Had anyone actually tell you that they
would participate?

If there is really a reasonable expectation that there are enough people
who are already on Usenet to sustain a discussion on this topic, then
more power to you. But if you are counting on people flocking to the
new group just because it's "more legit", please consider whether this
is a realistic expectation. If you are able to create a really
interesting and unique discussion in the new group, you MAY be able to
attract additional participants. That implies (a) actually creating the
discussion by nurturing the new newsgroup (b) advertising the new
newsgroup so that the word gets out to the potential participants, and
(c) these people having access to Usenet already or being so hugely
motivated that they climb the learning curve to join you. These
activities are in addition to establishing a moderation platform.

My comments sound negative, and I suppose that they are. But my
conclusion from reading the discussion so far is that you don't really
appreciate the effort required to end up with a SUCCESSFUL newsgroup.
The technical issues are relatively easy; attracting enough people and
encouraging them to participate is the hard, and ongoing, part. Please
don't assume that if you build it they will come.

The Ghost

2009-07-05 04:07:39 UTC

Post by Steve Bonine

Post by robert bristow-johnson
IMO, the traffic is so low *now* because people have fled the
newsgroup since the recent onset of the horrible, horrible spam.

I'm sorry, but when I see comments like "horrible, horrible spam", it
leads me to the conclusion that you're ceding entirely too much power to
spammers. You are allowing these people to run your life. Spam is a
fact of life these days; it's not going away, and rather than bemoaning
it or letting it interfere with your activities, I'd suggest finding
coping methods. And yes, creating a moderated newsgroup in the big-8 is
indeed a coping method, but is it driving a carpet tack with a sledge
hammer?
This comment might seem off topic, but what you're proposing is creating
a new moderated newsgroup because you are seeing what you consider
"horrible" spam in a newsgroup that has a reasonable signal/noise ratio
if you simply filter out the spam. Is the effort really justified to
find a server, investigate potential moderation software, install the
software, train moderators, and then have an unending commitment to
moderate and nuture a newsgroup . . . simply because you are unwilling
to address the issue of spam?

And I would hope be maybe warm in Minnesota in the winter.
Seriously, do you have any tangible indication that such academics would
participate in a Usenet newsgroup if it were "more legit"? Have you
asked anyone? Put out feelers? Had anyone actually tell you that they
would participate?
If there is really a reasonable expectation that there are enough people
who are already on Usenet to sustain a discussion on this topic, then
more power to you. But if you are counting on people flocking to the
new group just because it's "more legit", please consider whether this
is a realistic expectation. If you are able to create a really
interesting and unique discussion in the new group, you MAY be able to
attract additional participants. That implies (a) actually creating the
discussion by nurturing the new newsgroup (b) advertising the new
newsgroup so that the word gets out to the potential participants, and
(c) these people having access to Usenet already or being so hugely
motivated that they climb the learning curve to join you. These
activities are in addition to establishing a moderation platform.
My comments sound negative, and I suppose that they are. But my
conclusion from reading the discussion so far is that you don't really
appreciate the effort required to end up with a SUCCESSFUL newsgroup.
The technical issues are relatively easy; attracting enough people and
encouraging them to participate is the hard, and ongoing, part. Please
don't assume that if you build it they will come.

Your comments are right on the mark. However, what you are missing is that
the issue of spam is just a smokescreen. The issue is NOT at all about
spam, but rather the takeover of a newsgroup by a control freak by the name
of Robert Bristow-Jonhson. The fact of the matter is that this very same
discussion/exchange took place THREE years ago at a time when there was NO
spam whatsoever in alt.sci.physics.acoustics.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/thread/
bb4a4d6603c54975/58ca843a521341df?tvc=1#58ca843a521341df

Ken Plotkin

2009-07-05 05:48:10 UTC

Post by robert bristow-johnson
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/thread/
bb4a4d6603c54975/58ca843a521341df?tvc=1#58ca843a521341df

Thanks for digging that out. I had forgotten about it. Everything I
said back then still applies. My work here is done...as of three
years ago. :-)

I think I'll now drop out of this discussion, other than to rag Ang if
he does not get a real newsreader.

Ken Plotkin

Angelo Campanella

2009-07-05 23:46:20 UTC

Post by Ken Plotkin

http://groups.Google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/thread/
bb4a4d6603c54975/58ca843a521341df?tvc=1#58ca843a521341df

Thanks for digging that out. I had forgotten about it. Everything I
said back then still applies. My work here is done...as of three
years ago. :-)

I hope you hang around a bit more. We will need some fresh topics to crank
up the new ng.

What you could contribute here now (in aspa only if you wish) is to
advise us of the newsreaders you have found to be efficient in this
(ng,unmod) environment.

Post by Ken Plotkin
I think I'll now drop out of this discussion, other than to rag Ang if
he does not get a real newsreader.

My progress:

1- Tried SeaMonkey... has the same hangup as Netscape (no spam deletion
capability). Then this Thinkpad T43 slowed WAY down; know not why.
Uninstalled SeaMonkey, and Resored back to 1 July, and all is well again.

2- Dug out old MS Outlook (shunned when MS virus/worm threats were extant),
and find that it does indeed have spot spam deletion capability, so I'll
exercise it. Using it here.

Angelo Campanella

Ken Plotkin

2009-07-06 03:17:44 UTC

On Sun, 5 Jul 2009 17:46:20 CST, "Angelo Campanella"

Post by Angelo Campanella
What you could contribute here now (in aspa only if you wish) is to
advise us of the newsreaders you have found to be efficient in this
(ng,unmod) environment.

Certainly - that falls in the category of ragging you... :-)

Post by Angelo Campanella
1- Tried SeaMonkey... has the same hangup as Netscape (no spam deletion

Isn't that a browser trying to do other stuff? The way Netscape does
(did)?

Post by Angelo Campanella
2- Dug out old MS Outlook ...

Outlook!!! Outlook Express is probably the spawn of more "Get a real
newsreader" rants than everything else put together. It has one
benefit, and that's to my ISP, Cox Communications. It's the only
newsreader that Cox supports, which pretty much gets them out of
support.

One of the news admins who has kindly joined this discussion gave a
link to news readers. The one I use, Forte Agent, is on that list and
I've been very satisfied with it. Well worth the $30 or so that I
paid for it - and I am a real cheapskate.

Look to that list, and try something that is only a newsreader.

Ken Plotkin

Angelo Campanella

2009-07-05 20:36:30 UTC

Post by Steve Bonine
My comments sound negative, and I suppose that they are. But my
conclusion from reading the discussion so far is that you don't really
appreciate the effort required to end up with a SUCCESSFUL newsgroup. The
technical issues are relatively easy; attracting enough people and
encouraging them to participate is the hard, and ongoing, part. Please
don't assume that if you build it they will come.

To some extent, that is what we are doing. It's not intended to be an
instant success. rather, it is intended to be a place where interested folks
can swap information worldwide. Moderating would keep the are free of
clutter.

An open ng (not moderated) as it may be manifested today will have more
rapid responses. The remaining question is the degree of "clutter-free" we
should establish. Ken Plotkin points out that intelligent selection of one's
news server and mail reader will adequately remove the clutter.

I, for one have not enjoyed that posture yet, though I am slowly moving that
way. There is leeway in that direction.

If the consensus is that this is the "way to go", we could proceed
unmoderated.

More opinions are needed.

Angelo Campanella

Ken Plotkin

2009-07-05 03:56:31 UTC

On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 11:52:25 CST, robert bristow-johnson

Post by robert bristow-johnson
IMO, the traffic is so low *now* because people have fled the
newsgroup since the recent onset of the horrible, horrible spam.

Am I the only one who never had any problem with spam?

Spam hit all the groups I frequent, but is easily ignored or
controlled. I did find some of the audio discussions not to my taste,
but IMHO they were not really off-topic and if the group was moderated
should have been allowed. I found some of the personal feuds to be
entertaining.

IMHO, the low traffic these days is just a shift in interest. I post
much less than I used to, but I certainly haven't fled.

Ken Plotkin

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

2009-07-03 19:38:16 UTC

... Perhaps other news readers have fexibilities different from Netscape?

Yes, I think that is the case:

http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:news_readers

The Frequently Given Answer to this question is "get a real
newsreader." :o)

Marty

--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.

robert bristow-johnson

2009-06-21 23:35:10 UTC

On Jun 21, 1:35 am, robert bristow-johnson <***@audioimagination.com>
wrote:
[Gary Sokolich, a.k.a. The Ghost wrote:]

With regard to the proposed moderators, I object to Robert Bristow-
Johnsone as a moderator on several grouds.

there is no "e" in "Johnson". just in case anyone has trouble
googling.
now, in case someone is curious as to whom "The Ghost" is, you should
look up "Gary Sokolich" (Google Groups is fine). then make your own
judgment regarding reasonableness. (this guy stalks people. there
was a previous acquaintance named "Bob Cain" that this guy followed
from who knows what other newsgroups to comp.dsp, an unmoderated ng
that suffers some spam but remains a high S/N despite that fact. i
didn't know what Gary's axe to grind was, but was not happy he dragged
his beef with Bob Cain from a.s.p.a or wherever to comp.dsp.)

...

i forgot to paste in a link to the cross-over thread to comp.dsp where
The Ghost was actually stalking me:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.dsp/browse_frm/thread/a4de9b61e1b60d5/6f21ae8711155acf

here he is calling me out, by name, in the subject line of the post.

(he
left the "No-Archive" bit set, but enough people quoted the original
which was just a pointer to my post in the a.s.p.a thread. with the
words "sick fuck" in both threads, we can clearly see who posted it.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.acoustics/browse_frm/t...

i just want it to be clear where The Ghost is coming from. Angelo
Campanella (the founder of alt.sci.physics.acoustics, if i am not
mistaken) knows full well of this, but others in news.groups.proposals
who are less familiar with some of the personalities need to also be
so aware.

r b-j

Peter J Ross

2009-06-15 19:50:20 UTC

In news.announce.newgroups on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:37 EDT, Angelo

Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,

alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Subject: RFD: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Archive-Name: sci.physics.acoustics.moderated

How the hell did this mess get approved by the NAN moderators? Header
lines are duplicated in the body of the post, and broken wrapping
occurs throughout.

--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader v0.9.9p1: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator

Helmut Wabnig

2009-06-15 17:02:41 UTC

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:37 EDT, Angelo Campanella

Post by Angelo Campanella
alt.sci.physics.acoustics

Positive, but

news.groups.proposals is not on my server.

w.

Brian Mailman

2009-06-15 18:20:00 UTC