Newsgroup/list moderation techniques

[Derek Upham <upham@cs.ubc.ca>]

So people are arguing that USENET newsgroups need moderation to keep
out extraneous posts.  Other people are arguing that moderation brings
the danger of ``cabals'' and the like; who chooses the moderators?

How about this: anyone can be a moderator.

Supposed Ann wants to be a moderator.  She sends e-mail to the
moderator site saying ``make me a moderator''.  Afterwards, she gets
periodic mail messages containing newsgroup posts.  For each message,
she responds to the moderator site saying "APPROVED" or "NOT
APPROVED".

From the point of view of the moderator site, it gets newsgroup
messages through e-mail and then forwards that e-mail to one person
chosen randomly from the moderator list.  Soon afterwards, it gets an
"APPROVED" or "NOT APPROVED" message back from that person, and
depending on the response, either posts the message or does not post
the message to the newsgroup.

This moderation method has two major benefits: the load of culling
posts is distributed among many people, which helps responsiveness;
and the decision of culling posts is distributed among many people,
which reduces the risk of partisanship.

There are, of course, issues of how do we deal with people who can't
be reached or who don't read their mail in a reasonable time, but they
can be answered, I'm sure.

For an example of a similar system of distributed responsiblity,
look at the fabled USENET Oracle...

Derek

Derek Lynn Upham                               University of British Columbia
upham@cs.ubc.ca                                   Computer Science Department
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