Re: Sandy and I will run a cypherpunks "moderation" experiment in Jan

[Pierre Uszynski <pierre@rahul.net>]

> Because of
> the large volume of bandwidth eaten by the lists, he does not
> want to maintain both the "flame" and "unedited" versions of the
> list.  If list members decide to continue to have the list
> moderated, one of those lists will probably have to go.

You could maintain all options *and* still strictly reduce traffic on
toad.com by encoding the moderator's decision in a header line. Then
letting people subscribe to one of cypherpunks@toad.com or
cypherpunks-unedited@toad.com.

The first could forward only messages somehow approved, and the other
would forward *all* messages, *with the decision shown in the headers*.
Those of us who want to use the moderator's decisions as only advisory
or who want to monitor the moderation process can subscribe to the full
list and use the header in whatever manner we want.

If the decision is available as a message header in the full list,
there is no need for the "flames" list. The drawback is that the full
list is now delayed by the moderation process (for the very few here
who still seem to read in real time.) Keeping two versions of the list
one delayed and one not delayed is not so good anyway because it makes
it harder to use the decision as "advisory".

Advantages of moderation headers:

a) A more general solution, maybe later letting more than one
moderation group step in (should we ever manage to muster that much
manpower) maybe even letting people filter (on their own machine) on
the basis of several moderator's decisions. At any rate, leaving space
for any option we may want later. Initially, subscribing to moderated
and flame is equivalent to a header solution. For that matter, it *is*
a header solution.

b) Strictly reduced traffic on toad.com by keeping some on the full
list, and others on the reduced list. No need to ever subscribe to any
two lists as the full list would show the moderators' decision(s).

c) Keeps the two versions of the list more in sync (same delay), making
it painless to switch from one version to the other at any time. 'more
reading time' vs 'less volume'.

d) If the moderators are into that level of dedication and software
complication, they *could* now detail their decision: 'grumph, ok',
'mostly drivel', 'drivel', 'utter drivel', etc... ;-)

Otherwise, I fully agree that if some are willing to help filter, I
would like to be able to use their review (and I would provide reviews
myself now and then),
Pierre.
pierre@rahul.net