Easy way to know if a UseNet group is moderated?

[John Doe]

Just in case I'm missing something...

Is there an easy way to tell whether a UseNet group is moderated?

Kind of annoying when posting if the post doesn't show up immediately and
suspecting that it's because the group is moderated.

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

Just in case I'm missing something...

Is there an easy way to tell whether a UseNet group is moderated?

Kind of annoying when posting if the post doesn't show up immediately and
suspecting that it's because the group is moderated.

Thanks.

They don't necessarily follow a naming convention.
So that's not a good way to detect them in advance.

http://www.usenet.org.uk/moderated.html

http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/moderated-newsgroups.html

"In most cases, you can't tell if a newsgroup is moderated
just by looking at the name. You will have to look at the
articles within the group. If you use my master Usenet
newsgroup list, it will tell you if a group is moderated.

http://www.harley.com/cgi-bin/usenet.pl?what=moderated&x=22&y=19&state=wholewordmatch&adult=0
"

One of the news servers had an actual groups list page,
but that is gone. There has to be a file somewhere on the
server, that has the details (because the server needs it
to operate).

Paul

 

[Johnny]

Just in case I'm missing something...

Is there an easy way to tell whether a UseNet group is moderated?

Kind of annoying when posting if the post doesn't show up immediately
and suspecting that it's because the group is moderated.

Thanks.

I guess it depends on which news reader you are using. Claws Mail has
moderated beside the group if it is moderated.

 

[Paul]

They don't necessarily follow a naming convention.

OK, a bit more searching jogged my memory. The
file on the server is called the "active" file,
and it has the names of the newsgroups.

telnet nntp.aioe.org 119
list active

And that gives three samples out of 29000 or so.

mozilla.support.seamonkey 0000014458 0000011857 n
uk.rec.cycling 0000236360 0000233382 y
uk.rec.cycling.moderated 0000045530 0000044785 m

The article here, gives the key to the flags field.
N is no posting, Y is posting allowed, M is moderated.

http://www.templetons.com/usenet-format/status.html

The only problem with this, is in this particular
case the file appears to "flap in the breeze". I
can find moderated groups with "y" and not "m"
as they're supposed to have. And unmoderated
groups with "m" and not "y".

I'm going to have to guess that "list active"
is not a reliable way to get that information.

Paul

 

[John Doe]

Off-topic nonsense...

 

[VanguardLH]

| Just in case I'm missing something...
|
| Is there an easy way to tell whether a UseNet group is moderated?
|
| Kind of annoying when posting if the post doesn't show up immediately and
| suspecting that it's because the group is moderated.
|
| Thanks.

If a post of mine didn't show up, I'd first suspect my ISP or some other level of
routing. With USENET clearly on its deathbed, I doubt there are many actively
moderated groups anymore.

Larc

I see about 130+ moderated newsgroups from the Albasani NNTP server.
They don't carry all groups so someone, say, using Giganews might count
more.

There have never been a lot of moderated newsgroups. Requires someone
to volunteer their time to authenticate all the submissions. Does that
sound like a job you would like to do and for free and at all times
throughout the day? Also, moderated groups are the antithesis of Usenet
which was born and designed to be a worldwide mesh network of servers
that had no control over the content they carried (think of Tor today).

Seems many of the moderated newsgroups were originally mailing lists
where moderation was employed by whomever was administering the mailing
list. They decided to hook into Usenet but still wanted their moderated
mailing list. Moderated newsgroups have an e-mail backside and why
there's the delay. Nowadays the mailing list seems integrated with an
NNTP server they're using but e-mail notification to the admin of the
group is still there. Besides having to waiting until a real person
decides what to do about your post, remember that e-mail is NOT a
guaranteed delivery service. This isn't the only example of hooking
into Usenet to accomodate a different paradigm for communication. Many
web-based forums run NNTP-to-HTTP proxies so they can leech, er, borrow
the content of Usenet to pretend they have a larger community or provide
a web-based UI to boobs that can't figure out a couple of config
parameters in setting up an NNTP client.

<rant>
That's why it is so comical when posters use the X-No-Archive header or
1st-line body header trying to hide their posts (and punch holes in
threads) after some period of time over which they have no control. The
web-based archives don't give a gnat's fart about this header. Google
will expire an article marked with this header after 6 days (so such a
poster effective punches holes in threads to which they reply).
Clients, web based forums leeching from Usenet, and archives other than
Google Groups (e.g., Howard Knight) don't honor that header. The poster
trying to hide his post after a week (and obviously who considers their
post as insignificant so they should have never posted) is a boob
because their article is still archived somewhere. They think their
article will expire in a week. They have no control over the expiration
since it is a request to the server or to whomever retrieves a copy of
their article. Okay, I comply with their "X-No-Archive: Yes" request
and my expiration is zero; i.e., I immediately expire their posts. They
think they're moderating the lifetime of the post. They're clueless.
</rant>

Back to moderated forums, think of a convention center announcing "free
speech forums" but after entering you find about 5% of the cubicles
aren't free speech at all. Yes, we all know the argument that freedom
does not preclude responsibility but Usenet is not a political
organization. It is an anarchy so moderation is out of place. If users
want a regulated or moderated venue to communication with other users
then they should go to web-based forums (and suffer the flattened
threads versus the hierarchical ones available in Usenet to determine
who said what to whom).

Perhaps before the Usenet reorganization, the mod.* groups were like
having private forums: only those invited could play. It kept out
everyone else. Not just the bad posters but all posters except for
those enlisted in the elite group. Apparently they wanted to rely on
the worldwide mesh network of NNTP server with its redundancy rather
than any one of them having to setup their own private NNTP server and
rely on login credentials to keep out the riff raff. Anyone can operate
their own NNTP server, like news.grc.com or news.mozilla.org, and not
peer it to Usenet to keep the community small and focused. They can
even require login credentials to operate a private non-peered server
versus a public non-peered server. But those require running your own
NNTP server. A moderated newsgroup requests someone else to have their
server do the notification.

Filtering is how you modify the Usenet so you see what you want to see.
Alas, many Usenetizens are too lazy or ignorant to define their own
filters. Users wanting a comfy cozy environment that has someone else
do the filtering should go to web-based forums where moderation is the
[expected] norm. Those with thin-skinned egos shouldn't be in Usenet.

There have been so few moderated newsgroups in the past that I doubt the
percentage has changed much over the years. Many web-based forums
popped up to provide a more cozy and protected environment for those too
weak to endure the anarchy of Usenet.

You won't be happy with the limited number of moderated newsgroups
unless you only participate in very few topics and there happen to be
moderated groups that cover those. Then there's the delay to get your
submission accepted and then when it finally appears. Usenet is not
designed to provide immediate response, like a chat room, so the added
delay may tax your patience.

 

[Michael Black]

They don't necessarily follow a naming convention.
So that's not a good way to detect them in advance.

http://www.usenet.org.uk/moderated.html

http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/moderated-newsgroups.html

"In most cases, you can't tell if a newsgroup is moderated
just by looking at the name. You will have to look at the
articles within the group. If you use my master Usenet
newsgroup list, it will tell you if a group is moderated.

http://www.harley.com/cgi-bin/usenet.pl?what=moderated&x=22&y=19&state=wholewordmatch&adult=0
"

One of the news servers had an actual groups list page,
but that is gone. There has to be a file somewhere on the
server, that has the details (because the server needs it
to operate).

Paul

There'll be something in the headers. an approval line, if nothing else.

Michael

 

[Paul]

I see about 130+ moderated newsgroups from the Albasani NNTP server.
They don't carry all groups so someone, say, using Giganews might count
more.

Requires someone to volunteer their time to authenticate all the submissions.
Does that sound like a job you would like to do and for free and at all times
throughout the day?

That's why some moderated groups are robo-modded.

Software called STUMP is used. This reduces the workload.

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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:42:26 CST
From: "Yowie" <yowie9644 at ...com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.wicca.moderated

And the moderator could be a team of people, in different
time zones.

I agree though, that being a mod wouldn't be a lot of fun.
Even with help.

Paul

 

[John Doe]

That's why some moderated groups are robo-modded.
Software called STUMP is used. This reduces the workload.
And the moderator could be a team of people, in different time zones.
I agree though, that being a mod wouldn't be a lot of fun. Even with
help.

Easy solution... Let the original poster moderate the discussion.

Works on YouTube. If only they had UseNet threading.

And to be even greater, let the moderation be hierarchical. Anybody can
refuse or allow a direct reply. Only original posts would be moderated by
the group moderator, or not at all. After the original post, the moderator
is the person you reply to. How much control you have just depends on how
many people reply in the thread after your post. Everybody would have
control over their own branch, the ability to delete everything after their
post. Simple and extremely efficient.

 

[Michael Black]

Easy solution... Let the original poster moderate the discussion.

Works on YouTube. If only they had UseNet threading.

And to be even greater, let the moderation be hierarchical. Anybody can
refuse or allow a direct reply. Only original posts would be moderated by
the group moderator, or not at all. After the original post, the moderator
is the person you reply to. How much control you have just depends on how
many people reply in the thread after your post. Everybody would have
control over their own branch, the ability to delete everything after their
post. Simple and extremely efficient.

That's nonsense.

Now that anyone can post, instead of raising people up to a certain level,
the masses have lowered the internet down. Just because someone says
something doesn't make it right. So if the original poster can turn
remove comments, then they can clear out any challenge. But since they
have spewed the original comment out there, they aren't fit to judge any
challenges to what they've said.

On Usenet, everyone is equal. Just because someone starts a thread
doesn't mean they are dominant.

But in the current internet, it's about "my space". So that blogger or
facebook page owner or whatever, they in effect set themselves up as
authority, since it's their space. I've seen lots of blog postings where
the poster hasn't grasped what's going on, or has missed bits of history,
yet they are perceived as 'the expert" because they own the blog. Bad
information shouldn't be allowed to have high travel, yet if nobody can
comment, then the bad information gets the travel.

I've been in too many situations where I'm supposed to be secondary to the
blogger, in the form of the comments can only be a relatively few words.
That also keeps the rest of the world secondary to the blogger, yet
sometimes one needs more words to put the blogger's post in perspective.

The last one to be able to "moderate" is the one who would lose by
comments challenging what they have said.

Michael

 

[John Doe]

That's brilliant!

I guess so, since nobody has presented any logical counterargument.
A limited version is working great on the biggest video website
on the Internet. Having it extended to the hierarchical threading
in UseNet would be even better.

Just because someone says something doesn't make it right. So if the
original poster can turn remove comments, then they can clear out any
challenge.

But seriously... Anyone can create "a challenge" since anyone can post
original. Problem is for people who want to troll other people in their
space. Because obviously trolling is what goes on much of the time.

It would be the best of all worlds. It would give definition to UseNet.
For example, people who are efficient at providing factual information
would be much easier to read.

 

[John Doe]

Anybody who thinks UseNet is dying should check out (alt.usage.English)...

There might be even better examples, but that's one extremely active group
I'm familiar with.

 

[John Doe]

"It isn't working great on youtube. There are no discussions there."

That ridiculous assertion is where I stopped reading the regular troll's
post this time. Obviously it's just clueless. There is very lively
discussion all over YouTube.

--

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Subject: Re: Easy way to know if a UseNet group is moderated?
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[stupid crossposting retained because I don't know where Michael Black
posted from]

I wonder how Michael feels about you changing "nonsense" (his word to
describe your ill-advised idea) to "brilliant" (your own assessment of your
harebrained idea).

I guess so, since nobody has presented any logical counterargument.

You've apparently censored your world to the point where anything you
disagree with is simply ignored.

A limited version is working great on the biggest video website
on the Internet. Having it extended to the hierarchical threading
in UseNet would be even better.

Except for two things:
1. It isn't working great on youtube. There are no discussions there.
2. Usenet isn't anything at all like youtube.

But seriously... Anyone can create "a challenge" since anyone can post
original. Problem is for people who want to troll other people in their
space. Because obviously trolling is what goes on much of the time.

I'll give you credit there. You're an expert at trolling.

It would be the best of all worlds. It would give definition to UseNet.
For example, people who are efficient at providing factual information
would be much easier to read.

Is that the main problem for you? You're having difficulty reading?
I think that can be fixed, but you have to want to.

 

[Ed Propes]

After serious thinking Paul wrote :

That's why some moderated groups are robo-modded.

Software called STUMP is used. This reduces the workload.

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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:42:26 CST
From: "Yowie" <yowie9644 at ...com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.wicca.moderated

And the moderator could be a team of people, in different
time zones.

I agree though, that being a mod wouldn't be a lot of fun.
Even with help.

Paul

i same thing back my old fidonet days and found out soon it not
something you do to make friends.

Ed P.