It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.

The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:04:12 -0800
Walter Bright <newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.

Sounds good to me. I haven't read comp.lang.*.moderated before, but I
hope the discussions can somewhat be seen as educational
archive of rather high-level discussions.

> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

It's somewhat hard these days to distinguish the wild-west from the high-quality threads/posts. Apart from that, I prefer the wild west approach.

(I sincerely hope this is not too much seen as a "me too"
post. :P)

-- 
Alexander Panek <alexander.panek@brainsware.org>

Walter Bright wrote:
> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
> 
> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

if the moderation leads to a more compact, relevant only, yet complete coverage of ongoing developments, i would appreciate such a NG as a time saver.

Walter Bright wrote:
> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. [...]

Weeell, moderated NGs save time, but that could possibly be as well
achieved with careful score file management. Basically I don't find
order too disagreeable, but it's not worth the price to have a law.

regards, frank

Walter Bright Wrote:

> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
> 
> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

digitalmars.D is pretty much on topic most of the time, just nominate a couple of folks to do pure spam removal or "re-direct" postings to appropos NG.  Otherwise this NG will fragment and you have to read two groups instead of one.

Walter Bright wrote:
> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
> 
> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

Hmmm... honestly, I'm against the idea. If there was a lot of spam, I can see the value; however I believe it will simply serve to reduce discussion throughput and split discussions, as well as force users to check two different groups. Plus, it gets down to the question of what's really "on topic," and could easily cause more animosity than it prevents (and as mentioned in the digitalmars.D.tango discussion, create an "us vs. them" mentality).

While occasionally threads here do degenerate into personal attacks, it seems pretty rare, and even the Phango thread didn't turn into an all-out flame war. But then again, I haven't really been around long enough to say much.

Walter Bright wrote:
> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
> 
> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

me too

Walter Bright wrote:
> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
> 
> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.

If we can find the volunteers, I think it would be great.


Sean

* Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight@gmail.com> [07-11-20 16:34]:
>Walter Bright wrote:
[digitalmars.D.moderated]
>Hmmm... honestly, I'm against the idea. If there was a lot of spam, I can see the value; however I believe it will simply serve to reduce discussion throughput and split discussions, as well as force users to check two different groups. Plus, it gets down to the question of what's really "on topic," and could easily cause more animosity than it prevents (and as mentioned in the digitalmars.D.tango discussion, create an "us vs. them" mentality).

I'd like to second that.

Robert Fraser wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> It's been proposed that a new newsgroup be created, digitalmars.D.moderated. It would work like moderated newsgroups on usenet do, such as comp.lang.c++.moderated. There would be 3 or 4 volunteer moderators (not me), who would disallow posts that were off-topic, me too, spam, lacked content, or contained personal attacks. Ideally, the moderated group would set the bar for the quality of the messages.
>>
>> The original newsgroups will remain as the free-for-all wild west that makes them both fun and perhaps a little intimidating for some. While I like the wild west approach, many others clearly find it uncomfortable.
> 
> Hmmm... honestly, I'm against the idea. If there was a lot of spam, I can see the value; however I believe it will simply serve to reduce discussion throughput and split discussions, as well as force users to check two different groups. Plus, it gets down to the question of what's really "on topic," and could easily cause more animosity than it prevents (and as mentioned in the digitalmars.D.tango discussion, create an "us vs. them" mentality).

It's not this way at all with comp.lang.c++.  Generally, the moderated forum serves both as a both a place to ask questions of and to discuss language issues and more complex theoretical topics while the un-moderated forum is for newbie type questions and more general discussion.  In your support however, since D already has a 'learn' newsgroup, it may be that the un-moderated forum would really turn into more of an advocacy group.  That said, I like moderated forums because the signal to noise ratio is typically much higher, and thus helps pre-filter discussion for those with little free time (such as myself).

As for issues regarding what is "on topic," the rules used by other moderated forums would be a useful and simple guide to follow.  In my mind, the real issue is whether this community has people with the dedication to actually do the moderation.


Sean