Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 08:37:41 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Morten Welinder <terra AT diku DOT dk>
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: C.O.M.D Noise Level


On 26 Jul 1995, Morten Welinder wrote:

> If there current "noise level" contitues or even gets worse we might
> have to make the news group moderated.

I don't think the current noise level is too high so it requires we think 
of something as serious as censorship (aka moderation).

> + With properly adjusted software at the moderator(s) no phone sex
>   "spam" or "Make Money Fast" posts will get through.  Forged
>   approvals can be detected (PGPmoose) and such articles canceled
>   automatically and immediately (and never sent to the mailing list).

There aren't too many of these.  If you think otherwise, check out 
alt.programmer.msdos (sp?) which is *really* polluted IMHO.

> + No or at least few frequently asked questions get through.

Is this an advantage?  People are entitled to a few FAQs here and there, 
mainly because they have to discover the FAQ list before you can tell 
them to RTFM (a kind of chicken and egg problem).  Other newsgroups post 
the FAQ regularly, but we don't have this habit (neither do I think we 
should, because the FAQ is very large and will bring much more noise then 
the occasional questions).  Anyhow, most people already tell that they've 
read the FAQ, so I think this is (almost) a non-issue.

> + Completely off-topic posts, like the one below, can be silently
>   ignored or the poster could be sent a semi-angry form letter.

I simply press the ``Delete'' button and forget about it.  Too few of 
these (touch wood!) to make me worry.

> (2) If you must answer such posts, or FAQs, (which is a bad idea) then
>     answer by email only;

In the absence of regular FAQ postings, I disagree.  These serve a 
purpose of pointing newcomers to the FAQ and reminding others about some 
possibly obscure bugs/features which they long ago forgot.  At least that 
is what it does to me.

Btw, AFAIK, the main reason of creating a newsgroup was to allow people 
to read postings more selectively (I wouldn't know, because I still read 
the mailing list).  Creating the group did make the noise a bit higher 
(although not as high as I have feared), but this is inevitable, I 
think.  Aren't all those newsreaders good enough to allow you to just 
dump the noise without reading it?