From: jesse AT lenny DOT dseg DOT ti DOT com (Jesse Bennett) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: c.o.m.djgpp retro-moderated? Date: 3 Mar 1997 04:54:15 GMT Organization: Texas Instruments Lines: 76 Message-ID: <5fdlhn$ha8$1@superb.csc.ti.com> References: <199703022040 DOT PAA22429 AT delorie DOT com> Reply-To: jbennett AT ti DOT com (Jesse Bennett) NNTP-Posting-Host: lenny.dseg.ti.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp First, I would like to commend DJ and the many other contributors for the port of GCC and many other fine UNIX-style programs to DOS. It has been a blessing for many, myself included. Although I use DJGPP much less frequently than I have in the past I continue to recommend it to friends and colleagues who are interested in DOS programming. In article <199703022040 DOT PAA22429 AT delorie DOT com>, DJ Delorie writes: > > Is anyone interested in discussing the idea of switching the > comp.os.msdos.djgpp newsgroup from "unmoderated" to "retro-moderated" > status? Basically, this means that the retro-moderators (chosen by > the group) would have the authority to cancel any post for any reason > if they feel that such posts are not in line with the group's charter > (or if they just feel like it). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Are you serious about this statement? If so, then you really are talking about censorship and not moderation. > While the c.o.m.djgpp newsgroup (and corresponding mailing list) has a > fairly high quality, There have been a number of lengthy off-topic > threads (below) that I personally feel should not have happened on > this forum. Switching to retro-moderated would have allowed someone > to simply cancel those posts, or re-posted them on the appropriate > group, effectively terminating the thread. Because (presumably) there are many readers using the email gateway I can understand the desire to keep off-topic postings to a minimum. OTOH, I think the existence of lengthy threads which are not flamewars (the discussions are reasonable) and are not the result of extensive cross-posting indicate that the subject material is of interest to the readers of this newsgroup. In this case it might make sense to reconsider the group charter, not dismiss these discussions as "off-topic". Like almost everything else in life newsgroups evolve and the interests of the readers change with the times. This is especially true with DOS programming. It seems clear to me that DOS has a limited life as a mainstream OS and therefore most DOS programmers will eventually develop interests in other OS's. This is the reason that the "off-topic" discussions of Win32 and Linux are so prevalent. They are the natural migration path for DOS programmers. > As for the usual censorship argument, let me remind you all that > moderation and retro-moderation don't stop posts, they only stop posts > in the wrong groups. Personally I am not philosophically opposed to *fully* moderated newsgroups. It certainly keeps discussions on-topic and limits the posting volume. I do *not* like the robo-moderation approach because it is more likely to lead to abuse (true censorship), or at least those who have their posts cancelled are more likely to perceive it as such. I am also not aware of any newsgroups which have applied this approach sucessfully (there may be some, I just don't know of any). The problem with the proposed moderation scheme is that it has a tendency to eliminate only those posts concerning topics the moderators personally dislike, but not necessarly all (or the majority of) off-topic posts. Full moderation where *every* posting is evaluated for on-topic content is much more fair. There should also be some degree of accountability for what is (or isn't) allowed in the interest of fairness to the DJGPP community. > DJ Jesse - guilty as charged with discussing GCC optimizations. > Examples: How about: * HELP! What's wrong with this code??? * Why is sizeof( my_structure ) wrong? * What is the best way to implement [whatever]? * All of the other c.l.c. type questions that appear here.