Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 00:33:39 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Phelps To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: c.o.m.djgpp retro-moderated? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Paul Shirley wrote: > In article <199703022040 DOT PAA22429 AT delorie DOT com>, DJ Delorie > writes > >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. > > The only choice needed really is wether crossposts are automatically > deleted or do they need examining first. > Of course I could be being a little extreme here ;) > > Back in the real world: I suppose its worth discussing what an > appropriate response to the FAQs that annoy Eli so much should be. > Converting them to an email response *most* of the time sounds > reasonable to me. I'm not completely convinced of that. It's easy to say when you're a DJGPP veteran and know exactly where to look when you have a question, and are already familiar with a lot of the background information. But, people new to DJGPP might need a little more assistance than simply a pointer to an albeit excellent FAQ. For me, the most important piece of information in the DJGPP readme was the mailing list address (I think at the time it was something like djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu). I came from Turbo C, which didn't require linker options on the command line (you could do most everything from the IDE), didn't need special switches for debugging, didn't have a program called "symify" to perform a post-mortem analysis, didn't have source code you could look at, didn't have protected mode vs. real mode issues, didn't need to a append a stub with coff2exe or stubify programs, etc. The people on the mailing list provided me with all the information I needed, both at the time to get myself effectively using DJGPP, and also provided me with the basic skills and pointers so that I could learn more about how DJGPP worked on my own. I feel that this is the primary goal of the mailing list/newsgroup, and anything that potentially affects that does not make the list as valuable as before. I have also benefitted from discussions, which could potentially be re-routed elsewhere according to some proposals, that have enhanced my C/C++ skills (especially concerning issues such as portability, efficiency, and standardization), understanding of how to milk each microprocessor and system architecture, optimized algorithms, and the like. And I wager that most people in the DJGPP community would agree with me that most of the "gray-area" discussions can be beneficial to at least some of the people listening to the discussions, and at the very worst force someone to press the delete key once more to skip the message. I feel that in order to continue providing the excellent service we do for the DJGPP community, we must learn to accept some of the posts that most of us used to do when we were unfamiliar with the environment (especially those with a relatively weak UNIX background). I just ask that if it comes down to a vote of the entire group or just DJ's decision, to please strongly consider this information, and acknowlege how the willingness to help on virtually anything is one of the greatest assets of the list/newsgroup. My official position remains one of neutrality, but I would lean substantially toward no moderation should those "gray area" posts from which I have benefitted so much, be affected. Just my two cents. > > Last time retro moderation was discussed on a group I read it was still > a brand new idea. Are there any sources of information on groups already > using it? > > --- > Paul Shirley: shuffle chocolat before foobar for my real email address > ---Michael Phelps morphine AT cs DOT jhu DOT edu CH3 | N / | ______/ | / \ CH2 _____/ \__|__ // \\ / | \\ // \\______/___CH2 \\ \ / \ / \______/ \_____/ / ------ \ / \ OH \ / OH O Morphine