moderation of alt.sources vs. automated harangues

Brandon S. Allbery allbery at NCoast.ORG
Wed Oct 25 08:38:53 AEST 1989


+---------------
| Name changes, moderation etc. are all solutions hunting for a problem.
> . . .
| the name were changed, people would still post requests for reposts and
| "does anyone have X" to it.  Only education will solve the problem.
+---------------

Part of the education can be skipped with a name change.  The point is that
*all* of the mis-posted submissions I get for comp.sources.misc are derived
from confusion about the intent of the word "sources".  It should be more
explicit about what it means; please remember that most people do *not* use
the word the way it is often used in program-related newsgroups and in the
names of the existing source-code newsgroups.

Education, yes, but you won't reach the people who are most likely to make
this mistake:  new net.users who are not yet familiar with the "jargon" of
Usenet.  And it takes sufficient time to "digest" a newusers info posting that
putting a definition there won't help much.

Clarify the name.  It'll do wonders.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery at NCoast.ORG
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