Rich $alz is still alive ??!!!??!!

[Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR]

As quoted from <21867 at well.sf.ca.us> by jef at well.sf.ca.us (Jef Poskanzer):
+---------------
| In the referenced message, werner at cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) wrote:
| }	yes, I see a symptom of the problem that we have not instituted
| }	a methodology of having multiple moderators share the load and
| }	to guarantee "continuity and reliability of service".
| 
| Heh heh heh.  "Suggestion: every moderated group should be required to
| have at least two moderators." -- me, 02nov88.  By the way, that
| 
|     "If Jef is so certain that he can do it better, he's welcome
|     to move over to news.groups and start a vote to become moderator."
| 	-- Brandon Allbery
+---------------

At the risk of being flamed:

As long as Usenet moderation services are volunteered, do not take place at
fixed dates and/or times, and are not supported by a reasonably fast network
linking sites where such activity takes place (UUCP exists; flaming about it
accomplishes exactly nothing unless you're going to pay for an Internet
connection for people who have only UUCP), *and* there is a need to coordinate
aspects of the service (specifically, archival information), multiple
moderation in archived groups is going to be extremely difficult to implement.
It's done now (Australian sub-moderators), but this depends on one side
delaying submissions until the other side updates the archive database ---
which works for the Aussie case because I get maybe three requests in a year,
but would be a major can of worms if we broke it up by, say, NSFnet component
regional networks.

You also have to consider compatibility:  I've been flamed to a crisp by
archivers all over the Usenet when I've proposed changes to the archiving
scheme.  That can ruin good ideas that could otherwise solve the problem, like
adding an extra directory level based on the sending moderator, if a majority
of the archive sites decide they don't want anything to do with the idea.

As things stand now, the most noticeable effect of multiple moderation would
be either chaos or very long submission delay times, depending on whether the
moderators synchronize their databases before or after sending a submission
out.

I therefore repeat my earlier response to Jef, expanded: if you think you can
make a multiple moderation scheme work, create a newsgroup using it and show
me --- and the rest of the Usenet --- that it works.  As it stands, trying it
on .misc or .unix when they're already drawing flames from readers is a recipe
for completely destroying the groups.  Something *proven* to work, on the
other hand, can be retrofitted once it has been proven.

++Brandon
-- 
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