Pedro Mendes wrote:
>> On 3 Feb 97 at 7:24, Paul M. Schlosser wrote:
>> > Perhaps there will come a point when we want to "moderate" the group????
> ^^
> Paul, I suppose this "we" means you :) In which case I am all for it. A
> moderated group would stop the spamming that we are being heavy targets
> recently.
>> > (Power! Give me power! ... No, wait! I didn't ask for it! ;-) He He...
>> you have just volunteered to moderate this group. There are hundreds of
> witnesses.
>> Pedro Mendes Inst. Biological Sciences
Sorry to drop in like this, but I'll put in my two cents...
Although the original message is rather inocuous, it doesn't seem to be
spam. I think it IS in the wrong NG; give him the benefit of the doubt,
though. To reply angrily to the good Dr. would just as well scare away
anybody who might have something relevant to say (who wants to get
flamed by a bunch of angry PhD's?). Maybe moderating the group is a good
thing, but as Herbert Sauro wrote in another post:
<SNIP>
I don't think we need to turn this group into another journal, it is
after all the only (I admit hardly used) place for mca etc free speech.
All other public avenues are censored. News groups are a unique and
convenient forum where anybody can say anything with the unwritten rule
that contributors try to keep to the subject area of the group. This is
what makes them so interesting and most probably why they are so
popular. I admit that on some large groups there is a lot of trash but
that's the price of free speech.
<SNIP>
I totally agree with him. Moderation would cut out the crap, but it
enables one person to determine what the others get to read. That's
censorship, and that's wrong in the scientific community (this is in no
way a discredit or insult to the honorable Dr. Schlosser, whom I think
would be fair in moderation if it occurs). I hate junk mail and junk
news as much as the next person, but I don't hire somebody to sort
through it for me. That's my right and priviledge in that I determine
what is trash and what isn't; all I have to do is hit the DELETE button
to get rid of it if I don't like it. Only if snail-mail were the same
way...*SIGH*
The journal groups H. Sauro talks about are different. They, like their
published counterparts, are communications between members and
colleagues. This NG is not a members-only group (sorry, but usenet is
for everybody who can get it, even the evil spammer-types), and it
should never become one. Everyday people read this, believe it or not;
don't scare them away by slamming somebody who asks a harmless little
question (which I answered, BTW, with NO QUALMS OR HARMFUL INTENTIONS).
I had a really great discussion going over on bionet.software about
molecular software prices (I guess you had to be there). Anyway, it
started from the responses to a spam post. I got a lot out of the
experience, 'talking' to people from all over the globe, and generally
had an intelligent discussion about the whole issue; imagine what would
have happened if the post never occurred...
So, is moderation what we really want? It's a democracy (here, at
least); vote on it. Of course, somebody needs to count... (and it's not
going to be me, I'm doing heavy research, long posts be damned...)
--
C. J. Fields
Graduate Student, Dept. of Biological Sciences
The University of North Texas
Denton, TX
email : cfields at gab.unt.edu
Surveyer of the *hidden realms* AKA the pyrimidine de novo pathway
