On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:58:02 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Jack Schmidling
Post by Jack SchmidlingPost by Peter W. Rowebarf it up? Love ya too, Jack. Had a bad day, didja?
Good grief Peter, don't think it was me that had a bad day.
Apparently I read into your message a tone which you did not intend. The image
of "vomit" as regarding the moderation process just didn't set well, even if you
didn't mean anything insulting by it. So I apologize for the tone of my reply.
Post by Jack SchmidlingThe most exciting thing that happened to me lately was to see my posting
go through. I have not been able to post here for several years.
Glad to see your ISP has worked things out. It may also be due to the fact that
there have been one or two additional moderators relay servers added to
moderated groups, which reduces the chance that some poorly connected ISP would
be sending posts to moderators but not having them arrive. There's no way to
know (at least not for me) what your problem has been, but perhaps it now is
better. One can hope. It may even indicate an improvement in your ISP's
overall connectivity too.
Post by Jack SchmidlingMy intent was to solve your problem, not to increase your blood pressure.
You may read what you wish into "barf it up" but what it means to me is
to have to wait for a moderator to approve of a posting before it goes
out and then wait till he approves of the answer before it goes out.
Lets agree to use terms like "time delay" or "wait", can we? Barf just makes it
a bit too yucky, and makes it seem, at least to me, like this time delay is
something I intentionally add in just for the evil thrill of it or something...
We both know that isn't the case.
I will admit, though, that recently I've not checked and processed new group
messages as frequently as I used to do. Time, energy, and the need to fire up
an old otherwise unused computer that I'd actually prefer to be able to just get
rid of, are to blame. When most days I check in only to find a few more spam
posts and nothing for real, it just doesn't seem imperative to check it multiple
times per day, or even every day, as I used to do when the group was more
active.
Post by Jack SchmidlingThis means that if one wants to get an answer to a question it can take
days instead of minutes.
Well, just because moderation introduces a time delay doesn't mean you otherwise
would have gotten your reply in minutes. There still is whatever time delay is
involved in the right personal happening upon your question and taking the time
to answer. You may get some replies in minutes, but as often as not, the reply
with good info might take longer to arrive. Still, I'll admit that the delay
does toss a major impediment into a lively ongoing discussion.
But to remind you of why the group is moderated... It started as a normal
unmoderated group in (I think) '93 or so. While it quickly got busy, it also
quickly got flooded with junk. There were a bunch of stone dealers who felt it
was just fine to post their entire catalogs literally every day. Back then,
with 56K phone modems the norm, those several megabyte posts every day from
several people could tie up your modem for 20 minutes before you could do
anything. As time went on, these folks, who self rightiously announced that
they could do whatever they wished on the group even if large numbers of readers
objected loudly, were quickly joined by the folks who felt it appropriate to
post notices of every darn auction they were posting to Ebay for any jewelry or
jewelry related (and a fair number that had nothing to do with jewelry) item
they were trying to sell there. And yet more who were just spamming. Everything
from Nigerian scams to chain letters and more. Several dozen such posts per
day, such that they outnumbered the real discussions. In short, the group
became literally unusable for the folks who'd started the group and were trying
to make it a useful source of information exchange. So those same folks
proposed the idea of making the group moderated. This is/was unusual, since
usually, moderated groups are started in that form from the beginning, while
unmoderated ones are rarely changed. But it's possible to do, via the same
mechanism used to create a new group, and people did this. The vote in favor of
moderation won by a fairly large margin.
Of course, times have changed. High speed connections mean the spam takes up
space, but not so much download time any more. And of course the web grew by
leaps and bounds while usenet kind of died, in part because companies like
Microsoft just didn't build it prominantly into their software. Outlook Express
or Outlook could handle newsgroups, but many users didn't actually know it was
anything different from email, and that situation has only gotten worse. so new
readers of usenet groups are fewer and fewer every day.
The interesting thing is that while meaningful posts have greatly reduced, the
volume of spam has not slowed as much. There may be weeks without a meaningful
post, but not a day passes without at least a couple spam posts. And from what
little looking I've done, the rest of usenet is not immune to this either. One
of the stronger points about Google's otherwise limited and slow newsgroup
portal is that it does filter out a good deal of the spam, and especially, the
really objectionable porn stuff (I've nothing against porn for adults who choose
to look at it, but in newsgroups or email where it may arrive unannounced, to
readers of any age or lack of age, that's another matter altogether.)
But I ramble. The point is, there was a reason why readers of the group changed
the group to a moderated status, and these reasons remain valid today. The lack
of off topic junk, and the presence of a moderator, is one of the reasons that
the Orchid list IS as successful as it has become. Yes, you have to wait a day
or two for your answers (though some people email them direct), but then you get
a flood of good info from many people, enough info to actually be able to figure
out which of it has value. This group, even with moderation, has gotten so slow
that making that distinction has become difficult, especially for those
beginners or members of the general public who may not be able to tell good
expert opinion from junk.
Post by Jack SchmidlingI read with great interest, just about everything you write but frankly,
I can't get through this one at all. It is totally off the wall and an
apology is really in order.
Yes, I guess you're right. I'm sorry. I took it differently from how you meant
it.
Post by Jack SchmidlingAs we Atheists are and endangered species, our survival depends on
getting along.
Amen. (grin)
I feel that most everybody I meet is actually an atheist, at least mostly. Most
of them reject all but one of the many gods and religions from which the world
chooses. I only reject one more than that... (another grin)
Peter