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Old October 8th 03, 06:37 AM
Peter W. Rowe
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On Tue, 07 Oct 2003 21:59:23 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Abrasha
wrote:



I trust you all agree? If not, email me. I'm open to discussion...


I don't agree at all. You keep killing all OT posts. This is what makes news
groups interesting. The community of participants gets to hang out with each
other and discuss a variety of topics. Go take a look at
rec.crafts.metalworking and alt.machine.cnc, two unmoderated groups with a fair
amount of OT postings, and they are bnoth thriving communities of posters who
have been participating for many years.


I keep killing OT posts? Which ones, would you say? In the years I've been the
moderator, I can count very few that would even remotely qualify as any sort of
interesting discussion. By far the vast majority of things I reject are crass
commercial ads, often for larger penises or new pheromone sources or others of
that ilk. . Of late, it's been literally hundreds of copies of the SWEN worm.
That, and ads from ebay sellers who've never before posted here and never would
again, selling things which only occasionally have anything to do with this
group. Besides, Abrasha, what you're saying is that you'd prefer an
unmoderated group. Fine. But I'm not the one who made it a moderated one. The
group proposed it and organized the change and as a group, voted it into being.
Not my doing. For me, or you, to singlehandedly decide that it should not be
now treated as it's charter states, is well beyond what you, or I, have any
right to decide on our own. You ARE, however, free to discuss the possibility
of making the group again unmoderated, if you wish. THAT is entirely on topic
for the group.

As for the the thought that I kill off topic posts, Abrasha, I'm afraid you're
wrong on this one. In fact, try to find, over the last few years, more than one
or two other threads I've suggested actually killing, and did. When i say that,
I'm leaving myself some leeway, actually, since to be frank, I can't actually
remember EVER suggesting that we now kill a certain thread. About the most I've
normally had to do was suggest that people try to keep an argument on a
professional, not personal, level. And it has often seemed that when that was
needed, who was at the center of the ire? You, sir... And for the most part,
I don't step in until other posters start complaining to me in email...

And in terms of individual posts I have rejected, well, I guess I can again see
why you're upset. All but a few of the small number of "real" posts I've had to
actually reject, that might have had some place here, were from YOU, when you
went so far over the line in ignoring the group charter restrictions against
personal attacks that I felt I had no choice. Again, I didn't write that
restriction. Readers did, and Nobody else has ever suggested to me that I'm too
strict in it's enforcement. More than a few, though, have thought I'm too
lenient now and then. If you've some useful suggestion as to how I can resolve
this quandry to everyone's benefit and satisfaction, I'd love to hear it.

I didn't write the group charter. It was written by group readers, a fair
number of them. I just got talked into moderating the group, and that means I
follow the charter in how to do it. To do otherwise would be to neglect my own
duty to the group. If you don't like the charter rules as they stand, PLEASE
feel free to start a discussion about that. I'll follow whatever group
standards the group seems to want, whether that means allowing ads, or ebay ads,
or off topic posts of whatever sort


Time to take a leave of absence. It's getting too boring like this. OT
postings add spice to life.


Care to tell me how to take a leave of absence? The way a moderated group is
set up, if I leave, and nobody else takes over, the group is dead. Posts don't
go through. I frankly have no great wedded love of this job. I don't get paid
for it, and it takes a lot of time, as well as extra money, for me to do it for
the group, including you. Feeling somewhat responsible about fulfilling this
responsibility, which I was perhaps a bit naive and ignorant about when I agreed
to do it, has changed vacation plans at times, required me to spend money on
things like laptop computers which I'd never have needed otherwise, and who
knows what all else. But if I let it go, then as it stands, the group dies, and
I'll not do that without a better reason than I've now got.

So if you know anyone else who'd like this job, PLEASE send them to me. I'd
love to pass the baton to someone else. Most moderators last a couple years,
max. I've been doing this now for close to six years. Hell, I don't even need
any sort of official approval from the group to change it, though some consensus
from some readers that a new moderator is acceptable would be nice. But someone
has to agree to do it, and do it according to the groups wishes, which so far,
means the charter. You want the job? Or do you just want the free ride?

Maybe it IS boring. Who knows. I can tell you the cause is not the vast volume
of OT posts I kill because there just aren't that many that I kill. Really.
Believe me. If you don't, perhaps you like me to change my procedures, so that
instead of deleting posts I kill, I'll just forward them to you for additional
review. Any you want to see, send back, and I'll post them then, or you can add
the approval header and post them yourself. You'll find all this would
actually do is greatly increase the volume of spammed junk in your inbox. That
really IS just about all I kill.

Rec.crafts.metalworking has always been far more active than r.c.j. There are
many more general metal workers than there are jewelry workers, and that group
was more active long before we became moderated, and it doesn't have competition
for readers attention from the likes of the Orchid list, which drains off a lot
of the discussion amongs jewelers

But hey.

If you want to keep debating credit cards and personal debt,

Go for it. I won't kill the discussion if you find it appropriate to this
group.

Sheesh.

Peter Rowe
moderator
rec.drafts.jewelry

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