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- Path: sparky!uunet!crdgw1!newsun!dseeman
- From: dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics
- Subject: Re: in favor of a moderated physics group
- Message-ID: <1993Jan12.005325.1374@novell.com>
- Date: 12 Jan 93 00:53:25 GMT
- References: <5620032@hplsla.hp.com> <1993Jan11.192802.25710@novell.com> <1isp7vINNb2j@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>
- Sender: news@novell.com (The Netnews Manager)
- Organization: Novell Inc., San Jose, Califonia
- Lines: 66
- Nntp-Posting-Host: db.sjf.novell.com
-
- In article <1isp7vINNb2j@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> leffler@physics.ubc.ca (Steve Leffler ) writes:
- >dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman) writes:
- >
- >>What is "junk?" Who are the "crackpots?" I can understand completely that you
- >>do not like to read some posts on the net, but maybe I do. I do not think it
- >>unreasonable to ask you to press the 'n' key a few dozen (hundred, thousand,
- >>etc...) times, or to set up your kill file appropriately. "Junk" as you (or
- >>maybe as i) would describe it is not so to others, and there arguably are NO
- >>"crackpots" in the world (please allow me to play devil's ---read Abian's---
- >>advocate for just a moment).
- >
- >>You are your own best moderator. If you don't like what your are reading,
- >>either sound off and try to point out what is wrong, or just don't read it. But
- >>do not try to get it banned from the net as you may be curtailing the interest
- >>of another.
- >
- > Whoa! Nobody is trying to ban ANYTHING from the net. The moderation
- >discussion is about creating a new group to supplement sci.physics, not
- >replacing sci.physics with a moderated group. Those who want to read junk and
- >crackpot articles are welcome to continue reading them on sci.physics. Those
- >of us who do not want to have to push the n key a few hundred times to skip
- >over junk can read serious physics on sci.physics.research.
- >
- > ---Steven Leffler
- > leffler@physics.ubc.ca
- >
-
- I know you are not proposing to "touch" SCI.PHYSICS but rather to introduce
- SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH. But in the body of the first posting, the statement
- was made that SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH absolutely has the possibility of becomming
- as "wild" or rather "speculative" as this forum (SCI.PHYSICS) is today.
-
- In the attempt to keep SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH "clean," you will at some point have
- to filter a posting or two from that forum. It is this process that I think is
- doomed to failure before you start. It just doesn't make sense to stem the free
- flow of information, no matter how "non-serious" you happen to believe it is.
-
- If you were to say the moderators would simply make the choice concerning which
- forum to post an article I would possibly buy into that idea. In other words,
- if someone posted an article to sci.physics.research, and it was dubbed not
- serious enough, the moderator would simply post the article automatically to
- sci.physics and send back a note to the original poster detailing the reasons
- for re-directing the work to another group. Even here, you run into problems
- with cross-posting; who gets to? and who was cross-posted but didn't want to be?
- We then would need to consider replies and follow-ups (can you hear my feet
- dragging?).
-
- I think you are all just asking for much more of a head ache than you really
- want or rather a bigger head ache than anyone needs. Just let everyone go about
- their business.
-
- I know you and most of the other posters on this thread will probably disagree
- with these sentiments. That is the main reason I have tried to stay mostly
- clear of it. That is fine for in the morning time we shall all wake up,
- notice the day's beauty and wonder if there is any honey for the morning's break
- fast. That is as it should be.
-
- Moderated or un-moderated? New forum or old forum? It really doesn't mean much.
- So please, just relax and have a cookie and smile when you listen to kooks ;-)
- (Now *there* is flame bait if ever there was such a thing...;-)
-
- dks.
-
- ps. If your forehead hurts when hit by a hammer, stop hitting yourself! Don't
- hit the back of your head with a bigger hammer to distract yourself, you'll just
- end up with a brused head!
-