From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 06:55:35 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Source Level
In-Reply-To: <199402181017.CAA23112@jobe.shell.portal.com>
Message-ID: <9402181452.AA05859@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> In your idea to give usenet users a chance to have competing moderated groups
>with unmoderated ones.Don't you think that the large numbers who want a 
>moderated group will kill all demand for the unmoderated ones?

No.  If all demand for unmoderated groups were to begin to disappear,
then the volume on them would drop, so that I could get better
attention posting to the unmoderated group than to the moderated one.

Therefore, there will be an equilibrium between moderated and
unmoderated.  Since there should be multiple moderated groups, there
will also be an equilibrium between moderated and moderated.

>Then we would be
>left with only moderated groups,who grated would have more signal to noise but
>less lively debate.

Remember, I have proposed a system of _distributed_ moderation, not a
choke point.  My first attempt would be to make it extremely easy to
let an article pass, just to get out the worst abuses of topicality.

> plenty of
>posts from folks who think thier ideas too wild for the moderator.

There is not a single moderator!

In my first proposal, there are lots of them, and _any_ of them can
approve an article.  This may not work everywhere, or even anywhere,
but it's a good starting point.

Eric