From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 12:11:42 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Detweiler abuse again
In-Reply-To: <9402151858.AA05503@tsx-11.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <9402152005.AA23014@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>   Therefore I desire usenet as it is
>   constituted now to die...

>I admire your honesty; a lot of cypherpunks weren't willing to say this
>the last time we had this flame war.

I think, however, that a new system will still be called "Usenet" and
still be considered usenet and will be built on top of the existing
usenet.  I left this out before in order to make my point clearer.

>I desire that Usenet live for now, because even though it does not
>provide simulatneously the features of public forum and anonymous
>speach, it does solve the public forum problem relatively well, and as
>such, is providing a certain amount of societal good to the world.

If usenet as it is now must die, that's no reason to make that death
occur this week.

There is also no reason not to continue to press on the existing
system with anonymity.

The pressures for better salience and for the asking of fewer FAQ's is
already here, and has very little to do with anonymity.  Persistent
and anonymous disrupters do far less harm that the aggregate
blatherings of ten thousand eighteen-year-olds.  The net effect of
both is to increase the noise.

The problem is that one loud person is clearly to _blame_ for that
noise, but a single innocent question is not, even though both
contribute to the problem.  Anonymity removes the path through which
the disrupter can be shamed into submission.  The would-be shamer
subsequently feels frustration at the inability to induce guilt in
someone who ... should.

Thus does anonymity sharpen the debate about the quality of usenet.
It is now particular individuals who are the problem, not the system
as a whole.  The frustrated desire to blame creates a separation in
analysis where none need be.  People get so worked up about bad people
that they forget about the bad system.

>Build the new
>and better system first, before trying to tear down the old one.

Yet my argument seeks to show that the problem is already here, and
that the presence of anonymity changes the nature of the debate about
the problem much more that it changes the nature or even the scale of
the problem.

>If we want both, then we should design and implement a system that has
>both.  

One can do this by building on top of newsgroup moderation, which is
the internal mechanism already present to capture salience.  Every
newsgroup should have moderation.  Whether the moderator is one
person, a group of people, or a program is an open issue.

I have a starting point of discussion.

Let the moderator of each newsgroup be a mailing list address.  The
members of this mailing list are the moderators of the group.  All
postings to a newsgroup go first to this moderation list.

The moderators then read news with software which rates the news
articles for inclusion.  (This could be a modified newsreader, for
example.)  After each article was read, a mail message is sent back
the mailing list address (or a parallel one) with the rating.

Some voting algorithm determines inclusion.  This voting algorithm
need not require all the moderators to make a rating before
transmission.  When an article is sent out, an indication of the
results of the voting system is included in the header, allowing
end-user filtering on moderation.

Three basic issues determine the exact character of a newsgroup of
this type.  (And each newsgroup should be able to be different.)

1. What is the nature of the moderation group?
  a. Is the size bounded or unbounded?
  b. Is membership self-selected or constrained?
  c. Is there a limit to tenure?

2. What is the nature of the rating?
  a. Size of the rating space
    1) yes/no/abstain
    2) 1-10
    3) Is there veto?
  b. Rating by category.

3. What is the voting algorithm?
  a. Any moderator may approve (result is the name of that moderator)
  b. Any N moderators may approve (result are these names)
  c. First majority with minimum (used in statistical signifance experiments)
  d. Voting window and percentage minimum, possibly with quorum

As a first and easiest starting point, one might choose the following
characteristics for experimentation:

  -- moderation participation is unlimited.  Membership may be restricted if
     many bad moderation decisions are made.
  -- yes/abstain
  -- any moderator may approve
 
The point of this kind of system is that the existing usenet
distribution mechanism can be lifted intact.  Likewise can the bulk of
the readers of news continue mostly unchanged, only unsubscribing and
resubscribing.

The existing unmoderated groups will continue to be a sewer.  Fine.
New groups with distributed moderation can be created.  If these are
successful old groups can be moved over to this method.

Two main pieces of new software are needed for this scheme:

1. A change in newsreaders/mail agents to send off ratings.

2. A mail server to implement the moderation
  a. the initial mailing list 
  b. the voting algorithm 
  c. the actual posting

None of this software is particularly difficult in concept.

Eric