From: ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)
Date: Thu, 12 May 94 09:11:28 PDT
To: upham@cs.ubc.ca
Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Goals: Bad debate drives out good debate
In-Reply-To: <199405120903.AA24972@grolsch.cs.ubc.ca>
Message-ID: <199405121611.JAA10782@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>> Cypher version of Gresham's Law: bad posts drive out good posts.

>> (The same is being seen in talk.politics.crypto, with the neverending
>> Sternlight vs. Everybody Else dominating the traffic by a factor of
>> 20-to-1. Detweiler recently reappeared (as tmp@netcom.com) and is back
>> to debating _himself_ and answering his own delusional posts.)

> Let's face it: Usenet is inherently broken.
> ...
> To fix them problem, then, we either have to either improve the kill
> files or improve the moderation.  
> ...
> In the best case, the moderators
> would consist of all the readers of the newsgroup.
> ...
> The mailing list software picks one e-mail address from all of
> the list receivers, and forwards the post to that e-mail address
> (keeping the original post on file).
> ...

You're on the right track here.

Moderation doesn't have to be based in censorship.  It can be based
on advice.

Instead of picking random list receivers to moderate, readers should
choose their own moderators.

As a moderator reads the latest messages on the list, he or she can
mark each one as junk or not junk.  This causes advice messages to be
sent to their subscribers.  The subscribers can use mail programs which
process the advice and only show messages which have passed.  ("If all
three of my moderators say a message is junk, then don't read it,
otherwise, show me.")

Each moderator can operate, in effect, a mini-mailing list.  When
digital money becomes available, moderators can charge for their
services.

One problem with mailing lists is that there isn't much feedback.
It's very easy to get enthused and post a "me too" message without
realizing that nobody wants to read it.  If you notice that various
moderators are consistently panning your articles, you will learn to
do better work.

Corruption of moderators is easily managed as every message they
comment on is available for inspection.  Hard working readers can
ignore all advice by the moderators if they like.

Real life example: I have wondered for some time about the articles
that don't make it into comp.risks.  This is a great newsgroup, but
one has to be suspicious of its relationship to SRI.  Are "radical"
articles culled while "sane and reasonable" articles by D. Denning are
passed on?  It would be reassuring to be able to sift through the
rejects.

Peter