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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Time for rec.arts.int-fiction.moderated?
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Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 04:13:43 GMT
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atholbrose  <cinnamon@one.net> wrote:
>buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett) wrote in
>> The third word of that first line should be "had".
>[...]
>> Instead, I went to google, and got the following results:
>>    Search Feb 1 to Feb 18, 2002: 3,380 posts
>
>Google is notoriously unable to count. Adding up the actual "article
>counts" for the threads presented in the results list (208 threads) gives
>me a result of 2293 actual articles, not 3600. (Note that the search I did
>spanned Feb 1 - Feb 19, i.e., up to current.)

Note that I chose Feb 1 - Feb 18 so that it would be
repeatable--not influenced by articles which came in
after I posted it.

I'm impressed that you went and explored the real numbers
with such thoroughness, but it misses the point of my
post; I will here quote the part that you snipped from the above:

>> Instead, I went to google, and got the following results:
>>   Search Feb 1 to Feb 18, 2002: 3,380 posts
>>   Search Feb 1 to Feb 18, 2001:   660 posts
>>   Search Feb 1 to Feb 18, 2000:   700 posts

Assuming google's poor counting is consistent, well...
Things HAVE CHANGED. There are a lot more posts (even if
the exact numbers above are wrong) now then then there
were then--4x or 5x as many. There are a lot more posts
here but not a lot more posts on rgif. Maybe IF creation
is experiencing an upsurge in popularity, but the evidence--
trolls, long off-topic threads, people leaving the newsgroup,
the numbers shown by google--add up pretty obviously, to
me at least.

>(Deleted list of thread counts; most really high ones are invalid for the
>date range we're talking about due to Google foolery.)

But the measurement is persumably consistent if the only
goal is to compare it with previous years. (The 2001 case
above even included a 100-post off-topic thread, IIRC.)
Note that I didn't pick the date range to maximize the
comparison; I picked Feb 1 as a round number approximately
two weeks back, and then 18th for reasons noted above.

>There's a real difference between threads that start on-topic and veer
>slightly and ones that veer wildly. People being people, topics will veer,
>no matter what the intended use of a forum is. (And, you must admit, the
>vast majority of the threads you quoted at least started out with good
>intentions.)

Of course. But that doesn't make the rest of the posts valid
or appropriate to the newsgroup--and moderation would address that.

>Also on the plus side -- at least I think so -- is that an
>increased sense of community comes from these veers, as people learn more
>about other people and gather references to use later and such. From my
>first post in this group (1992?), it has been apparent that it is one of
>the most international groups there is.

Community is nice, but not at the cost of quadrupling the post
count.

>Compare this to true off-topic threads, like political threads in a
>computer action games newsgroups,

Philosophy threads about identity?

>advocacy threads about one console in
>another console's newsgroup,

Text editor advocacy?

>gun control threads anywhere except gun
>control newsgroups

How pronunciation of English varies dialectically across America?

>(One thing raif really needs to work on is not feeding the trolls, by the
>way; some need to learn how to use their own restraint and, if they cannot,
>their killfile.)

Sure. I agree. But it's not happening. I've experimented over the last
two weeks with playing public net.cop. It hasn't had any effect. So.

>Also, it's hard to say what is off-topic here since we don't have an actual
>charter. In a discussion on news.groups about moderating the newsgroup,
>we'd likely be asked to show how the posts we're complaining about violate
>our charter... and the only one anyone would be likely to pull up is the
>one from 1987 or whenever the group was created. And it wasn't created to
>talk about what we talk about in it...
[...]
>100 posts a day. (112 yesterday, for instance.) (By the by, this means, if
>we were trying for newsgroup creation today, we would *never* make it.)

So let's see: we're not allowed to change the charter; we'll
never succeed in getting the group moderated as is; we don't
have enough traffic to justify creating a new moderated newsgroup.
So we're just supposed to lie in the shit and enjoy it? That's
nonsensical.

I know, we'll start up a private bulletin board on the web! After
all, that's why Usenet exists, so that people can't use it.

>You are also likely to have tools at your fingertips to ignore threads and
>posters you no longer wish to see or read about. Using them can only
>enhance your reading experience.

Skip the patronizing, please.

>This has been a really long winded way to say: we don't need moderation.

This has been a long-winded reply saying: some of your evidence
is bogus because you misconstrued the point of my evidence, and
I certainly disagree with your conclusions.

SeanB
