XPost: news.groups, rec.arts.comics.dc.universe, rec.arts.sf.tv   
   XPost: rec.arts.tv   
   From: kalelfan@yanospamhoo.com   
      
   Happy New Year, eh?  :-)   
      
   "A B"  wrote in message news:4d1e4084$0$12173$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk...   
      
   > Sounds good to me.  And I'm no Usenet expert, but it sounds to me as if   
   > it could work...   
      
   Though not a requirement, I think it's probably better that you not be a   
   Usenet expert to appreciate OM. :-).  Established Usenet folk, and I've   
   been on it for 15 years, can embrace the fact that Traditional Usenet is   
   completely unaffected and the new hierarchy would provide unmoderated   
   groups as the foundation.  Web discussion board users can look at it and   
   see the potential for worldwide discussion on their topic, with filters and   
   moderation available but they can turn off the moderator if they want!   
   It's not fair to call it moderated or unmoderated.  It's whatever view of a   
   group the user wants.  It's -- wait for it -- Optional Moderation.   
      
   The user focus is the reason for the crossposts.  There was the 200+ stint   
   I did with the Big 8 folk in the moderated news.groups.proposals, and   
   that helped develop the best approach.  Now there's this, to widen it   
   to a different audience but still have the previous one involved if they   
   choose to be.   
      
   At this point, your "could work" is fair but I'd put it a bit more strongly.   
   There is nothing that can prevent it from working in the sense of any   
   approvals or authorities or whatnot being needed, or there being any   
   technical obstacles or the like.  The biggest hurdle is that it requires lots   
   of volunteer moderators, but again web boards all over the place have   
   all kinds of those.  It's not a one-moderator or couple- or few-moderators   
   project.  For example the 16 posting addresses (i.e., the ones configured   
   to go to the moderator address for the respective divisions) might be:   
      
   om.art   
   om.business   
   om.food   
   om.health   
   om.history   
   om.games   
   om.law   
   om.movies   
   om.music   
   om.politics   
   om.science   
   om.sports   
   om.talk   
   om.technology   
   om.travel   
   om.tv   
      
   A fair bit of research and thought has gone into that list and I may   
   comment on it a bit more in later posts.  For now...   
      
   Why no geographic or country distinctions?  Because the OM   
   concept is worldwide discussions and the tags can take care of   
   the rest.  The vision here is that someone interested in Politics   
   is probably not averse to reading and learning from posters in   
   other countries about their politics too.  Sport, Science, Movies,   
   all the divisions basically the same thing.  No reason why the   
   English Speaking World can't relate to each other on each of   
   the above topics, and once translation technology gets going   
   even the English Speaking qualifier may not apply.  :-)   
      
   Each of those, when they launch for real, would ideally have a team   
   of at least a dozen volunteer moderators available to take shifts.  If   
   the concept succeeds, leading to thousands or tens of thousands   
   discussing each topic worldwide, there may be 50-100 volunteer   
   moderators per division.  They'd probably only take 2-4 hour shifts   
   for a total of perhaps 12 hours a week, and many could come from   
   the posting population of the divisions as those grow.  If there's a   
   thousand or more posting to a group, getting 5% or 50+ qualified   
   people to volunteer 12 hours a week may not be a problem, and   
   there are other recruiting sources as well.   
      
   Initially it'd be possible to try out om.tv, for example, with perhaps   
   only a half dozen moderators.  There'd be a lot of prep work first   
   though, documenting moderation guidelines for example.   
      
   > I don't think it would require news servers to actively take up some   
   > new system, as with some of the "Usenet 2" proposals.  Just a simple   
   > forwarding setup on the moderator's computer, to pipe the postings   
   > through to the moderated group.   
      
   Optional Moderation is the Anti-"Usenet 2".  I made a post on that   
   in the first discussion, citing the fundamental problems with Usenet 2   
   and how Optional Moderation has a completely different focus.  The   
   same with existing Usenet and the quasi-admin and other types circling   
   the Big 8.  Individually most seem quite reasonable, helpful, intelligent   
   people.  But Good People can get sucked into The Dark Side, eh?  And   
   behind moderated walls even more so.   
      
   The "Big 8 Management Board" name is a good example.  Big name,   
   but literally zero real authority or power and so fundamentally just   
   an annoyingly pretentious name.  Here's my proposal for their OM   
   counterparts.   
      
   POMAP - Powerless Optional Moderation Advisory Process   
   POMAT - Powerless Optional Moderation Advsory Trustees   
      
   I don't have any power either.  Nobody has any power, because   
   it's Usenet and none of us own or control it.  We can get a server   
   and web site combo and do it ourselves, or we can make some   
   suggestions and try to build consensus and work together.  But   
   ultimately authority and power and the like are annoying and   
   destructive and meaningless concepts on Usenet.  They should   
   be purged from the vocabulary of anyone truly wanting to help.   
      
   > I think the people who objected to this idea as censorship must   
   > have misread your postings...   
      
   Which is fine, whether it's that or the typical Usenet naysaying.   
   The key is the substance of the argument, and good substance   
   can and did lead to a better version of OM.  At this point when   
   someone has been posting supposed "problems" or issues it's   
   always been things addressed in the prior thread.   
      
   [re robo-filtering for the lo-mod version]   
      
   > It might even be that this would avoid some of the copyright   
   > issues, since there would be no regular human involvement   
   > in the "lo-mod" group - it would be almost a passive conduit   
   > in that sense, just a better-arranged one.   
      
   While it could be done that way, it's a different version of OM.   
   The best version is one where the lo-mod is actually where all   
   the moderation takes place.  For each post, the first step for   
   the human moderator is to decide whether to accept a post   
   for lo-mod.  Remember, the post is already sitting in the no-   
   mod version at this point.  The only question is does it get in   
   to the lo-mod feed.  If yes, then there's really only one more   
   step in the entire process and that's to tag the post with any   
   tags that apply.   
      
   These may be tags that assist the user in tailoring their filtering,   
   or they may be hi-mod rejection tags, or both.  Examples of both   
   might include UPA for Usenet Performance Art or Trolling, OT for   
   off-topic, the META tag for a special kind of off-topic and so on.   
   What these tags do is make the hi-mod version or view decision   
   automatic, because the hi-mod rejection tags are what it's based   
   on.  So all the moderation basically takes place at the lo-mod   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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