In article <52gdnm$uju at winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de>,
krasel at wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de (Cornelius Krasel) wrote:
> Richard P. Grant (rpgrant at molbiol.ox.ac.uk) wrote:
> > In article <52as0i$irm at winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de>,
> > krasel at wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de (Cornelius Krasel) writes:
> > > bionet.general seems to get increased amounts of unsoliticed
advertisement.
> > > To avoid this (and to force people to advertise via net.bio.net) I propose
> > > to make this newsgroup moderated.
> > >
> > > I would volunteer for moderation. (At least around here b.general traffic
> > > seems manageable.) (Disclaimer: I have never before moderated a
newsgroup.)
> > >
> > > Comments? (RFD means "Request for discussion".)
> >
> > Well, as long as you don't think it would just turn into bionet.announce#2.
>> Nope, at least that is not my intention. Just filter out all the "Make
> Money Fast", "New Free Web Page" etc. junk.
[lots of quote left in, sorry]
I still go with the feeling that bionet.general should be unmoderated general
discussion, and bionet.announce be moderated. I realise that the number
of advertisements can be annoying, but it seems to be a growing usenet-wide
problem (especially make-money fast). I am happy just to skip over the
titles that look suspect.
I do realise that it is a problem to people who receive the group via e-mail,
or download all the postings via modem before they can read them, but I'm
not yet convinced that moderation is necessary.
What would the guidelines be ? Zapping all the get-rich-quick schemes would be
obvious, but what about people advertising second hand lab equipment ? What
about adverts for people who want equipment ? If a company responds to a
"Where can I get xyz ?" post with a post saying "We have all the xyz's you
could ever need - look at our web site", should that be zapped ? What about
posting URLs of commercial web sites - does that count as advertising and
therefore should be zapped ?
Moderation could, IMHO, lead to the removal of some posts that are questionably
on-topic. I'd rather see these than have them moderated out.
*waffle mode off*
Danny.
Disclaimer: this is rather a knee-jerk reaction. I hope what I've said makes
sense :}
--
Danny Banks. D.Banks at surrey.ac.uk
------------ http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/D.Banks/index.html -----------
"The variables vary too much and the constants aren't as constant as they seem"
