From: Vulcana (pawright@eyrie.org)
Date: Thu Aug 01 2002 - 11:23:19 CDT
On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> I'm not a moderator (was from about 88-92) so I have a question about
> moderator platforms. Is it safe to assume that the majority of moderators
> use either a UNIX-like o/s or Windows? It looks like it's time to
> generate a new moderator tool, are these platforms the majority target?
I think there are one or two mac people out there.
What I think can be "safe" to assume is the following
1. There are many custom rolled moderation tools out there.
1a. The people using these tools may not be the people who have
written the tools (ie new moderator taking over from an old one)
and may not be capible of changing the tools.
1b. There are one or two custom tools in wide distribution (ie STUMP)
with an active maintainer.
2. Not all moderators are on this list. (Because I am one of the
more technically inclined moderators for my groups I am on this
list but not through my primary group.)
3. Not all moderators are technically inclined. (In fact I suspect
there are several eyes glazing over right about now.) Moderators
often become moderators because they either know a lot about a
particular subject matter or because no one else is willing / able
to do it. (Then there are those who get the job because the group
doesn't object to them doing it.)
4. I know of a few moderators moderating by hand using tools like
agent.
5. Each moderated group has its own policy which is probably unique
to each group. A new moderation tool (I'm assuming by the way you
phrased your question that you are proposing that one overall
moderation tool be written) would have to be increadibly flexible.
For example one of my groups has the following rules
a) subject tag required
b) frequent posters are robo-moderated
c) automatic generation of the robo-moderated list
d) key word flags for hand moderation
e) flags for cross posting to too many groups
etc.
Other groups would have very different rules. (ie I could easily
see a no crossposting rule. Or a ban list given the comments I
have seen on this list in the past.)
Patricia Wright
moderator rec.toys.transformers.moderated
assistant moderator rec.arts.comics.creative