From: Bill Davidsen (davidsen@prodigy.com)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 12:48:54 CDT
On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Jay Denebeim wrote:
> 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?
>
> *A* new moderator tool? I guess you're not aware how stuff is moderated.
See above. A moderator needs a tool. "A" as in one, not some huge number.
There is no requirement to provide a huge selection to moderate 8bit news,
there is a need for a least one, preferable easy to use and portable. If
someone feels a need to port old tools, good for them. If there is no
satisfactory tool at all, people can object to the whole concept. Since
there don't seem to be existing groups I don't see a problem with
compatibility with the past.
> There's almost as many tools as there are moderated newsgroups. Although
> I'm pretty sure a good many of them use Agent which allows them to edit
> the headers and then inject the news. I don't know how well this
> encapsulation stuff is going to work for them. At a minimum it would be
> remove the mime headers and then edit the mime cruft out of the post, then
> copy and paste the headers out of the encapsulated version back into the
> headers themselves, then remove the encapsulated headers. Looks to be
> about a 25-50 discrete clicks/keystrokes. Tad more than the 2 or 3 that
> used to be required.
>
> Remember, most moderators are *not* technical. They can't write a
> solution to their problem. They're doing it manually.
No, they're not doing it. 8bit groups are a new feature. Other than
needing some de-encapsulation existing practice probably won't change.
It would be a simple tool to handle encoding issues, allow view and hand
approval, allow auto mod using blacklist or white list. Mail SPAM
filtering would be done by whatever the moderator uses for other mail, if
that means nothing the group would be a mess anyway. A hook for
additional filtering would be useful, and I'm sure people would write
plugins.
The job is not to replace all existing tools, or upgrade them, it's only
to provide something usable for extended character set groups.
-- -bill davidsen (davidsen@prodigy.com) "The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the last possible moment - but no longer" -me