A possible solution to the trolling problem on this news group

On 8 May, 17:17, Daniel Barlow wrote:
"Paul - xxx" writes:

Rudi wrote:

Hi! (and sorry for the long post)

There's a simple answer. *Post articles about bikes and discuss bikes..
Ignore other posts ...

I don't actually think there are enough people left on the group who are
interested in posting about cycling and informed enough to say anything
useful. *I've pretty much given up on this place as a resource for
anything vaguely technical: web forums and twitter have eclipsed it.
Ian's post illustrates why - whereas on usenet we apparently need an
objective and bulletproof moderation policy, a centralised web forum
acts according to the whim of its owner who can make things up as he
goes along

(Some forum owners are better than this than others, and if you don't
like one then you simply find another)

If you'd told me five years ago I'd be recommending web fora on usenet
I'd have laughed at you ... sigh

-dan

I wasn't actually proposing an objective and bulletproof moderation
policy although I (or whoever else was doing the moderating) would
probably try. As I said, if someone doesn't like the moderation policy
they can read urc. All messages will be there, and can be replied to
just as now. Only people who liked the moderation policy need read the
new group. My hope would be that the new group would be entirely
cycling related *(including letting off steam now again when a
motorist has cut one up or whatever). Urc would be largely motoring
elated as now, with some cycling stuff (including everything from the
new group). It would be especially nice if over time urc then slowly
reverted to its proper function

Rudi

PS I might do this anyway, and let people try it out. they can then
either use it or not as they wish.

On Fri, 08 May 2009, Marc wrote:

URC cannot be moderated , it is a non moderated NG, if the want
Uk.rec.cycling.moderated that would be a different group

It could (theoretically) be changed into a moderated group. It is,
however, some years since a group was changed in this way.

regards, Ian SMith
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Doug wrote:
On 8 May, 14:05, wrote:
On 8 May, 13:22, "Jackbike" me@somewhere wrote:

I, for one would like my cycling newsgroup back please. Count me as
interested.
Yea, it would be good to talk about bikes on a cycling newsgroup for
once!!

I don't want to be a wet blanket but my experience has been that
USENET, like the world at large, has become infested and dominated by
motorists who, now that they are under extreme pressure from the
environmental lobby, are having to try to justify their chosen mode of
transport. Part of their justification seems to be trying to rubbish
cleaner forms of transport such as cycling while embracing polluting
forms of transport such as flying.

So there can be no simple solution to your problem. Good luck though
with your cycling discussions.

--
Car Free Cities
http://www.carfree.com/
Carfree Cities proposes a delightful solution
to the vexing problem of urban automobiles.



Somebody mentions trolls & Doug answers.

--
Tony the Dragon

Rudi wrote:
Hi! (and sorry for the long post)
(Snip pile of whiny ********)

So in essence you want to censor the posts, and only read that which
fits with your current prejudices? And more importantly, you want
everyone ELSE to only read your current prejudices too! LOL what a crock
of ****! Don't like it? Then don't ****ing read it. Simple. You're
pathetic,,,

On Fri, 8 May 2009 09:31:09 -0700 (PDT), RudiL wrote:

urc would be able to just as now. What i am proposing is to have a
new news group which *automatically* gets copies of the posts which
appear on urc and filters them so that the new news group only
displays a subset of the messages which are on urc. The new news
group can also be posted to directly but these messages would a) go
through the filtering mechanism before being made publicly
available on the new group b) be posted to urc.

You would need a server that is subscribed to both and posts to the
'other' one whenever a post appears in one. When a message appears in
urc the server would take it and repost it to urc.m, at which point it
would go through the 'filtering'.

I don't see the point, really. Just make a moderated group to run in
parallel. Anyone who wants to see the unfiltered/unmoderated can read
both groups.

Your proposal likely adds a single point of failure (though for the
moderated one, arguably no more so than moderation does anyway). I
think there would also have to be fairly strong discussion of the
appropriateness of a system taking someone's posts and posting hem
to a different group than the one the original poster specified. I
don't see that getting past the system, to be honest.

If you want to do something, then just rfd a moderated group - that
would have to be the underlying foundation of your system anyway.

regards, Ian SMith
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On 08 May 2009, Ian Jackson wrote:

* Reject postings from posters who cherry-pick the articles to reply
to, to ones they have an answer for.

Eh? I don't think I can believe you mean that - you would reject
postings from anyone unless they regularly make postings on a topic
about which they are clueless or have nothing to bring to the
discussion?

We don't want anyone here who only speaks when they know the answer,
nosiree.


If you must have moderation, have:

1: no personal abuse of anyone living

2: no untraceable posters (easily automated - robomod sees an
unfamiliar from / reply-to, it emails the apparent poster and holds
the posting until it gets a reply, then puts the name on the 'valid'
list. Any address that doesn't post for a month (say) drops off the
valid list).

I would suggest a retrospective moderation type process as used by
uk.religion.christian - a new poster goes through step 2, after which
the system automatically approves all subsequent posts. If someone
violates step 1, they are moved off the valid list and onto a manual
list. Any post by someone on the manual list goes to a human
moderator before approval.

Admittedly, this lets one bad post through per nym, but it greatly
cuts down the workload on moderators, and eliminates
moderator-induced delay. Nym-shifters need to work through step 2
every time they shift.

regards, Ian SMith
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On 2009-05-08, Ian Jackson wrote:

In article ,
Rudi wrote:

B) An alternative response is to just start up an alternative
moderated news-group. This however runs the risk of splitting the
cycling community into those on one group and those on another

This is the conventional approach in this situation. I don't think
there would be too much difficulty getting people to move over to the
new group. We should have a regular FAQ posting inviting people to
the moderated group.

I think this is an excellent idea. (Among other things, it answers
the complaint that moderation is censorship; anyone can still post
anything to the unmoderated group.)

On 2009-05-08, Ian Smith wrote:

If you must have moderation, have:

I think there's a good case for it.


I would suggest a retrospective moderation type process as used by
uk.religion.christian - a new poster goes through step 2, after which
the system automatically approves all subsequent posts. If someone
violates step 1, they are moved off the valid list and onto a manual
list. Any post by someone on the manual list goes to a human
moderator before approval.

Admittedly, this lets one bad post through per nym, but it greatly
cuts down the workload on moderators, and eliminates
moderator-induced delay. Nym-shifters need to work through step 2
every time they shift.

AIUI (in uk.religion.christian) the first few posts from a new nym get
manually moderated, and a nym that passes enough times qualifies for
automatic approval (until it gets dinged for abuse). As you say, this
eliminates nym-shifting, and makes it difficult for known trolls to
get through.

On 8 May, 19:05, Ian Smith wrote:

1: no personal abuse of anyone living

What about Guy Chapman's late father?

--
Simon Mason

On Fri, 08 May 2009, Adam Funk wrote:
On 2009-05-08, Ian Smith wrote:

I would suggest a retrospective moderation type process as used by
uk.religion.christian - a new poster goes through step 2, after
which the system automatically approves all subsequent posts. If
someone violates step 1, they are moved off the valid list and
onto a manual list. Any post by someone on the manual list goes
to a human moderator before approval.

Admittedly, this lets one bad post through per nym, but it greatly
cuts down the workload on moderators, and eliminates
moderator-induced delay. Nym-shifters need to work through step 2
every time they shift.

AIUI (in uk.religion.christian) the first few posts from a new nym
get manually moderated, and a nym that passes enough times
qualifies for automatic approval (until it gets dinged for abuse).
As you say, this eliminates nym-shifting, and makes it difficult
for known trolls to get through.

I think your description is correct, but I'm not sure it's necessary,
hence my suggestion that the process simply checks for an email-able
poster. You could check for an email-able poster and require at least
n manually approved postings to qualify for the 'assumed good' list.
I'd be more in favour of this the smaller the n. My suggestion
equates to n=0.

regards, Ian SMith
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