From the point of view of the moderator site, it gets newsgroup messages through e-mail and then forwards that e-mail to one person chosen randomly from the moderator list. Soon afterwards, it gets an "APPROVED" or "NOT APPROVED" message back from that person, and depending on the response, either posts the message or does not post
So people are arguing that USENET newsgroups need moderation to keep out extraneous posts. Other people are arguing that moderation brings the danger of ``cabals'' and the like; who chooses the moderators? How about this: anyone can be a moderator. Supposed Ann wants to be a moderator. She sends e-mail to the moderator site saying ``make me a moderator''. Afterwards, she gets periodic mail messages containing newsgroup posts. For each message, she responds to the moderator site saying "APPROVED" or "NOT APPROVED". the message to the newsgroup. This moderation method has two major benefits: the load of culling posts is distributed among many people, which helps responsiveness; and the decision of culling posts is distributed among many people, which reduces the risk of partisanship. There are, of course, issues of how do we deal with people who can't be reached or who don't read their mail in a reasonable time, but they can be answered, I'm sure. For an example of a similar system of distributed responsiblity, look at the fabled USENET Oracle... Derek Derek Lynn Upham University of British Columbia upham@cs.ubc.ca Computer Science Department ============================================================================= "Ha! Your Leaping Tiger Kung Fu is no match for my Frightened Piglet Style!"