Greetings.

On 2023-03-15 00:38, Tristan Miller wrote:
> On 2023-03-07 15:46, Steve Bonine wrote:
>> The last post in comp.os.linux.announce that I see is the announcement
>> of the new moderator, quoted below from December, presumably riding on
>> its approval to be posted to news.groups.proposals. Seems odd that
>> there's been nothing to announce in the linux world . . .
>
> I find it a bit odd as well.  The Board was approached by someone who
> wanted to volunteer as a moderator, and I thought that
> comp.os.linux.announce would be a good candidate since it was fairly
> active before the former moderator became inactive.  (We had previously
> successfully revived comp.ai, which was in a similar situation, and is
> now getting several posts per month.)  I can ping the moderator to
> double-check that his moderation software is still working.  It could be
> that, unlike with comp.ai, everyone who was previously posting to the
> group has left and doesn't know or care about its revival.

I've been in touch with the moderator and they've confirmed that the
moderation system is working, but they've been receiving only off-topic
posts (spam, etc.) which they've had to reject.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

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In <u1lu40$3gp31$1@dont-email.me> Tristan Miller <tmiller@big-8.org> writes:

[...]

>I've been in touch with the moderator and they've confirmed that the
>moderation system is working, but they've been receiving only off-topic
>posts (spam, etc.) which they've had to reject.

>Regards,
>Tristan

>--
>Usenet Big-8 Management Board
>https://www.big-8.org/
>board@big-8.org

I wonder if we (collectively, myself included) could be doing a better
job of mentoring new moderators. In particular, communicating the
expectation that in the Usenet of 2023 it's not a workable editorial
model to just put out an "open for business" shingle and passively wait
for submissions. You will be waiting a long time. Only following such
a strategy, it would be no surprise if the moderator came back six
months later and said, "No one submits anything, I only get SPAM, so
it's not worth the time and money to maintain the moderated newsgroup."

Based on followup discussion from the 2010 Moderator Vacancy
Investigation (MVI) for rec.music.beatles.info, and assertions from its
moderation team, the newsgroup was open for submissions, it allegedly
just didn't receive anything approvable since 2005. I expressed
skepticism at the time that the newsgroup was technically active, since
to believe that, the moderators must have been very patient and
dedicated to keep a newsgroup open that has not had any approvable
submissions for five years. And if something approvable was submitted,
would it be promptly acted upon?

A better model would probably be something like rec.radio.info. Even in
the Usenet of 1993, the moderators actively sought out sources of
material and submitters. The result was a modest, but steady amount of
on-topic activity sustained over three decades. Today, it is a rare
event that a completely unsolicited on-topic article is submitted,
though the current moderators are ready to approve one if it is
received.

What kinds of approvable submissions were sent to comp.os.linux.announce
in the past? Who were the submitters? What were the sources? Were
they individual manual submitters, mailing lists, links to web sites,
RSS feeds, etc.? Are they still active today? Are there additional new
sources that would be on-topic for the newsgroup? Can the current
moderator do some research and solicitation of submissions? Maybe even
set up some mailing list feeds to directly submit to the newsgroup?
Yes, this information is available elsewhere. The value of having it on
Usenet is visibility, aggregation, and presentation (as well as
archiving on long-retention server sites, including Google Groups).

Tristan, since the Big-8 Board has the established contact and
relationship with the new moderator, is it able and willing to pass
these sentiments along to him? I would hate for his time to be wasted,
and the newsgroup to fail in the near future, for want of better
involvement of the moderator towards efforts with better chances of
success.

- --
Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@panix.com

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Dear Paul,

On 20/04/2023 14.36, Paul W. Schleck wrote:
> In <u1lu40$3gp31$1@dont-email.me> Tristan Miller <tmiller@big-8.org> writes:
>> I've been in touch with the moderator and they've confirmed that the
>> moderation system is working, but they've been receiving only off-topic
>> posts (spam, etc.) which they've had to reject.
>
> I wonder if we (collectively, myself included) could be doing a better
> job of mentoring new moderators. In particular, communicating the
> expectation that in the Usenet of 2023 it's not a workable editorial
> model to just put out an "open for business" shingle and passively wait
> for submissions. [...]
>
> Even in
> the Usenet of 1993, the moderators actively sought out sources of
> material and submitters. The result was a modest, but steady amount of
> on-topic activity sustained over three decades.
>
> Tristan, since the Big-8 Board has the established contact and
> relationship with the new moderator, is it able and willing to pass
> these sentiments along to him? I would hate for his time to be wasted,
> and the newsgroup to fail in the near future, for want of better
> involvement of the moderator towards efforts with better chances of
> success.

Thanks for the insights and advice. As a matter of fact, I had already
written to the moderator suggesting that we might need to (at the very
least) make better efforts to publicize the fact that the group is now
functional again. Soliciting contributions from potential contributors,
such as by writing directly to past users of the group, or posting an
announcement in venues where this sort of solicitation is welcome would
be a good idea. I'll pass on to the moderator some more specific
recommendations, as well as a link to your article.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

Paul W. Schleck wrote:
> . . . in the Usenet of 2023 it's not a workable editorial
> model to just put out an "open for business" shingle and passively wait
> for submissions. You will be waiting a long time.

I agree, Paul, and I have to wonder what the definition of "success" is
for a new or revived newsgroup in "the Usenet of 2023". Taking
comp.os.linux.announce as an example, why exactly should such a
newsgroup exist; what value does it add, and for who?

> A better model would probably be something like rec.radio.info. Even in
> the Usenet of 1993, the moderators actively sought out sources of
> material and submitters. The result was a modest, but steady amount of
> on-topic activity sustained over three decades. Today, it is a rare
> event that a completely unsolicited on-topic article is submitted,
> though the current moderators are ready to approve one if it is
> received.

Or to put it in different words, rec.radio.info has no original content.
It is basically a "reflector" of content that is published elsewhere
as newsletters, blogs, or other non-Usenet sources. I can't deny that
there is a value-add here in the sense of "one stop shopping". I yearn
for the days when Usenet was the go-to place to ask a question or
research previous answers on a specific topic; the source of original
content instead of a mirror.

> . . . Maybe even
> set up some mailing list feeds to directly submit to the newsgroup?
> Yes, this information is available elsewhere. The value of having it on
> Usenet is visibility, aggregation, and presentation (as well as
> archiving on long-retention server sites, including Google Groups).

Except that today's Linux user already has a method of receiving the
information that they care about. By definition, no existing Linux folks
are using comp.os.linux.announce. They have figured out what they need
and how to obtain that, be it newsletters, vendor information, mailing
lists, web sites, or whatever. MAYBE if someone invested effort to make
the newsgroup an aggregate of information from several useful sources,
along the lines of rec.radio.info, it might attract some users. Problem
is, the person(s) working to build the newsgroup won't really know if
anyone is using it.

For me, the bottom line is . . . why? Why invest effort in reviving a
moderated Usenet newsgroup that has been moribund for years? The
original purpose of the newsgroup is being fulfilled in other ways; the
users are gone and unmotivated to return. Maybe I am expecting too much
but I just don't see the point, and comp.os.linux.announce is a textbook
example.