Nuxx:Eab73b78-abad-4b42-8aec-6ace9f249156@c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling,uk.net.news.config Subject: Re: On fairness, balloting and moderation (was Re: 2nd RFD: create 	moderated newsgroup uk.rec.cycling.moderated) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:59:15 -0700 (PDT) References:      <1j1tf12.v44mld1vw287bN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk> <3r4545tgik6hiie4r5nreb8uj5cr5nr04e@4ax.com>   <7aoirbF1vfd9gU1@mid.individual.net>   Lines: 61 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.160.138.240 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1246229956 13712 127.0.0.1 (28 Jun 2009 22:59:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:59:16 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.160.138.240; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 5057 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:5892 uk.net.news.config:54373

On Jun 28, 11:37=A0am, Simon Brooke  wrote: > On 28 June, 09:41, Tom Crispin  > wrote: > > > Moderation provides a platform for officially sanctioned bullying. > > Far better would be a process whereby posters self-nominate and a > > ballot is held to elect moderators. =A0That way we would elect a team o= f > > moderators who are truly representative of the group, and it would be > > less likely that any institutional bullying would occur. =A0Elected > > moderators could then be re-elected at pre-determined intervals. > > There have been two serious objections

In other words, two objections by people you agree with on the "core subjects". It wouldn't have mattered what objections Judith/I/etc had come up with, you would *never* have accepted that they were "serious". This shows once again how unfit you are to be a "moderator".

> The first serious objection is 'fairness'. Obviously it would be > better if moderation was demonstrably fair. But loons will always > assume that moderation of their idees fixe is unfair, and > troublemakers will always pretend to believe that moderation of their > spite is unfair. So if we provide any avenue to appeal or even discuss > moderation decisions, the moderators will be continually bogged down > in appeals, and moderation will become an onerous task that no-one > will want to do; so the group will fail.

If you're so convinced that would happen, why not just try allowing appeals/discussion for a trial period? Then if what you describe doesn't happen, everyone's happy, and if it does, you can ban appeals/ discussion without people (justifiably) thinking that you only want to ban it because you intend to be biased and unfair.

Surely you wouldn't have a problem with that (unless of course you're not being entirely truthful)?

> The second serious issue is balloting. Obviously it would be better if > the moderators were elected by the people with a genuine positive > interest in taking part in the new group. But on the Internet we have > no means of preventing people soliciting for votes in places which > have no positive interest in the new group. So that if we throw the > moderation panel open to balloting, we face a serious risk that the > moderation panel would end up being composed solely of loons and > trolls.

So why not stipulate that only people who have (e.g.) posted x times in the last 6 months are allowed a vote? Again, you seem far too eager to dismiss out of hand what Tom Crispin has suggested without even thinking about whether there's a way of doing what he says. Again, I suspect that the reason why you *say* you oppose Crispin's suggestion is not the real reason why you oppose it, which has more to do with wishing to ensure that the "moderation" team is composed solely of members of the clique, and that it can make biased decisions against the "trolls" (those with unfashionable opinions) without the prospect of being hassled about irritations such as fairness and impartiality.

Do you not realise how obvious it is? How long are you going to keep pretending otherwise?