moderation-YUK

Hi everyone:

All I keep hearing is that moderation is good because we won't have to
see the same requests over and over, blah, blah, blah.  

Something everyone should keep in mind though (and maybe some one has
already said this since I don't read EVERY post on this issue) is that
everyone has had an opportunity to voice their opinions about where the
future of this newsgroup should be: alt or rec.  In voicing your
opinions you have been doing two things that rec groups typically
disallow.  

First of all, it could easily be claimed (by a moderator for instance)
that the same thing is being said over and over again.  "Fine," you
might say, "the same thing _is_ being said over and over again and this
is a prime example of why moderation is good."  This is totally wrong! 
The reason there are so many posts on this issue is because so many
people feel so strongly about it.  This issue very important.  Do you
really want to risk the possibility that you might not be able to speak
up on issues like this?  It's not necessarily a bad thing that there
have been so many posts saying the basically the same thing.  It gives
everyone who reads this newsgroup a feeling for how everyone else feels.
 Under moderation, we might have only seen half of these posts, or maybe
none at all.  It would be impossible to gauge your opinion in relation
to everyone else's.  I personally don't want my agenda set for me.  I
want to know my what everyone else's feelings are.  Discussion is a good
thing, especially for an arts forum.  I don't think anyone would want
their voice restricted due to a moderator's whim.  

The second conflict that all this discussion would have with a moderated
newsgroup is the amount of attention it has taken from the real purpose
of this newsgroup, which one would assume would be to view, distribute,
promote, etc., ascii-art.  Issues like this could easily be snuffed out
because of their supposed irrelevance.  But I think that just by looking
at the response that this issue has generated illustrates that most of
us don't see this as an irrelevant issue.  However in a moderated
newsgroup, this is not for us to decide.  Here, if we think some topic
merits discussion, we discuss it.  In rec groups, we might want to bring
up an item for discussion only to find that we aren't allowed because we
are not keeping to the strict bounds that might be imposed by a
moderator.  How, then, would we be able to propose changes to the
structure of a group?  What if things were being run poorly and we
wanted to address those problems?  I think that is putting a lot of
faith in one human being.  Rec groups often forbid this kind of
discussion, why would anyone want that?  Just to not have to deal with
seeing repeated requests?  Geez, just skip 'em.  No one is making you
read them.

These two problems are also accompanied by the strain that this puts on
the moderator.  He has to take the time to read everything, and make
decisions about their fate.  This is not a small task, especially with
the number of posts that appear here daily.  It's definitely a
responsibility that one could tire of very quickly.   I don't want to
get too much into this topic though since it's been done.

All I'm saying is that this IS NOT a "win-win" situation.  True, things
could work out fine, but I'd rather not chance it.  I'd rather not take
the chance that it could end up really sucking and undermining the
promotion of ascii-art due to the potential strictness of moderation.

By the way, before you even think it, these opinions have nothing to due
with Scarecrow's character.  I believe that he is fully capable of doing
the job.  I say this even though I don't know the guy at all.  I
honestly believe that he wants to moderate the proposed rec group
because he loves ascii-art and wants do what he can to promote it.  (I
don't buy the line about self-promotion.)  Nevertheless, he going to be
subjected to a hell of a lot of complaints about what gets posted and
what doesn't get posted, and these are going to make some not-so-easy
decisons even harder for him.  

I really encourage you to think about how much of a voice you'll have
under moderation.  You may feel secure, but why?  You are putting
yourself at risk of losing your voice completely.  Moderation sucks. 
It's about more than cutting down on repeated requests.  Vote for a free
ascii-arts group.

(Sorry for being so long-winded.)

Thanks,
Andre Beskrowni

Related ASCII art in the Gallery

Explore these categories from our collection of 11,000+ artworks:

    \\__  o
|\/    o\  o
>       < o
|/\   __/
    //

 |\__/,|   (`\
 |_ _  |.--.) )
 ( T   )     /
(((^_(((/(((_/

  , _ ,
 ( o o )
/'` ' `'\
|'''''''|
|\\'''//|
   """

 ,~~--~~-.
+      | |\
|| |~ |`,/-\
*\_) \_) `-'

 __
 \  \     _ _
  \**\ ___\/ \
X*#####*+^^\_\
  o/\  \
     \__\

.------------.
|\\//\\//\\//|
|//\\//\\//\\|
|\\//\\//\\//|
|//\\//\\//\\|
'------------'

Make your own ASCII art

Turn images, text or 3D into ASCII, or draw your own – right in your browser.