Reviving rec.arts.ascii

Hi all,

First an introduction as I'm almost certainly unknown to you all. I've 
always enjoyed ascii art but have never managed to produce anything 
more than a few flow charts and haven't really thought about a 
newsgroup for it until relatively recently when I head of r.a.a. The 
fact that it is dead is, IMO, a shame and I am interested to see of 
there is any wish from others to get it going again.

I have been moderating news.groups.reviews for a while now and one of 
my co-moderators there also moderates other groups. He has offered to 
let me use his robo-moderator to ensure a quick turn round and 
relatively little work for the moderators. This would basically be done 
by using tags to keep out spam and try to make life easier for those 
wishing to filter and then by checking against a list of posters who 
have been selected for hand moderation. Anything that passed those 
would be posted almost immediatly. The rest (with the exception of 
spam) would be passed to a human moderator. There are other set ups 
possible but this strikes me as the best. Comments welcome on preferred 
other ways of doing it.

With regards the mechanics of moderating the group it would be handy if 
I could get hold of the old moderator and let him OK it. There is 
another way but it can take a while. The last moderator I have found is 
Don Bertino. From what I can find on the web his e-mail address was 
ber...@netcom.com. Doing an EXPN on rec...@moderators.isc.org 
also gave me asc...@netcom.com. Both of these are bounced by netcom 
as user unknown. If anyone knows anything else then I'd be interested 
to hear it. Also if anyone is willing to help out as a co-moderator 
then I'd welcome all comers. It isn't that hard technically and the 
more doing it the less pressure there is to check the box reguarly.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

-- 
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"Graham Drabble" wrote about

[Moderating the group rec.arts.ascii]

I definatly think it's a good idea.
Not only will we get rid of all the spam and trolls .. more people would
also have access to the ascii newsgroup as rec.* groups are carried on far
more servers than the alt.* group.

I welcome the initiative.
Personally I'd love to help but I have zero time for moderating and
extremely little for doing art at the moment.

Kind Regards
CeeJay

Hi Graham,

Graham Drabble wrote (05 Apr 2002):
[...]
> The 
> fact that it is dead is, IMO, a shame and I am interested to see of 
> there is any wish from others to get it going again.

Anything about ascii art is good and I believe a.a-a turns away some
people who would enjoy r.a-a. Of course Don Bertino has tried to 
revive r.a-a once and failed. Personally I believe that the special,
sometimes trashy, character of a.a-a makes a more creative background
than any moderated group could offer. At the moment there is not enough
activity here (or in VK's chat?) to divide that further. Instead we
must hope to create new interest and thus new artists. So, be
prepared for a low-traffic newsgroup. If you think, you can stand
a long dry period before customers come rushing in then, yes, go ahead!

[...]
> spam) would be passed to a human moderator. There are other set ups 
> possible but this strikes me as the best. Comments welcome on preferred 
> other ways of doing it.

Anything that is fast. Especially if there are only a few posts it
is easy to "forget" about it (as the moderator). And then usually 
people started cross-posting it to a.a-a where it appeared earlier,
started a discussion, etc., etc. Soon everything had already happened
even before the post made it through to r.a-a.

> With regards the mechanics of moderating the group it would be handy if 
> I could get hold of the old moderator and let him OK it. There is 
> another way but it can take a while. The last moderator I have found is 
> Don Bertino. 
[...]

The name is right and he hasn't been seen here for ages.

Well, go ahead. I think the group should become alive! Only I fear that
you will not have much to do as a moderator but then it doesn't
hurt, does it? 

:)
Andreas

-- 
________________________________________________ http://www.ascii-art.de

On 05 Apr 2002 Andreas Freise <ad...@mpq.mpg.de> wrote in
news:b7u...@adfpc.amp.uni-hannover.de: 

> Hi Graham,
> 
> Graham Drabble wrote (05 Apr 2002):
> [...]
>> The 
>> fact that it is dead is, IMO, a shame and I am interested to see
>> of there is any wish from others to get it going again.
> 
> Anything about ascii art is good and I believe a.a-a turns away
> some people who would enjoy r.a-a. Of course Don Bertino has tried
> to revive r.a-a once and failed.

Interesting that you say he failed. The Google archives show it being 
quite bus up until May 99 when it suddenly went dead. Am I missing 
something?

> Personally I believe that the
> special, sometimes trashy, character of a.a-a makes a more
> creative background than any moderated group could offer. At the
> moment there is not enough activity here (or in VK's chat?) to
> divide that further. Instead we must hope to create new interest
> and thus new artists.

Maybe something in the Big-8, which should be carried at more sights, 
would help.

> So, be prepared for a low-traffic newsgroup.
> If you think, you can stand a long dry period before customers
> come rushing in then, yes, go ahead! 
> 
> The name is right and he hasn't been seen here for ages.

I can find no evidence of him on the net since late 1999, I was hoping 
someone in here might still be in touch.
 
> Well, go ahead. I think the group should become alive! Only I fear
> that you will not have much to do as a moderator but then it
> doesn't hurt, does it? 

Not at all. I'll be using a robomod so the only reason I'll get 
involved is if someone starts abusing the group in which case I may 
elect to hand moderate there posts for a while.

What I propose if the following:

Posts must be tagged either

[PIC] For pictures
[REQ] For requests or
[DIS] For general ASCII art discussion

(There wil also be [ADMIN] for administrative things and [FAQ] but I 
only see these being used by moderators.)

The robomoderator will approve any post that has these tags (it will be 
up to the community to enforce them although blatent disregard for them 
may lead to being hand moderated) unless the poster appears on a list 
of people who the moderators have elected for hand moderation. 
Moderators will not edit articles, it will be a straight approve or 
reject.

What are peoples views on cross-posting? Due to the hassle of cross-
posting between multiple moderated groups I am going to rule that out. 
I'll have to talk to the guy who's hosting the modbot but I don't see 
why we shouldn't allow other cross-posts. Anyone else got any comments?

The system is built on the assumption that people will be reasonable 
and that moderation will only be there to control spam. If this is seen 
not to be working then it can always be changed. However the more 
strictly controlled the group the more work for the moderators so I'd 
like to keep it down if possible.

I'm still hoping to have others join me as moderators but I am willing 
to start on my own until thr group gets going well. The modbot will be 
hosted at gweep.ca by Brian Edmonds who is using it to deal with a few 
other groups as well. I've yet to discuss details about how updates to 
filter rules will take place.

There is also an offer of a gated mailing list if people want it. Don't 
know much about the details but it sounds like a good idea to me.

-- 
Graham Drabble
If you're interested in what goes on in other groups or want to find 
an interesting group to read then check news.groups.reviews for what 
others have to say or contribute a review for others to read.

On 06 Apr 2002 Graham Drabble wrote:
> On 05 Apr 2002 Andreas Freise <ad...@mpq.mpg.de> wrote in
[...]
>> Anything about ascii art is good and I believe a.a-a turns away
>> some people who would enjoy r.a-a. Of course Don Bertino has tried
>> to revive r.a-a once and failed.
> Interesting that you say he failed. The Google archives show it being 
> quite bus up until May 99 when it suddenly went dead. Am I missing 
> something?

As far as I remember most of the regulars from a.a-a tried to get r.a.a
going by fuelling it with reposts. Discussions, new pictures and
diddles were cross-posted to both groups. Since nothing new started
to happen in r.a.a, it was dead as soon as the "revival-by-repost" effort
was stopped. 

[...]
>> moment there is not enough activity here (or in VK's chat?) to
>> divide that further. Instead we must hope to create new interest
>> and thus new artists.
> Maybe something in the Big-8, which should be carried at more sights, 
> would help.

Sorry, I didn't get that, don't know the Big-8.

[...]
> I can find no evidence of him on the net since late 1999, I was hoping 
> someone in here might still be in touch.

I don't think so. I remember someone else looking for him some time ago without
getting anywhere. Better take the "other way", whatever that is.

[...]
> Posts must be tagged either
> 
> [PIC] For pictures
> [REQ] For requests or
> [DIS] For general ASCII art discussion
> 
> (There wil also be [ADMIN] for administrative things and [FAQ] but I 
> only see these being used by moderators.)
> 
> The robomoderator will approve any post that has these tags (it will be 
> up to the community to enforce them although blatent disregard for them 
> may lead to being hand moderated) unless the poster appears on a list 
> of people who the moderators have elected for hand moderation. 
> Moderators will not edit articles, it will be a straight approve or 
> reject.

Sounds reasonable.

[...]
> The system is built on the assumption that people will be reasonable 
> and that moderation will only be there to control spam. If this is seen 
> not to be working then it can always be changed. However the more 
> strictly controlled the group the more work for the moderators so I'd 
> like to keep it down if possible.
[...]

We do get a few trolls but those should be easy enough to filter. The
rest definitely can be labelled sane and reasonable, I think. :)

:)
Andreas

-- 
________________________________________________ http://www.ascii-art.de

On 07 Apr 2002 Andreas Freise <ad...@mpq.mpg.de> wrote in
news:or2...@adfpc.amp.uni-hannover.de: 

> On 06 Apr 2002 Graham Drabble wrote:
>> On 05 Apr 2002 Andreas Freise <ad...@mpq.mpg.de> wrote in
> [...]
>>> Anything about ascii art is good and I believe a.a-a turns away
>>> some people who would enjoy r.a-a. Of course Don Bertino has
>>> tried to revive r.a-a once and failed.
>> Interesting that you say he failed. The Google archives show it
>> being quite bus up until May 99 when it suddenly went dead. Am I
>> missing something?
> 
> As far as I remember most of the regulars from a.a-a tried to get
> r.a.a going by fuelling it with reposts. Discussions, new pictures
> and diddles were cross-posted to both groups. Since nothing new
> started to happen in r.a.a, it was dead as soon as the
> "revival-by-repost" effort was stopped. 

Thanks for that, I hadn't been checking for cross-posting. Maybe this 
time people might like to cross-post the original article and then set 
Followups to raa only. Hopefully that will encourage more people to 
subscribe.
 
> [...]
>>> moment there is not enough activity here (or in VK's chat?) to
>>> divide that further. Instead we must hope to create new interest
>>> and thus new artists.
>> Maybe something in the Big-8, which should be carried at more
>> sights, would help.
> 
> Sorry, I didn't get that, don't know the Big-8.

The big 8 is comp.*, humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.* 
and talk.* and come from the original set of newsgroups. alt.* was 
split off in the mid 80's and generally hasn't had as good coverage 
although this is changing.

> [...]
>> I can find no evidence of him on the net since late 1999, I was
>> hoping someone in here might still be in touch.
> 
> I don't think so. I remember someone else looking for him some
> time ago without getting anywhere. Better take the "other way",
> whatever that is. 

The other way involves contacting Tale (David Lawrence, the man who is 
in charge of the Big-8 creation system and the moderator relays) and 
pursuading him that the group is dead. The second part of that will be 
easy however he is very busy and it can take quite a while to get 
through to him. However once I've sorted out a few technicalities with 
Brian about how we will handle the group I'll start chasing.

<snip> 

-- 
Graham Drabble
If you're interested in what goes on in other groups or want to find 
an interesting group to read then check news.groups.reviews for what 
others have to say or contribute a review for others to read.

Last time I was here I pretty much decided I wouldn't come back. Today
I had the newsreader on for something else and thought I would just
take a peek while I'm here. 

I'd like to see r.a.a back. I've missed our little group. Maybe others
would come back too. 

Laura

On 09 Apr 2002 Laura T. <she...@lycos.com> wrote in
news:511...@4ax.com: 

> Last time I was here I pretty much decided I wouldn't come back.
> Today I had the newsreader on for something else and thought I
> would just take a peek while I'm here. 

I've just sent an e-mail to Tale requesting that he OKs the change of 
moderators. Once that happens (and there can be a wait as he is very 
busy) it will go to mod...@isc.org so that they can change 
the database that holds the submission addresses.
 
> I'd like to see r.a.a back. I've missed our little group. Maybe
> others would come back too. 

If you know of anyone who won't be reading this or raa then please let 
them know. I'll announce in raa once we have the OK from Tale and post 
the moderation guidelines.

If anyone thinks they can help as a moderator (and it shouldn't be much 
work) then please let me know. I expect most of it to run automatically 
but if problems do arise and I'm the only moderator then they'll 
probably arise when I'm on holiday!
-- 
Graham Drabble
If you're interested in what goes on in other groups or want to find 
an interesting group to read then check news.groups.reviews for what 
others have to say or contribute a review for others to read.