OT: comp.cad.solidworks Charter changes

====================================================================== From: TOP Newsgroups: comp.cad.solidworks Subject: OT: comp.cad.solidworks Charter changes Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 07:34:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID:

[...]

The purpose of this proposal is to cut down on the noise on the group. In the last few years the number of spam, cross posters and endless off charter discussions has risen to the point that there have actually had to be howto discussions on kill lists, etc. This is the premier and oldest SolidWorks discussion forum and the most open and independent.

moderated group comp.cad.solidworks

1. Moderation of the group shall be by robot moderator. The robot moderator shall be set to reject posters deemed by the group to not be consistent with the charter. No pre-approval shall be required to join or post on the group.
2. Moderators of the group shall be approved by group consensus and shall each have equal control over the robot moderator. Moderators will share equally in the cost of maintaining the robot moderator. ======================================================================

Suggest take a course in reading comprehension.

You do, obviously.

HTH

" The purpose of this proposal is to cut down on the noise on the group."

I'll do that.

Eng-Tips has trumped this group for technical content for a long time.

Same goes for Direct Modeling and Synchronous Technology if you browse the Solid Edge and UG forums.

Go where there is technical content. Form your own opinions. Jon's are not worth much.

I must agree. Your fan club is out in full force. ;)

You know as well as I do not every server which carries the group is going to change the moderation status making such a change less than

100% successful. IOW, it will be a failure. As will the creation of a new moderated newsgroup based on support mainly from blogs and BBS's.

Do you think it is wise to play KKKliffy the KKKooky netKKKop everywhere you go?

AMC has NOT always been packed with the same. At any one time there used to be a few cross posted threads between amc, rcm and ms and an occasional debate about religion with a few people tenacious enough to argue with BB. There was so little of it it was quite easy to ignore without resorting to using kill filters. There was never enough of it to disrupt the newgroup as a whole. Not until YOU started cross posting your drivel all over Usenet that is.

Oh. OK. It's about censorship. Gotcha'.

Yes, the proposal should be for comp.cad.solidworks.moderated, for reasons already given.

However, if the problem is off-topic posts and/or trolling, a simpler solution might be to educate posters about killfiles.

Most of the support for this change has come from people posting from Google Groups. Do you have any advice about the use of kill files for them?

You've got it wrong. Cliff's the k00k here. He hangs out in a machinist newsgroup and judging by advise he has tried to give out over the years has likely never even seen the inside of a real machine shop. Back in the day he was, at best, a CAD operator in a cube farm.

And I do appreciate the way of the kookologists very much. It is indeed very entertaining at times, thank you, and I don't even mind some cross posting. But in alt.machines.cnc it has been way out of control for years and most of it has been by the hand of Cliff's incessant, off topic xposting.

On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:24:48 +0000, The Demon of Mockery & Silliness, Chas. E. Pemberton aided th' terraists with the following claims :

Driver in car:"which way to town?" Redneck on porch:"back th way yew came."

"Don't use Google Groups as your primary method of reading Usenet. Subscribe to a genuine News server and use a proper newsreader."

NIMBY (not in my backyard) groups don't work. You can't legislate where others post. That kind of netcopping will fast bring you all the attention you didn't know you hadn't wanted.

B/

Yes. Use Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or a good newsreader.

There are precedents for successfully proposing moderated groups because of trolling, but the trolling has to have been persistent and very noisy. I took a look at CCS today, and most of the threads seemed to be on-topic.

I don't know what the B8MB will think of your proposal, since no members of the B8MB have participated in the discussion so far. Perhaps they'll speak up eventually.

If they participate in this discussion, I have four pieces of advice to offer you:

1. The B8MB have less power than they claim. In order to get a new group propagated or the moderation status of an old group changed, the users of the group will have to do most of the work, and they'll probably never achieve 100% success.
2. The B8MB nevertheless have *some* power, and some members of the B8MB like to flaunt their power by announcing that they won't vote for your proposal unless you comply with their wishes about trivial details. For this reason, alt.comp.cad.solidworks.moderated might be an alternative you'll be tempted to consider. I post in alt.config, and this is the kind of proposal I'd take seriously.
3. According to some members of the B8MB, people like Adam H Kerman and I are trolls, or in my case "nothing but an abusive asshole". But in fact we offer sincere advice, which you can take or leave depending on whether we've persuaded you or not. I firmly believe that our advice is better than the advice of the B8MB members, who have a vested interest in "creating" as many newsgroups as possible.
4. If you post an official RFD, you'll probably have to post it to news.groups.proposals instead of news.groups. Be aware that good advice is sometimes available in news.groups as well as (or instead of) in news.groups.proposals.

Not NIMBY. The proponent is willing to move to a new moderated group, among other options.

Probably, if it were endorsed by the B8MB.

Google Groups is badly broken.

That's a very good question. Anybody who formally proposes a new moderated group needs to be able to answer it.

But at present we're all just brainstorming.

Any proposed moderator will be scrutinised more closely than any mere RFD proponent.

Yes. That's true, alas.

Freyburger. Warrenson. Kuhn. Sobolewski. Bruere. Bonine.

The tendency is that it's an advantage if your proposed moderators are loonies and/or spammers.

!!!!!!Caution!!!!!!!

Here is an example of what CROSS POSTING will do for this group!

=======================

comp.cad.solidworks today 3:30 PM pacific time

Today the first page shows 10 of 10 Threads related to CAD.

1 introducing CAD site, 1 hardware question from a CAD person, 8 directly related to SolidWorks.

=========================

alt.machines.cnc today 3:30 PM pacific time

Today the first page shows 9 of 10 threads are OFF TOPIC, some pages

10 of 10 threads are (ALL) off topic.

===========================

Cross posting has already brought nibbles from the nuts and kooks to this group, look at the profiles on some posters over the past two days. One guy alone has an average of 110+ posts PER DAY.

IT IS BEST TO STOP CROSS POSTING NOW, not one person, not two people, EVERYONE! When responding/posting please check your headers make sure you are not cross posting.

Tom