Re: Moderator Vacancy Investigation: comp.os.plan9

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On Mon, 28 Oct 2024 23:30:36 CST
Anthony <a@9srv.net> wrote:

Tristan Miller <tmiller@big-8.org> wrote:

Dear Steve,

<snip>

I don’t know what the right answer is about moderation. I read several
unmoderated news groups which are great, but I’ve also had to abandon a
couple which had turned into trash fires. Simply naming a new moderator is
certainly the simplest path. I am interested, but also don’t wanna be a
single point of failure. I’ve asked on her mailing list if anybody’s
willing to work with me on it. I was hoping to get farther with that before
responding to the MVI, but since I was (obliquely) mentioned… :-)

I suggest to the Big8 board to establish a fallback moderator pool consisting of every registered moderator and a trio or quartet of 'super mods'. This pool would consist of fallback moderators who would begin moderating a group if it falls dormant or its registered moderator goes dormant or incommunicado. In this way, any and every moderated group would always have fallback moderation.

Such dual moderation would require multiple signing keys and multiple recipients for each group, including the registered moderators and a private, non-public inbox for the fallback moderators to monitor. When a registered moderator approves a message, a signature flag should be automatically sent to the fallback pool inbox, clearing the linked message from the fallback queue. Messages can be held in abbeyance from the fallback queue for 3, 7, 14, 30 days or whatever before being presented to the fallback moderators.

A scheme like this would return all moderated newsgroups to active status and Usenet authors could begin posting to them immediately. Or the scheme can select which groups are in or out of the fallback pool. If a moderator disappears a config flag would move their group to fallback moderation. It doesn't have to be an either/or matter but can be selective if desired.

Another method would be to require a sysop owning a domain with a news host thereon for any group to be marked moderated with that news host as the default 'super mod'.

A vital part of moderation is filtering spam by each author having a valid and active email account. Leaving moderated groups in limbo does stop spam but also kills the group. Fallback moderation can even be automated with intelligent filters and even LLM filters, and if anyone notices spam getting through the filters can be updated and NoCems can be issued. This way the groups can function again and missing moderators won't have the harsh impact as at present.

Sysops and moderators can download and train a LLM such as 'ollama' to automate spam filtering. It can be nearly a 'set it and forget' it operation.

P.S. I had to send this message twice because your moderation rejects PGP-MIME signatures. Why?

- --
    Byrl Raze Buckbriar  .  OCTADE  .   < https://octade.net >
    Hacker Hotline  .  voice & SMS  .   (781) OCT-AGON
    KeyOxide  .  < https://keyoxide.org/keyoxide0@octade.net >
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iHUEARYIAB0WIQRneuMjkp+P7n1uq4moad1ZYOZmFwUCZyDqUgAKCRCoad1ZYOZm
F/X3APwJ+07+gEtFGLGWbmThsbCxjDmNcfLGCkY7kIVbeYbvDQD8CWZh0OcGT1L+
0wHlCZtLt0kIayow3rBcU3bC2cDRzwA=
=ddpk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----