Re: Cypherpunks Goals: Bad debate drives out good debate

> Cypher version of Gresham's Law: bad posts drive out good posts.

> (The same is being seen in talk.politics.crypto, with the neverending
> Sternlight vs. Everybody Else dominating the traffic by a factor of
> 20-to-1. Detweiler recently reappeared (as tmp@netcom.com) and is back
> to debating _himself_ and answering his own delusional posts.)

Let's face it: Usenet is inherently broken.

There are two ways to filter for content: filter at the newsgroup
source via moderators, or filter at the newsgroup destinations via
killfiles.  Moderating does seem to get rid of most of the cruft, but
the moderators are required to read every post that comes through,
and, worse, make judgements with some degree of impartiality (which is
not always possible).  On the other side, kill files are useful, but
only to a certain degree.  Blocking sertain key words in subjects
doesn't help against topic drift; blocking Sternlight won't help you
in the slightest when umpteen other people respond to his posts.

The situation for most mailing lists is just as bad.  Anyone can send
a post to a mailing list, and there are usually no moderators to
enforce content.  A reader's only recourse is another kill file---and
most mail killing facilities are pretty lousy when compared with their
Usenet counterparts.  The only thing mailing lists have going for them
is that they tend to be less obvious than newsgroups.  Harder to find.

To fix them problem, then, we either have to either improve the kill
files or improve the moderation.  Personalized AI filters (see Moran's
"The Long Run") will be spiffy when they arrive, but they're not going
to be arriving any time soon.  This leaves moderation.  If we increase
the number of moderators, we can reduce the load on each and take into
account as many tastes as possible.  In the best case, the moderators
would consist of all the readers of the newsgroup.

How would this work?

Assume we're running a mailing list (Usenet v.2.0 will be just a
special case of a mailing list).  All posts are sent to the central
site.  The mailing list software picks one e-mail address from all of
the list receivers, and forwards the post to that e-mail address
(keeping the original post on file).  The forwarded post will have a
subject line something like:

  Subject: Post ACK, list cypherpunks, msg #435A77CF

with the post contained in the body.  The receiver reads the post,
then replies to it.  The reply subject line will be:

  Subject: Re: Post ACK, list cypherpunks, msg #435A77CF

and the body will contain "ACK" or "NAK" or "post" or "dump" or
whatever.  This goes back to the list maintainer, who can check that:

  * The message in question is in fact outstanding.
  * The person who sent back the evaluation was the one who was
    supposed to.
  * Other sordid details.

If the message was approved, it goes to everyone.  Otherwise, the
original poster is informed that the post did not meet standards.

We might even want to forward the evaluation body to the original
poster; this would allow the evalutors to send comments explaining why
the post was rejected.

The nice thing about this technique is that the more people a person
pisses off, the less likely it is that his or her posts will ever see
the light of day.  Even better, aware readers can nip MAKE.MONEY.FAST
and Green Card Lottery posts in the bud.

Something very similar to this exists now in the Internet Oracle, so
distributed moderation ought to be possible.  I suspect that the mail-
handling features could be incorporated entirely into "procmail" and
"SmartList" (a filter program and a mailing list program), although
the databases would need C maintenance programs for efficiency.

I'll go to bed and await comments.

Derek

In message <199405120903.AA24972@grolsch.cs.ubc.ca>you write:
  > special case of a mailing list).  All posts are sent to the central
  > site.  The mailing list software picks one e-mail address from all of
  > the list receivers, and forwards the post to that e-mail address
 
I like the general idea of distributing the load of moderating a list, but
would make a few changes. Instead of picking a moderator at random, might
it not work better to pick some percentage of the list (say 5%) and then
post the message only if more than half of those chosen as moderators, and
who respond within an hour, approve?
 
The trouble with random single moderators are many, but worst would probably
be time-delay. If the chosen moderator for a message is busy, sick, or away
from their desk messages could be delayed for days. The problem gets even worse
if a delayed message is then approved, and posted out of sequence.


Linn H. Stanton <stanton@acm.org>

The above opinions are exclusively my own. If anyone else wants them,
they can buy them from me. Easy terms can be arranged.
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>> Cypher version of Gresham's Law: bad posts drive out good posts.

>> (The same is being seen in talk.politics.crypto, with the neverending
>> Sternlight vs. Everybody Else dominating the traffic by a factor of
>> 20-to-1. Detweiler recently reappeared (as tmp@netcom.com) and is back
>> to debating _himself_ and answering his own delusional posts.)

> Let's face it: Usenet is inherently broken.
> ...
> To fix them problem, then, we either have to either improve the kill
> files or improve the moderation.  
> ...
> In the best case, the moderators
> would consist of all the readers of the newsgroup.
> ...
> The mailing list software picks one e-mail address from all of
> the list receivers, and forwards the post to that e-mail address
> (keeping the original post on file).
> ...

You're on the right track here.

Moderation doesn't have to be based in censorship.  It can be based
on advice.

Instead of picking random list receivers to moderate, readers should
choose their own moderators.

As a moderator reads the latest messages on the list, he or she can
mark each one as junk or not junk.  This causes advice messages to be
sent to their subscribers.  The subscribers can use mail programs which
process the advice and only show messages which have passed.  ("If all
three of my moderators say a message is junk, then don't read it,
otherwise, show me.")

Each moderator can operate, in effect, a mini-mailing list.  When
digital money becomes available, moderators can charge for their
services.

One problem with mailing lists is that there isn't much feedback.
It's very easy to get enthused and post a "me too" message without
realizing that nobody wants to read it.  If you notice that various
moderators are consistently panning your articles, you will learn to
do better work.

Corruption of moderators is easily managed as every message they
comment on is available for inspection.  Hard working readers can
ignore all advice by the moderators if they like.

Real life example: I have wondered for some time about the articles
that don't make it into comp.risks.  This is a great newsgroup, but
one has to be suspicious of its relationship to SRI.  Are "radical"
articles culled while "sane and reasonable" articles by D. Denning are
passed on?  It would be reassuring to be able to sift through the
rejects.

Peter

How about auto-moderation?  I came up with this idea a while back for
automatically moderating mailing lists.  Here's how it works:

A newsgroup is set up as moderated, and the posts are emailed to the 
moderator (as usual).  The "moderator" is a mail-to-news gateway that 
posts the articles if the author isn't on the disapproved list, and
also automatically cancels articles that don't have the right "approved"
header and aren't digitally signed by the moderator.

If a person becomes a nuisance, people send their votes in to the 
moderator-robot, and it tallies the votes. If within XXX days more thumbs 
down votes are received than thumbs up votes, the person is placed on the 
disapproved list.

The main advantage is, it's fast and easy to set up.  Comments?

Ed Carp, N7EKG/VE3		ecarp@netcom.com		519/824-3307
Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.3a public key		an88744@anon.penet.fi
If you want magic, let go of your armor.  Magic is so much stronger than
steel!        -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"

> How about auto-moderation?  I came up with this idea a while back for
> automatically moderating mailing lists.  Here's how it works:
> ...
> If a person becomes a nuisance, people send their votes in to the 
> moderator-robot, and it tallies the votes. If within XXX days more thumbs 
> down votes are received than thumbs up votes, the person is placed on the 
> disapproved list.

> The main advantage is, it's fast and easy to set up.  Comments?

This would be easy to set up, but instead of discarding message from
"disapproved" people I would suggest just tagging which messages are
sent by "approved" people and which are not.  That way all of the
information still gets out there, even if it's unpopular.

Peter