In article <62cs3h$
...@junkie.gnofn.org>, Roger P Williams writes:
>I just read another article crowing about how the Internet is such a
>wonderful example of a functional anarchy, and I'm about ready to puke.
>What we have here in rec.gambling.blackjack is probably the second most
>dismal example, after alt.religion.scientology, of a siege mentality in
>all of cyberspace.
>Because of one lunatic with no life and an axe to
>grind, our most helpful and prolific residents have skedaddled to
>webBBS forums or just given up. The rest of us spend 90% of our time
>arguing with the Troll King instead of discussing topics of interest.
You've come across Dixne Rxchardsxn, then? Seriously, ARS does suffer
from being opposed to a bunch of maniacs who launch armed raids and
veaxtious lawsuits against contributors and drown the judge's dog if
they're losing. You may regard the contributors as even somewhat
maniacal but they do not do those actions against what they're opposing.
>Briefly, rec.gambling.blackjack has always been the de facto home of
>information on casino advantage play, including some topics not directly
>related to blackjack such as casino tournaments and some exploitable
>promotions. Because our pet Troll does not believe casinos will allow
>anybody to sustain an advantage in any way, he shouts down any discussion
>disseminating such information, and if the participants insist on
>continuing the discussion, he accuses them of being con men, of working
>for the casinos as shills to sucker in the unsuspecting masses, and other
>vague crimes. He responds to *every on-topic post* with the same
>word-for-word rant, and if anyone persists in arguing with him they are
>eventually threatened with lawsuits and issued ridiculous challenges to
>"prove" that the sky is blue, that 2+2=4, and so on. The situation is
>exactly the same as a group devoted to discussion a partricular religious
>system which is spammed by unbelievers.
That is not exactly the situation of alt.religion.scientology, if that
is what you are hinting, by any even mildly sane evaluation. The
"Church" of $cientology is a bunch of killers and extortionists whose
own founder admits taking up the guise of religion merely for accounting
purposes. Nor was it founded by the clams then invaded by critics who
tried to destroy their discussions, but founded by people critical of
their actions and -- while both sides are wellcome -- the clams have at
various times tried to wipe it out with spam barrages and RMGROUPs.
We also suffer from a malicious [non-Scn] troll like that you describe.
>It isn't enough for our pet Troll
>to simply not discuss the advantage play he doesn't think is possible; he
>wants to make it impossible for anyone else to discuss it, either.
Question: why don't you use a killfile? And a mass killfile
reccomendation?? Presumably there must be a combination of the
troll (a) having active supporters, (b) people who ought to know
better saying "you mustn't shout at the troll", and (c) rubbernecks
who can't help being attracted to watch a trainwreck. Preaching
moderation doesn't work. One or two people who would rather avoid
this crap deliberately confronting the troll hard may be a better
way to persuade others to killfile him/her than mild reccomendation.
>So what has our virtual community been able to do to defend itself in this
>wonderful functional anarchy? In order to get ourselves a moderated forum
>-- the equivalent of a wall to keep out the off-topic invader -- we have
>had to get on bended knee and beg the "powers that be" to put their stamp
>of approval on our little request. In answer, we have been told that we
>must muster enough interest to overcome the objections of 50 or so
>curmudgeons who, in total violation of the technical rules of the vote,
>are known to vote against every new newsgroup creation whether they have
>any direct interest in the topic or not.
Well, you're invited to drop me an email to drift in on the side of
the good guys, then. All you can do is publicise the situation
externally and hope to gather sympathetic supporters.
>Meanwhile, we must put up with the occasional self-righteous essay posted
>by someone who has no idea what is going on in rec.gambling.blackjack
>about how terrible the proliferation of moderated groups is and how it
>should be resisted because it is the creeping edge of censorship. Well,
>it's true that a village pays for its wall, but if the alternative is
>watching your village get burned to the ground, you build the damn wall
>anyway.
I'm not against moderation generally. It fits where the subject matter
has onvius boundaries and is IN ITSELF noncontentious, so there is a
consensus what reasonably belongs and what doesn't (I think it's a very
bad idea for extreme religious or political controversies). I think you
should consider what your [?robo-]moderation setup would look like.
Considering the other debate at the moment, perhaps it should be by
lists of persons, who provide a real address or unposted X-Real-Address
which is writen to codesigned and must return that codesigned message on
first posting. And "Persons who are persistently disruptive or repeat
the same text to a disruptive extent may, in the last resort and by
consensus of the moderators be removed from the list."
It could allow crossposts among a whitelist of about twenty relevant--
and known unmoderated--groups, deleting any other groups; and deleting
the moderated group if NOT approved. There is somewhere software that
PGPsigns part of the header including the approval line. You might want
to add auto-cancellation (with a notice posted) for material appearing
without a proper approved line, and detection plus notification /
restoration of any other cancels aimed at the group.
>It seems to me that if villagers had to vote on whether to build
>walls, and people from outside the village could vote, and there were
>dozens of people who hated walls who travelled from village to village
>voting down wall proposals, the result would be a field day for pirates,
>and nobody with any brains would bother trying to build anything
>worthwhile since it would eventually be destroyed anyway. In any case
>this is exactly what has happened to rec.gambling.blackjack; in order to
>get worthwhile discussion, I have to go to
http://www.bj21.com and pay
>$25 per year to defray the costs of the webserver.
What's missing from your evaluation is an "alt" newsgroup. Anybody
can found one and, de facto, people go round RMGROUPing obsolete ones
on the basis of inactivity. Yes, not everybody takes every alt group---
you might jhave to actively request it where you want it---but any
reasonable person can see that is the obvious outcome of the free
creation on demand and deletion when inactive of newsgroups. It exists.
It is called "alt". Why not use it. The "we've been censored" mob
would also have a place to put "banned" articles -- they could put them
in the old unmoderated group, which could co-exist for those who wanted
it. There is thus rrom to live & let live for all viewpoints willing to
do so, and the only behaviour stopped is the ability to coerce others.
>It seems to me that there is a problem here which cannot be solved simply
>by tweaking the RFD/CFV process. If a certain number of people want to
>form a newsgroup, why not have an /automatic/ process for it to happen?
>Then, if interest is not sustained and no posts are made for a certain
>amount of time, why not let it /automatically/ expire?
[.....]
>A periodically updated list of /active/, as opposed to /recommended/,
>groups could be generated automatically and distributed to news servers to
>keep their local lists current.
Yep. It's called "alt".
>In any case, if we are going to depend on centralized structures like the
>recommendation process for newsgroup maintenance, InterNIC for web domain
>name maintenance, and so on, isn't it a little silly to be calling the
>Internet an anarchy (functional or otherwise)? I am reminded of how
>unpleasantly un-anarchic it is every time I log on and still do not see
>"rec.gambling.blackjack passes" among the new messages on my server.
how about "alt.gambling.blackjack has been created"?
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