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Re: Why Is SRH Reorg RFD Biased: Moderation Policy Comparision
Please note: Some discussion about this reorganization has appeared on
soc.religion.hindu, and if you are interested in knowing what is said
there, you may wish to follow that newsgroup as well, for the duration of
this RFD discussion. If you post any replies there, please do make sure to
post them to news.groups as well, for the good of all concerned. Thanks.
In article <4b5kbe$9kk@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, editor@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu
(digest editor) wrote:
> Namaskar,
>
> When we pointed out personal vendetta and petty politics, the proponents
> of the SRH (Soc.Religion.Hindu) Reorg. RFD pointed out that their goals
> are not these, but only the betterment of the newsgroup SRH. They
> suggested that the charter of SRH was poorly written, and that the
> moderation policy was ill defined etc. etc.
They also "pointed out" that having more groups including an unmoderated
one would help channelize discussions, having more moderators would make
postings move faster, and that there was no vendetta because the present
moderator was requested to be on the team of moderators.
> Since many of the proponents of the re-organization of SRH were amongst
> the proponents and/or most vocal supporters and/or moderators of SRV,
> I looked up the charter of the newsgroup Soc.Religion.Vaishnava, and found
> that most of the proposed changes for SRH are not in SRV charter as well.
Only to the extent that soc.religion.vaishnava is _one_ completely
new "Big 8" newsgroup, while the present RFD under discussion is for the
reorganization of an existing Big 8 group into an hierarchy. Given this
important difference, all the points where the charters for SRV and
SRH-reorg differ can be explained.
> Surely, most of the readers will sense double standards here.
Surely, most of the informed and intelligent ones will sense that the
situations while creating a newsgroup and reorganizing one, are not
identical.
> This is one clear indication that the proposed reorganization move is
> a sinister political attempt to control the newsgroup, unfortunately.
And the fact that the present moderator was asked to be one in the
reorganized groups, is one clear indication that it is not.
> Here are some proposed moderation policies for SRH, which find no equivalent
> in SRV moderation policies. What the proponets claim as "oversight" in
> the moderation policy is prefixed by ">" in this post.
>
> > ii> - provisions for replacement of moderators;
>
> SRV charter has no such policy! Why impose it on SRH? Sure, the proponents
> will argue that the moderation is to be done by the software, however,
> the following questions are not answered:
>
> a. what if, in the future the readers want to replace the software with
> human beings? why is the charter silent about this?
Kindly read the charter in full, word for word. What does it say? It says:
"The moderation of this newsgroup is not to be done directly by humans,
and will always be only for the purpose of preventing inflow of irrelevant
material; there will be no restriction otherwise, and the newsgroup will
provide for the free exchange of diverse views." Therefore, if the readers
of the newsgroup want to replace the software with humans, then they will
have to go through with all the work that is needed to re-create a
newsgroup with a new charter.
> b. where are the provisions for replacing the moderators who share the
> hardware and software maintanence responsibilities? (note that I am not
> advocating their replacement)
There is no provison for replacing them, agreed. However, note that there
are two important points of note:
1> Moderation will _always_ be done by auto-moderation software, only.
2> The rules followed by the software are rigidly defined.
Given points 1> and 2>, the point about replacing the human maintainers is
moot. Anyone can maintain software that follows a well-defined standard.
The problem is when humans themselves are to moderate and judge postings
as acceptable or not.
> Note that most moderated newsgroups, like SRH and SRV do not have the
> policy for replacement of moderators.
Note that many of them do; I don't know what the statistical ratio of the
ones that do to the ones that don't is. In any event, as has been pointed
out, in the case of SRV, even in the event of the maintainers changing,
the auto-moderator will remain the same. It is not expected that the
newsgroup will ever see a change of moderators in a meaningful sense. You
may argue that when the software is upgraded (as it has been regularly
throughout the few months of its existence), or even ported to another
platform or replaced altogether, one can consider events as constituting a
change of moderators. However, going by the concept of Herb Simon, Al
Newell, and Marvin Minsky, I would say that such changes do not constitute
a change in software (which remains the same functionally), any more than
a human moderator would become different if he moves, gets older, wears
different clothes, etc. Two programs that have the same input-output
mapping for all inputs, are considered to be the same. If you disagree
with this philosophical view, please state why.
> > iii> - clear definitions of moderation guidelines;
>
> Anyone who has taken time to read the SRH Moderation policies will dispute
> this. These policies are available for review:
>
> http://rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu:8080/soc_hindu_home.html
Anyone who has made a comparative study of the SRH moderation policy, with
the proposed moderation policy of the reorganized groups, will accept that
the latter is more suited to the applied adjective 'clear.'
> > iv> - provisions for handling disputes between an author and a
> > moderator;
>
> Interestingly enough, there is no such policy for SRV either. SRV is
> an automoderated newsgroup, and the posts may be rejected if some
> key words are missing. There is a hardware and software maintainer, but
> the charter does not spell out who one would appeal to if the software
> rejects your post. Nor a provision for the readers to suggest / comment
> upon keywords that the software may accept/reject.
Note that the above fails to specify one important thing: the keywords
list is fairly long and public, and part of the regularly-posted FAQ for
the newsgroup. It is thus not a matter of trial-and-error for someone to
get a posting passed, and in the three weeks of its existence, there has
never been an instance where SRV failed to get an appropriate posting
because it did not have keywords. Also, the keywords are only meant to
accept, and not to reject, and thus, "keywords that the software may
accept/reject" is partially incorrect.
In addition, the FAQ, which is where the readers of the newsgroup would
expect (as stated in the moderation policy) to find the keywords list,
gives specific instructions on how to reach the maintainers with comments;
if someone has something to say about the keywords list, then they can do
so in that manner. In fact, people have suggested additions and changes to
the keywords list.
> > v> - clarifications regarding what constitutes unacceptable behavior
> > by a moderator.
>
> Another clause missing in SRV charter.
That's because the moderator of soc.religion.vaishnava is a computer
program! And programs (as far as I know) do only what you tell them to do;
if you don't want them doing certain things, the matter is as simple as
not coding them in that way. The humans who maintain the software do not
truly have the same status as a human moderator would, and consequently,
have no more scope for misbehavior than any ordinary reader would.
> This just goes to show that the proponents of the reorganization are
> not really interested in the improvement of the charter/moderation
> policy, because if they truly felt this, then they would have implemented
> it in SRV first!
This just goes to show that the critics of the reorganization have not
understood what they are criticizing.
> Please note that the intention here is not to show that the SRV charter is
> poorly written.
Of course not.
> In fact, SRH is one of the most democratic newsgroups. In the event
> of any moderation policy change, a proposal is first posted, eenough time is
> granted for input from the readers and then the modified policy
> is implemented. In past three and a half months, we have done this
> twice.
The "we" is a royal we, one notes. In the past three-and-a-half months,
the newsgroup SRH has had far fewer postings than it should, or could,
since much of the discussion continues to be driven into the SCI.* and
other groups. As Ken Stuart pointed out, the usual long delays in
moderation also vanished when this reorg RFD came up, which itself is
surely indicative of something.
> My contention remains, that the move to reorganize Soc.religion.hindu
> is entirely politically motivated. Those who fought hard to keep the word
> Hindu out of the Vaishnava newsgroup now seek to control the Hindu newsgroup
A quite naked lie, stated for the umpteenth time, does not become the
truth.
> and if they were indeed interested in more Hindu newsgroups, they would have
> suggested more groups along the lines of Soc.religion.Vaishnava, such as
>
> soc.religion.hindu.shivaite
> soc.religion.hindu.vedas
> soc.religion.hindu.puranas
> soc.religion.hindu.bhajans
> etc.
By the same token, one ought to reorganize rec.sport.cricket into
rec.sport.cricket.bat
rec.sport.cricket.ball
rec.sport.cricket.bail
rec.sport.cricket.stump
etc.
Need I say more? SRH.shaiva might pass muster as a possible addition, but
SRH.vedas, SRH.puranas, etc., do not make sense because Vedas and PuraaNas
are texts, not specific sub-religions or cultures within Hinduism. And
SRH.bhajans would have to go as rec.music.indian.classical.bhajans
> or accepted my suggestion for expanding the SRH hierarchy along these
> lines. But they have done neither. Perhaps not surprising!!
Apart from the question of whether the above groups are permissible
otherwise, how many of them are justified by traffic considerations, do
you think? Also, recall that some people like Raj Bhatnagar, who
apparently have your support, have questioned the need for a
reorganization on the grounds that traffic does not justify it! Thus,
between Dr. Bhatnagar and yourself, we have a contradiction, and it would
be worth your while to either accept that your own proposal for splitting
the groups is unjustified on the basis of traffic, or that his objection
to the reorg on the grounds that traffic does not exist, is unjustified.
> I hope that the readers of this newsgroup will see through this petty
> political move.
I do hope Sri Shah will come off his high horse and will support the
effort, and agree to become a moderator.
By the way, I didn't see why the reorganization was called "biased." I
look up 'bias' in an online dictionary, and here's what I get:
Cross references:
1. predilection 2. incline
1. bi.as \'bi--*s\ n [MF biais] 1: a line diagonal to the grain of a
fabric; esp : a line at a 45 angle to the selvage often utilized in the
cutting of garments for smoother fit 2a: an inclination of temperament or
outlook; esp : PREJUDICE 2b: BENT, TENDENCY 2c: a tendency of a statistical
estimate to deviate in one direction from a true value 3a: a peculiarity in
the shape of a bowl that causes it to swerve when rolled on the green 3b:
the tendency of a bowl to swerve or the impulse causing this tendency; also
: the swerve of the bowl 4: an unvarying component of the electric
potential difference between a given element of an electron tube and the
cathode
2. bias aj : DIAGONAL, SLANTING - used chiefly of fabrics and their cut -
bi.as.ness n
3. bias av 1: DIAGONALLY {cut cloth ~} obs 2: AWRY
4. bias vt or bi.ased or bi.assed; or bi.as.ing; or bi.as.sing 1: to give
a bias to : PREJUDICE 2: to apply a slight negative or positive voltage to
So, how exactly is the reorganization "biased," I wonder?
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
> regards,
>
> Ajay Shah
> ajay@mercury.aichem.arizona.edu
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