On Mon, 5 Nov 2007 10:25:04 CST, Chris Barnes
wrote:

Phyllis and Jim wrote:
I am posting on behalf to the moderation team for rec.ponds.moderated
to invite all rpm posters to help fund the moderation software for the
group.

It costs $360 per year to rent the ReadyStump software that is used
to
moderate posts to RPM. The 2007 cost was covered by donations and it
is time to collect money to cover 2008.


Good googly moogly! :-0

This is just advice (but keep in mind, it's advice from someone who
moderates 2 other Usenet groups; rec.hunting and rec.hunting.dogs):
Find another software program!

People have been moderating newsgroups since the inception of Usenet,
and doing so with free tools. Now maybe, if I were really, REALLY
convinced that a particular tools was really good, I might see paying a
ONE TIME FEE for a program. But even that ONE TIME FEE would be less
than what this program is costing.


PS: I use a Listserv (tm - www.lsoft.com) email list as my moderation
tool. Besides being free (since the software is already hosted here at
my school), it allows non-usenet folks to participate by creating an
email mirror.

I realize moderation has been going on for some time, and that the
ideal solution would be to do the whole thing without paying a cent.
There are few programs out there that are suitable for a bunch of
folks moderating a newsgroup. The fact that there are several
moderators precludes using a system set up for only one. ISP
constraints and "lag time," or the time between when a post is made
and when in actually appears after moderation tend to work against any
email type scheme. These and some other constraints have pretty much
forced us to go with a web-based program for moderation. That
requires a "front end" to the program which can deal with most of the
spam and other stuff that a moderated group is subject to, the
moderation tool available to moderators, and an "aft end" to the
program which packages the approved posts into a format handled by
various servers for newsgroups. Furthermore, someone has to be
responsible for keeping the host machine(s) running, be technically
able to troubleshoot problems, and be able to handle the (sometimes
unfounded) complaints of its users. We have been able to find only
one (1) package that meets these requirements, and it is not free. If
you (or anyone) knows of a cheaper program, or perhaps a free program
and someone willing to host it, please write us about it. My email
address is at the bottom of this message, a post about the program to
rec.ponds.moderated will just as surely reach us, or email addresses
of other moderators are published here. I, for one, think it would be
a great idea, we just haven't been able to find one.


I speak only for myself, but I'll bet most (if not all) the other
moderators would indeed be very interested.
--
Galen Hekhuis
"Mistakes were made"