In article om,
Phyllis and Jim wrote:

I am chiming in as an individual.

Thank you, Chris, for contributing about potential software options.

I am delighted that the preparation for next year's software rental
fee has opened up the possibility of cost-free moderation software. I
think all of the moderators would love to have no-cost software!

I would like to move in a both/and direction for the moment: BOTH
raise funds so we will not be without software AND see if we can get
an effective free alternative. If we can get it in place before we
have to pay the software use fee, good and we can refund the monies
donated. If we can't get it in place fast enough, we can move ahead
with rental and keep looking without leaving rpm without moderation.

Jim

My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be? It's not political, religious or controversial, and aside from bulk
spam or the occasional flamer, I don't see the value of a omderated
board except to be a lot of work for someone. I subscribe to about 20
Usenet groups, and none of them are moderated. They manage to do fine.
Most everyone knows how to use a killfile, anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

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In article
Kurt writes:

My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be?

Surprisingly bad.

It's not political, religious or controversial, and aside from bulk
spam or the occasional flamer, I don't see the value of a omderated
board except to be a lot of work for someone.

I'm not sure anymore who were villians and who were victims in
rec.ponds, but suffice it to say that some people have a lot of
energy for making trouble, or for making sure that others' fun is
ruined.

I subscribe to about 20
Usenet groups, and none of them are moderated. They manage to do fine.
Most everyone knows how to use a killfile, anyway.

Killfiles are of much less use when there is a problem with forged
posting addresses. That was going on, as was some pretending to
have been forged, etc.



--
Drew Lawson And I know there's more to the story
I know I need to see more
I need to see s'more, hear s'more
feel s'more. I gotta be s'more

"Kurt" wrote:



My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be? It's not political, religious or controversial, and aside from bulk
spam or the occasional flamer, I don't see the value of a omderated
board except to be a lot of work for someone. I subscribe to about 20
Usenet groups, and none of them are moderated. They manage to do fine.
Most everyone knows how to use a killfile, anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

Wow. For a preview, drop in over at rec.ponds. It used to be worse.


San Diego Joe
4,000 - 5,000 Gallons.
Koi, Goldfish, and RES named Colombo.

In article ,
San Diego Joe wrote:

"Kurt" wrote:



My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be? It's not political, religious or controversial, and aside from bulk
spam or the occasional flamer, I don't see the value of a omderated
board except to be a lot of work for someone. I subscribe to about 20
Usenet groups, and none of them are moderated. They manage to do fine.
Most everyone knows how to use a killfile, anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

Wow. For a preview, drop in over at rec.ponds. It used to be worse.


I dropped in today after never having been there. Scrolled through last
2 months posts. You have the prolific cross spammer bobandcarole and a
few others easily killfiled. He hit a few groups I was in a while back,
but disappeared after a few emails to his news service. Amazed that he
gets in that group. The rest are related.

The problem I see is that many of the pond group were constantly
responding to these posts.

Easy solution: If they don't get attention they gradually stop posting.
Don't respond. Email their news provider, don't waste time responding to
their baiting.

No posts in that entire group today.

Using the killfile feature is really all you need.

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On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 22:04:40 CST, Kurt wrote:

Easy solution: If they don't get attention they gradually stop posting.
Don't respond. Email their news provider, don't waste time responding to
their baiting.

No posts in that entire group today.

Using the killfile feature is really all you need.

Two years of suggesting/doing the above, some just wouldn't do it or play
nice. The current RP is no history of what it was a year ago. My killfile
was so huge, it would have taken a ream of paper to print it off. And let's
not forget the nonsense flooding that still occurs. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

In article ,
~ jan wrote:

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 22:04:40 CST, Kurt wrote:

Easy solution: If they don't get attention they gradually stop posting.
Don't respond. Email their news provider, don't waste time responding to
their baiting.

No posts in that entire group today.

Using the killfile feature is really all you need.

Two years of suggesting/doing the above, some just wouldn't do it or play
nice. The current RP is no history of what it was a year ago. My killfile
was so huge, it would have taken a ream of paper to print it off. And let's
not forget the nonsense flooding that still occurs. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

But now that group has had no posts in 2 days.

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On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:51:33 CST, Kurt wrote:

But now that group has had no posts in 2 days.

And it took, hmmm, 9 months for that to happen, and 1-2 years prior to
that, and after, the majority of us couldn't post there without being
filleted. So a handful of us banded together, and with Ron S. doing the
majority of the startup work, RPM was created.

Just because old RP has been quiet for 2 days does not give me confidence
to go back there. Trolls do have dormancy periods. ;-)

And.... sad to say, even some of our loyal ponders have sharp tongues that
they think they're hiding by being witty. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

In article ,
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:51:33 CST, Kurt
wrote:

In article ,
~ jan wrote:

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 22:04:40 CST, Kurt wrote:

Easy solution: If they don't get attention they gradually stop posting.
Don't respond. Email their news provider, don't waste time responding to
their baiting.

No posts in that entire group today.

Using the killfile feature is really all you need.

Two years of suggesting/doing the above, some just wouldn't do it or play
nice. The current RP is no history of what it was a year ago. My killfile
was so huge, it would have taken a ream of paper to print it off. And let's
not forget the nonsense flooding that still occurs. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

But now that group has had no posts in 2 days.

Trust me, it __would__ start again.
You would need to know more about who some of our trolls were,
and why they were determined to destroy the group (which they
did).

Have you ever used the "Agent" newsreader? If so, I could send
you a rar file containing all the messages from late-2004 till
late-2006. If you opened it and inserted it into Agent, you would
clearly see what the problem was. No amount of kill-filtering could
solve it.
But what was _far_ worse, the atmosphere was so poisoned
that any newcomers who dropped in were immediately driven off.
Old-timers could use the medicine (kill-filters) and maybe hang on,
but the community itself was so poisoned that the result was fatal.

(Actually, I have most of the messages of rec.ponds packaged,
going back to the late 90's -the good old days that lasted til
2005.)

(In case you're wondering who I am, I helped get rpm started
last fall/winter.)

Ron Schompert

PS: A one-year anniversary is coming up on Nov. 25th. On that day, a
guy named George naively suggested the idea of starting a moderated
group.


I've never heard of such ferocious and consistant attacks on a group
that, in theory, should lack any sort of controversy, and I've been in
some pretty wild ones.

The rec.ponds group had over 10,000 posts archived through my news
service. Saw a lot of the usual suspects who had been cross spamming
everywhere, but most were just a lot of the usual yahoos that get into
every group.

Guess ponders are a stranger bunch than I thought... ;-)

I shy away from PCs, so I use the excellent MTNewswatcher on our Macs.

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Actually, the destruction of RP was instigated by one person who brought the horror
to the group by crossposting (or was followed to the group). That person was central
in destroying the first goldfish email lists years ago.

An unmoderated RP will never recover as long as that person has access to the
internet. No amount of killfiling will work. Only moderation saves this group from
a similar fate.

Ingrid

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:23:24 CST, Kurt wrote:
I've never heard of such ferocious and consistant attacks on a group
that, in theory, should lack any sort of controversy, and I've been in
some pretty wild ones.

"Kurt" wrote in message
...

I shy away from PCs, so I use the excellent MTNewswatcher on our Macs.
======================
A lot of people on rec.ponds at the time had no idea how to use a killfile.
But as was explained that doesn't work when the trolls are using other
poster's names and email addresses and software that flooded the group with
thousands of posts a day. Some of those posts were so profane and depraved
they alone drove people away. As long as the posters who wouldn't do what
he demanded of them, and I myself remain on these pond groups, the troll who
destroyed rec.ponds will keep up his attacks on that group.

The first Goldfish list died when the man known as "Sillybug" who ran it
lost interest in the list and there was no one else to take it over. We
also had a poster constantly spamming the list who people were objecting to.
He simply lost interest and moved on. At the time he abandoned the list we
were getting as many as 75 to 150 messages a day.
--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 12:31:08 CST, Kurt
wrote:

My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be?

Bad enough to reduce our number of posters to a small group of very
dedicated people who really like to discuss fish keeping and cause
them to band together and support a moderated group.
--
Hal Middle Georgia, Zone 8
http://tinyurl.com/2fxzcb

Hi Kurt,

I wondered the same thing when we began to have spammers and
conflictual posters on rec.ponds. I enjoyed the group greatly. Take
a look at rec.ponds now...or go over selected months for the last
couple of years. It provides a direct answer to 'how bad'. The
moderated group seems to me a wonderful alternative to the sad state
of the unmoderated group.

JMHO

Jim


My question would be, just how bad could an unmoderated board for ponds
be? It's not political, religious or controversial, and aside from bulk
spam or the occasional flamer,

In article . com,
Phyllis and Jim wrote:

Hi Kurt,

I wondered the same thing when we began to have spammers and
conflictual posters on rec.ponds. I enjoyed the group greatly. Take
a look at rec.ponds now...or go over selected months for the last
couple of years. It provides a direct answer to 'how bad'. The
moderated group seems to me a wonderful alternative to the sad state
of the unmoderated group.

Yes, I glanced through a few months worth.

Were these good ponders gone bad? ;-)

I can't imagine how that group attracted all that malice.

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I am not sure what happened. If you review the posts after about
2005, you get a very quick idea of the hostilities and where they were
focused. Others could probably describe it to you. Speaking for
myself, I love having a group that is without the rancor of the
trolled rec.ponds. It feels rather like the old days before the
trolls. I thought they would quit when folks did not respond. Not
so. I thought they would tire. Not so. The goal was very much to
destroy the group. That brought the attacking of everything.

Jim

In article . com,
Phyllis and Jim wrote:

I am not sure what happened. If you review the posts after about
2005, you get a very quick idea of the hostilities and where they were
focused. Others could probably describe it to you. Speaking for
myself, I love having a group that is without the rancor of the
trolled rec.ponds. It feels rather like the old days before the
trolls. I thought they would quit when folks did not respond. Not
so. I thought they would tire. Not so. The goal was very much to
destroy the group. That brought the attacking of everything.

Jim

"BC" has probably never even been to rec.ponds, and neither have all
those who jumped in the fray to respond. It's all from cross-posting, so
you're not seeing anything personally directed to that group. The idea
is to inflame multiple groups.

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