At 12:13 AM 2/8/96, Tim Kehres wrote:
As many current lists are both gatewayed to environments like USENET as
well as feeding downstream distribution lists, the above solution will
have the effect of directing potentially a significant amount of traffic
the direction of the moderator. As most list moderators do so out of the
kindness of their hearts (in other words on their own time as opposed to
being part of their job function), the probability of noticable delays in
the propogation of the message through the moderator are high. Depending
upon the people involved, this may or may not have a significant effect
on the usefulness of the list.
This is precisely the behavior we observed with mailing lists that we
maintained for a while for Eudora discussions (before the news groups we
accepted). Our problem with the lists is that we just sunk under the
onslaught of messages. Even when we assigned someone the job of full-time
moderation (and he was being paid just for that), there was no way to keep
up.
Fortunately for our sake (and the sanity of our poor moderator), the news
groups were approved, and we put everyone out of their misery by
terminating the lists.
As long as the traffic volume is low, then Dave's plan will work. If its
not, there is no way a moderator can cope. This same scaling problem
applies to moderated news groups as well.
john noerenberg
<mailto:jwn2(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
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Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal
greatness is but disease.
-- Herman Melville, "Moby-Dick", 1851
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