Every new moderator has faced the same questions after assuming the role.
What is it that is expected of me? What is the job of moderator ?
How can I be a good moderator ? 

I have been generating and getting questions from new moderators
(besides myself :-)) about various aspects of moderation.  What I know 
about it has come from examining what has been done in the past. We have 
large archives here so that has helped greatly in researching rkive and in 
"preparing" for c.s.misc moderation.  That's all fine and dandy but there
is nothing like experience to bring a whole new perspective to light. :-) :-)

One thing that I and other new moderators quickly discover is that there 
is no documentation or guide available to refer to.  Nothing really extensive 
but something that shows the syntax and uses of the header lines as well as
general posting considerations.  This kind of information would have saved
me a *massive* amount of time when I wrote rkive... :-)  INF postings from 
the individual sources groups helped but ...

** Warning: soap box being placed underfoot **

As new moderated newsgroups are formed and as moderators retire installing
replacements in their position, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain 
a defacto standard approach unless it is documented.

My personal feeling is that the sources posted to the net through moderated
sources groups are a international resource.  It was easy when there were just
three or four sources groups to assure that everyone followed the same
general procedures.  Now with 10 moderated sources goups and another in
discussion, some effort is needed to assure that new or existing groups
do not stray from the procedures that the net has come to expect. The
standardization to this point, that Rich, Bill, Dan and the other moderators
have been employing has been enforced in a large part by the common orgin of 
the software used to post with. It is time to have the "process" documentated 
for the moderators and for the community as a whole.

** Scraping sound of the soap box being yanked away... 

Please understand where this attitude is coming from.  I started dealing
with the sources groups as a user who enjoyed the access to massive amounts
of source code (hacker that I am... :-)).   That lead me to start archiving
the sources groups.  Initially it was for myself, but shortly thereafter, I
began the archives here at Sterling.  With the company's support, the archives
have grown quite large by anyone's scale.  I tried "expire -a" for a while but
quickly found that was not enough. After many false starts with shell scripts
and the like, I wrote rkive to make my daily part-time job of archivist easier. I reasoned that the machine should do the work, *not* me... :-)  When Brandon
said he was looking for a replacement, I jumped at it..  So now I can see
the sources groups from all angles and the missing piece from each perspective
is the documentation describing the process. 

I would like to see the moderators generate an RFC that gets approved. 
Talking to Steve Crocker in Atlanta at the TSIG, he stated that there 
were three stages to an RFC, the proposed standard, the draft standard
and an established standard. The differences between a proposed and a draft
standard were that the draft standard had more than one implementation.
Post.c and my postit.c fit that bill... :-) There are also other moderators 
that have rewritten the posting code, although not all for the best... :-)
The difference between a draft standard and an established standard is that 
all principle/major parties concerned with the area the RFC addresses agree 
to comply with the standard.  That is a goal we could at least shoot for...

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to tell anyone how to do their job.
I just feel that the community deserves to know what to expect from sources
moderation.  (Here it comes... :-) :-)) I have started writing some things
down and would like to have the group review, critize, or contribute 
to what I have started putting down. Anyone Interested ?  

			-Kent+
-- 
Kent Landfield                   INTERNET: kent@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM
Sterling Software, IMD           UUCP:     uunet!sparky!kent
Phone:    (402) 291-8300         FAX:      (402) 291-4362
