Re: [ga] NC members, censorship and other absurd things

["'Kent Crispin'" <kent@songbird.com>]

On Wed, Nov 10, 1999 at 11:44:00AM -0800, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> > This is a meaningless distinction.  The list operator can
> > *always* see
> > email messages before they are distributed, and censor them.
> 
> At what cost? This is a very time-intensive approach.

Actually, it's not bad at all.  It just means that the moderator has
to skim all the messages.  I moderate a list with about 475 members,
and it is a trivial load.  Basically you just skim the messages very 
quickly.  99% of the time there is nothing to decide -- you just 
approve the message.

> As the population of
> the GA rises, this approach is not scaleable.

It goes up linearly with the number of posts.  Total time to moderate
the ga list at the current rate would be less than 10 minutes/day. 
Bear in mind that a moderator at this level doesn't have to think
very much about the posts -- most of the time the decision to approve
can made in a few seconds.

The real problem with moderated lists is not so much the time it 
takes, but the delay it can impose.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain