Re: Improving efficiency of *.answers moderation process

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Robert F. Heeter (rfheeter@pppl.gov)
Tue, 27 Sep 1994 11:42:43 -0800

>Now, as for the idea embodied by:
>
> > it seems to me that it would be a lot more efficient for all involved
> > if, once an FAQ wiggles its way to the top of the submission queue,
> > further correspondence on the FAQ could be expedited so that the
> > overall approval time for an FAQ could remain fairly low.
>
>There's some trade-offs here. It would take some additional time to
>try to pick out the entries in the queue which are known to be
>resubmissions rather than new resubmissions; also, ultimately, the
>reduced waiting time for resubmissions would have to be paid for by
>increased waiting time for new submissions.

Not if further requests could be sent to an individual moderator rather
than to the mailing list as a whole. Moderators could be given individual
email accounts solely for doing moderation, so that moderation email
wouldn't clog up their other work/personal email. If this individual
moderator were the one who handled the original submission, they would
already know the issues regarding the FAQ involved and could handle
the new request much more efficiently. This would result in a net
savings of time which, I submit, would *decrease* the amount of time
new submissions would spend waiting for initial discussion. Especially
if more priority were placed on keeping the initial-submission queue
short, and minor changes to already-approved FAQs were not given
effectively equal priority by having everything in the same queue.

>Now, in practice, I will admit that sometimes when I see replies from
>FAQ maintainers addressing some problem which I just recently sent
>email to them about, I'll often yank them out of queue out of order.

This is an informal (and not entirely fair to everyone else) way of
doing what I'm suggesting. Why not formalize it so that everyone
who needs a dialogue with a moderator will have one, and not just
a lucky few?

[ on whether or not to continue posting to the native newgroups ]
>We often give out the advice below, but I just checked and realized
>that it was not actually in the *.answers submissions document. I've
>just added this text in the section describing how to submit FAQ
>postings, after the paragraph apologizing for long delays.
>
> | Note that because of the potential length of delays involved in
> | getting your postings approved, you may wish to continue posting
> | your FAQ in its home newsgroup(s) in the meantime.
>
>That should help reduce the problem you describe.

Thanks, this is a good move.

> > (Sheesh, I work in a government lab, and *they're* not even this
> > inefficient and bureacratic!)
>
>Hey! At least government employees get paid to impose their
>bureacratic ways on everybody. :)

Given that you are all volunteering your time to do this, all the more
reason to keep the process efficient so that *neither* you nor the
FAQ maintainers need to waste time on needless bureaucracy.
Personalizing the system by having moderators act as "agents" (like
insurance agents, or sales representatives, or whatever) for given
FAQs would, I think, also make the whole process more pleasant for
both sides.

>I think your complaints were legitimate ones.

Thanks for taking these concerns and suggestions seriously.

********************************************************************
Robert F. Heeter, rfheeter@pppl.gov
Graduate Student, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Conventional Fusion FAQ Maintainer

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