Dennis Kirkpatrick wrote:
> That said, one of the issues that I have seen over and over on
> this list is that fewer and fewer people have knwoledge of Unix
> or telnet procedures or language requirements. We live in an
> environment that is increasingly web-browser oriented - like it
> or not.
I think it's also been asserted over and over that the real meat
of the moderation task is not facility with a particular tool,
but rather doing the actual brainwork (and occasional legwork)
of deciding what needs to be done in response to each nontrivial
request that comes in through the moderation queue. And
obviously, no tool, no matter how web-based and familiar to a
modern audience, is going to substitute for old-fashioned human
brainwork.
It should also be noted (though to some extent I'm speculating
here) that the FAQ moderation process is not necessarily as
Unix-centric as it's made out to be. Yes, there's a Unix machine
at MIT you need to telnet to to do at least some of the work, but
by no means does that imply that you have to have a Unix machine
of your own -- there are any number of telnet clients for Macs
and Windows machines, and for other machines as well. (For
example, though I'm sending this message from a Unix machine,
eskimo.com, I'm telnetted to eskimo from one of my home Macs.)
Finally, there's a stark reality to be faced here: even
reimplementing the old moderation mechanisms using newer
web-based methodologies, let alone implementing brand-new
mechanisms to lighten the moderation load still further by
letting FAQ list maintainers do more things themselves, would
require a reasonably large development effort. If we can't even
find people to be moderators, where are we going to find people
willing to dive in and implement whole new moderation
architectures? I don't know.
With all that (pessimisticly) said, I can make one offer of my
own. I'll be in Cambridge next week on business. I know that
the news.answers moderators who frequent this list are distinct
from the SIPB members who maintain the machines that the
autoposter and the moderation software run on, but if someone
can connect me with one or two interested SIPB members, perhaps
we can meet in person for half an hour or so and discuss what
avenues there might be for creative solutions.
Steve Summit
scs@eskimo.com
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