🚀 go-pugleaf

gnb@bby.com.au (Gregory Bond)
>> It is _trivial_ (a 10 second edit to one file) to set up a site
>> to ignore the cancels that Phil, myself and a whole band of other
>> volunteers generate.  So if this so-called "censorship" annoys
>> you so much, ask your news admin to disable it.  And if she
>> refuses (as is likely), invest your own dollars and set up your
>> own news server.

dnagle@hades.omen.com.au (Dave Nagle):
> Can you set your site up to accept cancels only from an
> "approved" list of retromoderators, while ignoring "freelance"
> cancels, or is it "all or nothing"?

Some days have passed without a sensible reply, so I will try to 
answer my own question.

The news admins can't be selective about who may cancel because 
it would defeat the whole purpose of the cancel mechanism.

The cancel mechanism was never intended to be a means for 
"central control" to decide the content of Usenet.

It was meant for situations where the author of an article wished 
to remove it.

For example, a for sale ad where the item has been sold.

Or a spam report which lists one of your own messages as spam 
(obviously in error, 8->).


This leaves me with the problem that while Greg, Phil, Tom, Dick, 
Harry and anyone else who wishes to issue cancels can regard this 
as a voluntary exercise, to all intents and purposes it is
compulsory for me accept the results of your efforts.

...Dave