🚀 go-pugleaf

Una Smith <smith-una@yale.edu> wrote:
 
>>It also means more new readers, and thus possibly more traffic.

Museum Informatics Project <mip-arch@garnet.berkeley.edu> wrote:

>This is undoubtedly a _good_ thing (see below), although the prospect
>has been creating some anxiety among discussants in the MUSEUM-L list.

It's not a good thing if enough MUSEUM-L subscribers vote NO,
to prevent their mailboxes being stuffed with more traffic;  
you must consider this factor when deciding where in Usenet to
put the gateway:  sci.* and misc.* both require a vote, bit.*
does not.


>>Moderating the newsgroup is a good way to control the negative
>>aspects of wider availability.

>Care to elaborate on negative aspects, beyond the obvious ...

I mean simply more traffic, especially more off-topic traffic
*if* the newsgroup is badly named.

You will see virtually no bounced mail from Usenet (it does
sometimes happen, but it is very rare).  Over all, adding a
newsgroup will move *many* subscribers to Usenet, reducing 
the rate of bounced messages relative to readership.


>>It requires some work, but usually not as much work
>>as handling bounced mail from subscribers.

>You mean "handling bounced mail" on a LISTSERV?

Yes, bounced mail from subscribers on the mailing list end.
The better the propagation of the newsgroup, the larger the
fraction of readers who read via Usenet instead of e-mail.

>>This assumes that the moderation is mostly automated.

>Are you referring to moderation of a newsgroup or of a LISTSERV?

Either.  Moderation of a newsgroup works like this:  special
tables are kept on each Usenet server, indicating moderated
newsgroups, and the e-mail address of the moderator (usually
this is an alias).  All articles posted to that newsgroup
will be automatically re-directed to the moderator, who will
decide whether to post the article to the newsgroup.  The
moderator has the discretion of setting up an automatic
approval mechanism, so all articles are posted immediately,
or a first-time approval mechanism, so on the first attempt
to post an article to that newsgroup, the moderator decides
whether the poster may have automatic permission to post in
the future.  More information about these mechanisms can be
obtained on request from moderators-advice@uunet.uu.net.
Note, because of the need to update tables on up to 200,000
Usenet servers, it is best not to change the moderation
status of a newsgroup:  this decision should be made at the
outset.

Jim MacIntosh has already described for you several other
methods of using LISTSERV in combination with the behavior
of the list/newsgroup gateway to control traffic on the
mailing list side.  All these methods and more are now in
use on numerous forums.  You'll have to think about the
unique character of MUSEUM-L, and decide from that what
the best approach may be.


If you choose to go in a "big 7" Usenet hierarchy, you *must*
have a useful naming structure.  Perhaps sci.infosystems.museum?

There are at least 6 library-related mailing lists now gated
to bit.listserv.*;  it would be good to see these grouped
together.  Perhaps it's time to organize them into, say,
bit.infosystems.*, or move them over wholesale to sci.*...


-- 
	Una Smith			smith-una@yale.edu

Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT  06520-8104  USA