🚀 go-pugleaf

[ Followup-To: gnu.gnusenet.config ]

jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) writes:
 > Folks, please learn to check the "Newsgroups:" header line when posting!
 > 
 > This message is crossposted to two newsgroups.  The "Newsgroups:" header
 > contains:
 > 
 >     gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs
 > 
 > two newsgroups.  The first one is "gnu.emacs.help".  Please don't send
 > messages recommending non-free software to the first.

As simple as this sounds, the idea is doomed to failure.  The
messages from RMS telling people not promote proprietary software
on the GNU lists have been appearing for years.  But as long as
new readers can say `rn' and have the GNU groups appear before
them without any warning as to their very unique charter, there
will be in inappropriate postings.  Nevermind the people who will
post whatever they want to the groups anyway, because they
believe the spread of information is more important than the
FSF's political goals.

When someone joins a mailing list, you can send them a charter.
There's no such mechanism for USENET groups.  There are FAQ
posting with long expire times, but new users may not read these
because they are confronted with

*****  350 unread articles in gnu.emacs.help--- read now? [ynq]

and they just skip the old stuff, and read backwards from the
most current postings.  I do this myself for some newsgroups that
I don't read often.

There's nothing in the name gnu.emacs.help that suggests that
help shouldn't be given to people if it happens that only a
proprietary product will help them... just as there's nothing in
the name gnu.emacs.vm.info that suggests this newsgroup isn't
about running Emacs under VM/CMS.

Assuming the problem really is ignorance of the rules, then one
solution is group moderation.  another is just to pull the plug
on gnUSENET sides of things.  Mailing lists with political
agendas, membership criteria or other raisons d'etre that would
stifle the free exchange of information are bad candidates for
newsgroup creation in general.  That's why many large mailing
lists continue to be mailing lists.