🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <90043.092940LRL@PSUVM.BITNET>, LRL@psuvm.psu.edu (Linda Littleton) writes:
> [ ... ]
> their privileges, etc.  What I'd like to know is:

> 2a. Who issues the warnings and deals the user's appeals?  Does this
>     generally befall the news administrator?

Virtually nobody else would be in a position to do any of this. In most
cases, the students' advisor or employees' supervisor (as the case may
be) is likely to be unfamiliar with the understood policies or what
could be done about it. A news or site admin can explain to Joe User
what the joys of rsh are, which can do wonders to bringing someone in
line.
 
> 2b. Do you wait for users to call bad stuff to your attention, or does
>     someone go looking for it?

The obvious thing here is, who in the HECK has time to scan 5 or 6 
megabytes per day of text? Assuming the typical 5 characters per word,
that's a megaword. Now, I'm somewhat of a speedreader. I can, in some
cases, read at 1200 words per minute. (That's fast, incidentally, but
I've done over 2000 in special cases.) At 1200 wpm, it would take me
14.5 HOURS straight to scan the stuff. Not humanly possible. Relying
on complaints, and what we come across in our own reading activities
is the only possible way to go. Sort of like trying to catch speeders.
 
> >3. What do you do when users complain about articles posted at another
> >   site?  Our most recent complaint was against a rotated posting
> >   in rec.humor that contained racist, anti-semitic, anti-homosexual,
> >   foul language, and everything else.
 
> I should clarify that it way a high level professor who rot13'd the
> message and then complained to my boss's boss's boss, who told me to
> cancel the article.  I did (just from our local system) and am wondering
> how others would have handled this.

I'd tell boss's boss's boss to tell high professor to not bother him
with trivial complaints, they should go to the netadmin, which anyone
reading news should know to reach at site!postmaster. You don't call
the president of a company when the light bulb in your office burns
out, you call maintenance.

I'd tell high professor that he shouldn't unrot13 a message unless
he enjoys things normal people find offensive. If you don't like
pictures of naked women, don't open a copy of Playboy. If you
don't like pictures of naked men, don't open a copy of Playgirl.
I'm even worse, I read Fortune and Forbes.

The professors' complaint is akin to someone standing in the middle
of an interstate, and complaining about people driving by at 55 MPH.
Get out of the road.

If you boss tells you to remove something, though, you have to. I'd
probably null the article instead of deleting or local canceling,
though, so it would stay in history and not get reposted to your
site.

> Our director got word of it and has told me to filter out bad stuff if
> possible, and otherwise to go ahead and cancel any non-local posting that
> any of our users complain about.

Thank your director for this new responsibility, and ask him to let you
know when your staff of eight news scanners will report, along with
your new title of supervisor, and the nice new equipment your staff'll
need. If he gives you a funny look, show him the above in this posting.
 
> Thanks for the feedback and advice.

Any time. It sounds like you've got a no-win situation, though. 
Good luck.

-- 
    Gary Heston     { uunet!sci34hub!gary  }    System Mismanager
   SCI Technology, Inc.  OEM Products Department  (i.e., computers)
      Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.