From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals


REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
comp.simulation


The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has volunteered to take on moderation duties for comp.simulation. The
group will be open for submissions shortly, and this will be announced
in a post to the group.


MODERATOR INFO: comp.simulation

Moderator: Ivan Shmakov
Article submission address: <comp-simulation-submit@newsmod.am-1.org> Moderation contact: <comp-simulation-contact@newsmod.am-1.org>


CHARTER AND MODERATION POLICY FOR COMP.SIMULATION:

[No charter is on file with the ISC for comp.simulation. The following
is adapted from the periodic posting "comp.simulation Posting
Guidelines", last posted to the group on 2004-07-16 and archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20041012183618/http://www.gweep.ca/ ~robomod/comp.simulation/guidelines.txt]

About comp.simulation
=====================

The comp.simulation group is about generic issues in simulation
modelling and analysis. That includes the following: simulation methods, simulation tools and software, simulation practice, simulation case
studies and anything else on simulation subject. This group is not about simulation topics covered in other simulation news groups such as: rec.autos.simulators, rec.aviation.simulatiors or
sci.aeronautics.simulation.


Moderation policy
=================

1. Postings must be in plain text.
2. Binary postings will not be accepted.
3. Recommended line length is 80 characters, but anything up to 160 will
be accepted.
4. Excessive quoting and large sigs are also not allowed. Any post with
more than 70% quoted material or a sig in excess of 512 bytes will be
rejected.
5. Crossposting is allowed to a maximum of 3 groups with followups in 2
groups.

All posts (with a working return address) will either be returned with a rejection notice, or posted to the newsgroup and mailing list.

Posting with a non-replyable address is strongly discouraged. If you
feel you must post with such an address, please make sure you are not
using one in a valid mail domain; appending .invalid to the address is
the recommended way to ensure this.


DISTRIBUTION

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
comp.simulation


CHANGE HISTORY

2025-06-12 Announcement
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

In <MPG.42b54d916dd18e09896f4@news.eternal-september.org> Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
rec.photo.moderated

The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has >volunteered to take on moderation duties for rec.photo.moderated.

In <MPG.42b54e792ebe45e59896f5@news.eternal-september.org> Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
comp.std.announce

The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has >volunteered to take on moderation duties for comp.std.announce.

In <MPG.42b54ff3bf9863519896f7@news.eternal-september.org> Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
comp.newprod

The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has >volunteered to take on moderation duties for comp.newprod.

In <MPG.42b54f6af1452af69896f6@news.eternal-september.org> Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
comp.simulation

The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has >volunteered to take on moderation duties for comp.simulation.

OK, so a single moderator for each newsgroup, and the same moderator
for all of these newsgroups? I don't doubt Ivan's sincerity, good
intentions, and likely technical skills, but I thought that this was the
kind of risky moderation model that we were trying to get away from
during past Moderator Vacancy Investigations.

There may also be some lessons-learned from the analogous experiences of
Brian Edmonds in the aughts and tens (2000's and 2010's), for example.
He identified many inactive newsgroups, offered to moderate them, set up moderation services, and offered these services to other newsgroups
(Robomod). Some newsgroups prospered, some didn't, and when he left
Usenet, all of these newsgroups managed with his now inactive services
were left high and dry. Some transferred to other moderation services,
some went dormant. In the archives is some discussion over the years, including expression of concerns about the future, whether Brian was
either biting off more than he could chew or assuming too much power
over large numbers of newsgroups, and which mostly predicted the
eventual outcome.

For newsgroup viability and longevity, should we be making an effort to
find multiple, independent, moderation teams and services across
newsgroups, ensure constituencies to populate those newsgroups with participation, and develop contingency plans in advance should those
moderators need to be replaced? Is four moderated newsgroups enough for
one moderator (Ian) and should we try to recruit others?

--
Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@panix.com

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 21:14 Paul W. Schleck wrote:

For newsgroup viability and longevity, should we be making an effort
to find multiple, independent, moderation teams and services across newsgroups, ensure constituencies to populate those newsgroups with participation, and develop contingency plans in advance should those moderators need to be replaced? Is four moderated newsgroups enough
for one moderator (Ian) and should we try to recruit others?

I have serious doubt that this will succeed. There are not that many
people (anymore) and setting up moderation infrastructure is a task
only for technical skilled people.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

In article <102ifv6$14a$1@reader1.panix.com>, pschleck@panix.com says...

OK, so a single moderator for each newsgroup, and the same moderator
for all of these newsgroups? I don't doubt Ivan's sincerity, good intentions, and likely technical skills, but I thought that this was the
kind of risky moderation model that we were trying to get away from
during past Moderator Vacancy Investigations.

[snip: demise of Brian Edmonds' Robomod service]

For newsgroup viability and longevity, should we be making an effort
to find multiple, independent, moderation teams and services across newsgroups, ensure constituencies to populate those newsgroups with participation, and develop contingency plans in advance should those moderators need to be replaced? Is four moderated newsgroups enough
for one moderator (Ian) and should we try to recruit others?

I would be greatly in favour of having multiple independent moderators
for each newsgroup, with further backup moderators and succession plans
in place.

Unfortunately, the number of people with the time, willingness, and
technical competence to moderate a newsgroup is currently minuscule. It
is usually a struggle to find even one volunteer.

In this case, the B8MB proposed rmgrouping 101 moderated newsgroups that
had long been disused for lack of an active moderator. We then excluded
groups from the proposal if there seemed to be even the slightest
interest in anyone moderating them or contributing to them. Only 12 of
the groups received any such interest. Of the volunteers for those 12,
so far only Ivan has a working moderation setup (we still hold out some
hope for a couple of the other groups). So, thus far, that's 4 working newsgroups and one moderator out of the whole process.

To get to the point of having multiple moderators per group, I think
Usenet needs to become considerably more popular and/or the barrier to
entry for new moderators needs to be much lower.

As a contribution towards the latter, I have ported PyModerator to
Python 3 (https://github.com/PyModerator/PyModerator). It's still rather elderly and clunky, with much work to be done, but is considerably
easier to set up than the other extant moderation software, STUMP. The development version now has support for secure POP and SMTP connections, making it more likely to work with modern email providers.

The only other way I can think of to lower the barrier to entry is some
sort of hosted moderation platform, but that would be a single point of failure just like Robomod was.

If anyone wants to step up and volunteer as a moderator, promote Usenet
in general, or do something to make moderation easier, we're always glad
to hear from them and will offer as much support we can.

Rayner

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