Re: Ground Zero Games Fanzine

On 8 Sep 2004 at 23:00, The GZG Digest wrote:

> Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 09:27:00 -0400
> From: Indy <kochte@stsci.edu>
> Subject: Re: Ground Zero Games Fanzine
> 
> Well, I rec'd the news. I just really really hate yahoo groups. :-(

I just pulled the intro page on Yahoo Groups. The group isn't moderated 
and it's open to anyone. The technical term for this is, I believe,
"spam 
bait". 

Open and/or unmoderated groups are regularly spammed. Some are spammed
so 
heavily that they are useless. Even those that aren't debilitated by
spam 
usually end up with several threads discussing the spam problem on the 
list.

The group should be open to anyone (as restricted access groups are just

a pain), but it should be moderated. The way all of the groups I'm in 
handle it is that new users are set to moderated status. After their 
first one or two posts, the moderator sets them to unmoderated status.
If 
someone you trust joins up, you can set them to unmoderated status as 
soon as they join, even if they haven't posted anything.

Yes, it's a little bit of a pain, and yes it means that new members
don't 
get to post right away, but it's the only way to kill spamming in Yahoo 
Groups. I'm currently pending access on a mystery writer's Yahoo group, 
but they don't just moderate new users, they restrict access (which, as
I 
said before, I think is a bit much). Almost all the groups that I joined

that didn't moderate new users went to such a system. The others were 
groups that lost their initial moderators. They had to essentially 
abandon the group and open a duplicate group (the Battleground: World
War 
II group and the Gekokujo group did this).

I don't even bother looking at a Yahoo group these days if it doesn't 
moderate new members.

---

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net   agoodall@hyperbear.com

"How can I work with all you peasants kneeling and mumbling?"
  - Michelangelo, while painting the Sistine Chapel (as interpreted
    by Animaniacs)