Table of Contents

Earliest moderated newsgroups

Message-ID: <anews.Aih1ap.108>
Newsgroups: net.general
Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!ihps3!ih1ap!dab
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!ihps3!ih1ap!dab
From: ih1ap!dab
Date: Thu Dec 17 15:44:27 1981
Subject: Moderated Newsgroups

The current discussion about newsgroups, moderators and article 
submission has given me a thought.  Since the ngfile lists valid 
newsgroups to which articles may be submitted, maybe the moderator's 
address could also be included. This way, to submit an article to a 
"moderated" newsgroup just send it to the newsgroup.  Let the 
netnews command "see" the moderators address and submit it 
appropriately (via mail to the moderator at the listed address). 
This would protect the net from innocent users and record those 
elusive addresses.

Dave Braun
ih1ap!dab
1981-06-04An Arpanet moderator discusses his moderation policy and resigns in HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #112. He also uses the word “aministrivia.”
1982-11-30 Templeton, Horton discuss moderating ALL newsgroups (!).
1982-02-21 net.misc.mod proposed–inspired by moderation of Arpanet.
1983-08-01 Mark Horton says that net.announce will be the first moderated newsgroup. Hoped to get the group functioning by the end of August.
1983-11-01 First real on-topic traffic in net.announce.
1984-11-01 Introduction to net.announce.
1984-11-15 Spaf's list of moderators.

Usenet V

From: Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartol...@gmx.at>
Newsgroups: alt.usenet.peering,news.admin.peering,news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: Propose of usenet
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 20:40:08 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <h2oen8$tc2$1@news.albasani.net>
["Followup-To:" header set to news.software.nntp.]

Kelb tal-Fenek wrote:
> Curt Welch wrote:
>> peer <p...@gallaxy.ath.cx> wrote:
>>> Form of what usenet must be in future and present
>>
>> Already tried and failed 10 years ago...
>>
>> http://www.usenet2.org/
>
> It was a great idea; maybe we should take a look at it again.

Usenet II : The Czar controls all news servers.
Usenet III: The Czar controls all news readers.
Usenet IV : The Czar controls all news users.
Usenet V  : Gains sentience, starts nuclear war.

Because we need killfiles that actually kill.

Moderated groups have low traffic

From: Ray Banana <rayban@banana.shacknet.nu>
Subject: Re: Bulk moderator vacancies anouncements
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:15:48 +0100
Message-ID: <874op1mf4b.fsf@feeder.eternal-september.org>

...

BTW, I just did a bit of research on the problem of bouncing submissions
to moderated groups and these are the figures for the past 30 days [3]:

Total number of postings:     181,399
Postings to moderated groups:   2,768
bounced postings to moderators:     4

[3] Based on the logs of news.eternal-september.org for the Big 8, alt.*
    and regional hierarchies like uk.*, fr.*, de.*, it.*, etc.