The Medway Handyman wrote:

I subscribe to and run a few magic Yahoo Groups which I find far better than
web based forums or usenet groups like UK-DIY.

Let me qualify that by saying that the content and the crack around here is
first class, but its unmoderated.

I don't use groups where I have to visit a site to see whats going on & then
search through categories. The Screwfix forums are like this & I just can't
be arsed. PITA.

I like things delivered to my inbox like UK-DIY. The problem with groups
like this are that they are open to spammers & ******s who only wish to
attack others.

This is a discussion that crops up every year or two in one form or
another (moderation, group splitting, alternative platform etc). There
never seems to be a perfect answer to the questions other than a general
feeling that what we have is a reasonable compromise.

I don't mind a good row, but there are some twisted, sad people out there.

They (we!) could take that as a compliment...

The Yahoo Groups I run are by & large used for sensible discussions. Any
OTT flame wars I can stop easily by moderating the posts or banning the
members - although I've only had to do that once in 8+ years.

To be fair, much of this can be done on usenet with a bit of filtering.
For thuderbird users even the simple expedient of hitting "k" to kill a
thread can be a great time saver. A few more subtle filters can make the
process even more rewarding. For example, by selecting
"View|Threads|Watched threads with unread" from the menu I can instantly
see all the conversations in which I have participated, that have any
unread messages in them[1]. Its this sort of speed and flexibility that
is hard to match on web based fora.

[1] I have filters set up to "watch" any thread I post to.

The UK Magic usenet group was simply destroyed by one particular idiot who
just attacked every post raised. He wanted to join one of my Yahoo Groups &
I refused access. He eventually joined under another name, but as soon as
he started his crap I removed him.

This is a slightly harder problem to deal with, in that it requires
discipline from the majority of readers to not respond / killfile the
abuser. Serious offenders can sometimes be dealt with by their ISP.
Generally we don't seem to suffer this here (although I appreciate that
different ISPs will filter different levels of spam)

I'd much prefer UK-DIY as a Yahoo Group personally, as long as it had a
strong but fair moderator running it.

Just my 2p's worth.



--
Cheers,

John.

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