sci.aeronautics.airliners Moderation

Moderated newsgroups

Moderated newsgroups differ from unmoderated newsgroups by including some sort of approval process which all submissions must pass before appearing in the group. There are many reasons why this might be done, but an increasingly common reason is the sheer volume of redundant or off-topic posts in many newsgroups.

Why is sci.aeronautics.airliners moderated?

Robert Dorsett originally proposed sci.aeronautics.airliners because he felt that there was enough discussion of airliners in rec.aviation to justify a new group dedicated just to airliners. He proposed a moderated group because he felt that much of the airliner discussion in rec.travel was redundant, periodic repeats of past discussions, or idle speculation (often after a crash) that drove away contributions from people who might have some real technical knowledge while misleading those who didn't know any better.

The moderation process can be difficult for the moderator and sometimes the sheer volume of trafic can become overwhelming. However, somewhat surprisingly, the number of people who write to say thank you for an enjoyable and high-quality group (if not always as timely as it might be) far outweighs the number of complaints. Thanks to all who have expressed their appreciation, and to those who have accepted rejections with understanding. You all make the effort worthwhile.

Reasons for rejections

There are a number of reasons why a submission to sci.aeronautics.airliners might be rejected. In general, an attempt is made to explain the rejection via e-mail, though sometimes the volume of submissions makes it difficult to respond to all of them.

The large volume of submissions can also lead to delays. A delay may simply mean that the submission has not yet been accepted, not that it has been rejected. This often happens only to some threads since the approval process is more easily handled if done on one thread at a time. With limited time and often torrential streams of posts, some threads get deferred. (Few, if any, moderators are paid for their newsgroup efforts. Contributions to help pay the bills are nevertheless welcome!)

Here are some common reasons for rejection, listed in no particular order:

Off-Topic - Articles which do not fit within the group's charter are rejected with a pointer to a more appropriate newsgroup.
Archives - Certain threads re-appear periodically, and unless there's some new facet to the old discussion, these posts are rejected with a pointer to the group archives.
Redundant Followups - Many articles provoke a flurry of followups, many of which are quite similar. The best and earliest are accepted, and the rest are rejected since they don't add any new content.
"Me Too" - As a variation on the redundant followups, some threads provoke a blizzard of personal anecdotes on a subject. Many are funny or interesting, but after a few, any which don't provide some substantial new information relevant to the technical focus of this group will be rejected.
Huge Signatures - Netiquitte frowns on signatures which are longer than four lines. Submissions with long signatures will be rejected, with an invitation to resubmit with a more reasonable signature.
Excessive Quotation - Followups which include most or all of the message to which they are following up not only waste bandwidth but also the time of most readers, who have already read the original or can easily refer back to it. If they aren't too bad, they'll be trimmed for you, but the worst cases will be rejected, with an invitation to resubmit with only enough quotation to provide adequate context.
People/Address/Phone Number Searches - As a technical newsgroup, this isn't the forum for people to locate long lost friends or to find out how to reach an airline or aerospace company. For companies, a call to directory assistance is quicker and easier, and for a very big company even a partial address will probably find it's mark. (While the U.S. Postal Service needs all the help it can get, a letter addressed simply to "Personnel, Boeing, Seattle WA" would probably find its mark.)
Free Research - This is a very hazy one, but many moderators believe it is not appropriate to use NetNews as an easy way for students to complete a research assignment without any significant effort. Requests for assistance or information which demonstrate a significant amount of prior research will be accepted, but otherwise this sort of submission will be rejected.
Duplicates - Submissions which appear to be near-identical duplicates of others from the same submitter are quietly dropped.
Test Posts - Test postings are quietly dropped. Please use an appropriate test newsgroup.
NextMail - Occasionally, someone will submit a post in NextMail or some other special format. These are rejected since few readers will be able to read them.
Binaries - There are groups devoted to large postings of binaries (software, images, etc.) so sites which do not have the resources to carry these large posts are not forced to do so. Any binary posts, even if otherwise relevant to the group's charter, will be rejected as this is a discussion newsgroup. (Much of the binary is more efficiently distributed via WWW anyway.)

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