"Misty9999" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 11:32:46 -0700, Brian Edmonds
wrote:

BarB writes:
Moderation is extremely time consuming.

Moderation with no software support, of a group with any more than just
dribbles of traffic, is extremely time consuming. Hand moderation, with
software support for queue management, of a group with more than
moderate traffic, is extremely time consuming. Moderation with software
support for automated management of spam and format controls, and poster
white and blacklisting, generally requires fairly little ongoing time.
With support for, and use of team moderation, the load can be even less.

I host over two dozen groups at present, of which I am sole moderator
for around half (which are mainly in the dribble category), and
co-moderator for most of the rest (of which all but two are moderate
traffic or less). My software falls into the latter category, and the
amount of time consumed by moderation, on an ongoing basis, is fairly
minimal.

The only " out of the box" software I have seen is Ready Stump. If the
group gets the votes , I would be willing to make the financial
commitment to get it set up. You even get a web page with it.

alt.religion.wicca.moderated uses stump IIRC, and seems to work reasonably
well. They've set it up so that unfamiliar posters have to be "hand
moderated" but once a person has made enough acceptable posts, they are put
upon the "pre-approved" list. Pre-approved status can be lost if other
members complain about another poster, but usually the regulars just say
"whoa, calm down there, friend!" and things return to normal (often with an
apology from the hot poster too). There are 5 moderators who share the work,
and are also well enough aware of their own biases that they will leave a
message in the queue for other moderators if they think they culdn't fairly
moderate that particular post.

They are also a friendly lot, you could do worse than drop than an e-mail
and ask how it works.

The address of the moderator board is , the web
site is http://stump.algebra.com/~arwm/index.html

Yowie