Here are some follow-on comments by the same author (K3FU), also copied from the same "other" medium

Amateur Radio Newsgroups: Total Meltdown Reply
by K3FU on April 26, 2006

Thanks for everyone's comments, both here, and on QRZ. I admit that my
article was intended to initiate preliminary discussion to start a
formal proposal to moderate some of the amateur radio newsgroups on
Usenet. Already, I have two other interested volunteers. I would
welcome additional interested people to E-mail me before I contact the
Usenet Group Mentors. These mentors would assist with any Request For
Discussion (RFD), and possible Call For Votes (CFV), on news.groups and
rec.radio.amateur.misc/policy. Again, this is all preliminary. I
welcome good feedback from experienced Usenetters, particularly the
Usenet Group Mentors, in the development of any proposal.

When I say "meltdown," I don't just mean that problem users exist, or
that people post opinions that are on-topic to amateur radio with which
I or others disagree. I mean that probably less than a dozen problem
users have nearly 100% taken over the misc and policy newsgroups with
their postings. Whatever "immune system" the user community had
previously - that was able to overcome, or just ignore, these problem
users - has completely broken down. What I mean by "problem users" is
that their posts are almost entirely short, sniping, and
profanity-laden, personal attacks against each other, with no topic
discussion. Nearly all of the posters are anonymous. Many of which are
likely "sock-puppets" (i.e., various alter-egos of the same individual),
posting from a small number of anonymous posting sites like Google
Groups. A situation exists where virtually all constructive users have
been run off and the misc and policy newsgroups have become a total
write-off, serving as nothing but bad public relations for our hobby
(service, whatever).

My reading of Usenet newsgroup creation rules, and newsgroup threads
discussing those rules, indicates to me that an existing, unmoderated
newsgroup *can* be converted to moderated status. In fact, I believe
that comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi is an example of a formerly
unmoderated newsgroup that became moderated (though "moderated" only in
the technical, implementation, sense; see more below). I believe most
people agree that with the distributed nature of Usenet newsgroups and
independent news servers, it is nearly impossible to have a newsgroup
deleted. Even if it were possible, might even be seen as a cure worse
than the disease. Moderating the existing newsgroups in place, rather
than new newsgroups, is justified in the face of the existing,
unmoderated, misc and policy newsgroups becoming totally damaged
write-offs at this point. I've been in touch with the Usenet Group
Mentors already, and one of them tells me that they wouldn't refuse
outright a proposal to convert the existing newsgroups, but they would
prefer instead to have a proposal that makes one or more new newsgroups
with the *.moderated suffix (e.g., rec.radio.amateur.moderated).

Yes, it is possible to reach problem users, even in unmoderated
newsgroups. Most ethical ISP's have rules against using their services
to "stalk," "threaten," or "harass" someone. Some even prohibit
"off-topic" or "disruptive" postings to newsgroups, even unmoderated
ones. Google Groups actually had conditions like these as part of their
user policies in the past, but quietly dropped them. Google apparently
doesn't care anymore, and thus serves as the source for most of the
trash. Recently, I was able to get a problem user shut down, or at
least got him to stop posting to rec.radio.amateur.policy and
rec.radio.cb, but only because his ISP had ethical user policies and a
willingness to enforce them. (Hint to the shut down user: It doesn't
help your case to go on record in traceable Usenet postings that you
don't feel obligated to follow any rules, including FCC regulations and
your ISP's user agreement, even bragging publicly about the specifics of
how you violated them on a willful and ongoing basis.).

Such enforcement efforts are time-consuming and can only catch the
grossest violators posting from the most ethical sites. At the end of
the day, such efforts are more work than just implementing moderation in
the first place. Moderation serves as much as a deterrence as a filter.
Users know better than to step too far beyond the pale on eHam and QRZ,
so the workload of their moderators is minimal. Moderation shouldn't be
an ongoing battle beyond the initial implementation and fine-tuning.

Moderation would consist of a very light hand, and simply to deal with
the small number of abusive, beyond-the-pale, posters and their
anonymous sock-puppets. If it's not obscene, not illegal, not an
ad-hominem attack, not a threat, it is on-topic for amateur radio, and
not part of a stale thread that has already been beaten to death over a
reasonable period (say, two weeks), it should be posted. It might be
necessary for the moderators to start the thread on the right newsgroups
(policy vs. misc vs. rec.radio.swap vs. rec.radio.info), but that should
be about it. One issue that would certainly be open for discussion
would be that of anonymity. The "last name or callsign" rule from QST
classified ads would be ideal. The use of a real E-mail address would
be encouraged (and would be helpful to send moderator's replies). But,
I suppose that some consistent use of a unique, well-known nickname
and/or obfuscated E-mail address, used without intent to deceive, could
be accommodated. With a team of moderators, and some automation
techniques, moderation should not be an overwhelming workload.

There are several newsgroup examples to choose from, not all of which
require ongoing, close, manual review of hundreds of articles per day by
a single moderator. One, sci.physics.research, has submissions sent to
a central E-mail address, that then forwards each submission randomly to
one of their team of moderators. The recipient decides whether it's
appropriate to post, based on agreed-upon objective criteria, and posts
the article to the newsgroup. Another newsgroup,
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi, is fully automated. Moderation in
that case is simply to deflect first-time posters with an autoreply
containing references, including an FAQ list. The second (and
subsequent) posts would go right through. Even some traditional,
single-moderator newsgroups like comp.dcom.telecom have moderators that
will simply shut down a thread after everyone has reasonably had a say,
but before it degrades into personal attacks or off-topic discussion.

Some hybrid of all of these techniques could work for
rec.radio.amateur.misc and rec.radio.amateur.policy. Heavy use of
automated E-mail filter tools such as Spamassassin and Procmail would
weed out from the moderator submission queue nearly all SPAM, problem
posters (checking the harder-to-forge headers like NNTP-Posting-Host),
and obvious profanity/obscenity. This would leave a much smaller batch
of articles to be manually reviewed in a "service" queue by a team of
moderators. Turnaround on articles should be less than 24 hours. This
would be quick enough to keep discussion lively, but not so fast that
impulsive, cascaded flame wars full of ad-hominem attacks are allowed to
grow. I believe that filtering of rogue sites and problem users can be
done surgically enough such that constructive users won't be shut out,
or unfairly delayed, just because they are posting from Google Groups,
for example. It should also be possible to "white-list" verified
posters with good conduct, either placing them in a priority queue for
cursory review, or even posting their articles immediately (this concept
is similar to how "Karma" is implemented on slashdot.org, for example).
This would further reduce the moderation workload, and serve as an
incentive for good behavior.

Whatever filtering, and submission queue management, schemes are used
can be adapted in the face of new or changing threats. In terms of any
automated "black-listing," it should even be possible to deal with
violators on a flexible basis (warnings, suspension, only using
permanent expulsion as a last resort in the face of gross, repeated, and
willful violations). The existing first-time poster welcome message
service for rec.radio.amateur.*, in use since 1996, can also serve as an
ongoing monitor and cross-check. Specifically, it would measure the
amount of "sock-puppeting" that might be occurring to try to game any
automation, and get around moderation restrictions. Large numbers of
new, throwaway, anonymous addresses would result in a
statistically-significant surge in "new" posters being sent the welcome
message, for example. After a while, the problem users will just give
up and go elsewhere, preferably off of Usenet entirely.

Copied from another site and posted here by
The Man in the Maze
QRL at Baboquivari Peak