Cecil Moore ) writes:
John Smith I wrote:
--strange they ALL seem to have extra licenses, isn't it?

Isn't it slightly analogous to universities preferring
teachers with PhD degrees?

In this case, no.

I don't see a bias in the proposed moderators in the proposed moderated
newsgroup.

But, moderators are generally there to keep the junk out of the newsgroup,
not to edit content. They aren't there to evaluate what is being said,
they are there to determine whether the post is off-topic and/or will
cause problems in the newsgroup.

It would take a pretty incapable person to not be able to tell the difference
between what was on-topic and what doesn't belong. We are talking about a
pretty clear divide. ANd even borderline posts, it doesn't require High
Learning to decide, it requires judgement.

I'm not convinced that the moderators for this proposed newsgroup actually
need to be hams. Some guy walking in off the street is just as capable
as making most of those judgements as anyone else. The caveat being
that their unfamiliarity with the hobby might make them let things slip
through, when they didn't know the difference between amateur radio and
CB or something else. But even then, that's not tied to needing a piece
of paper, it's tied to whether someone is familiar enough with the hobby.

I would argue that there is a bias in even making an analogy to higher
learning. Because there is something about the tone of all this proposed
newsgroup that sure seems to place it in academia, and I'm not convinced
that is a good thing.

Michael VE2BVW