John said:
Netiquette shouldn't be enforced by posting bots.
Hmmm. Is that the essence of your objection?
I agree that it is very difficult in most instances and thus should not
even be attempted. Natural language is difficult to parse. I might
TRY to write a job-listing bot (and save Mr. Adler some trouble) but I
don't think it would be very effective, and I would never even try.
But, if someone could write an AI module that could reliably parse
natural language for meaning and intent, it would change everything.
Then, I COULD parse-and-flag job-posting messages (and I would). But I
can't do that (so I don't).
But it's easy to detect a multipost with a program (without AI). It is
fully possible to eliminate false positives. A few false-negatives may
slip through (where the OP tweaks the content) and that's to be
expected. The majority of multiposts CAN be identified (and, in fact, I
cannot recall a single multipost which was not a simple cut-and-paste -
I did go back and research the multiposts that I'vemanually flagged and
every single one of them would have been flagged by my bot).
Moreover, a bot with such an impact (several messages a day I have seen
so far) should probably be voted for (or against).
Where are you seeing such volume??? The scanner was deployed last
Thursday, and as of now (wee hours of Monday morning in my $TZ), I've
only observed two messages get flagged (and my tracking database agrees
with my observation). And the first message was an improperly flagged
crosspost because I had not un-commented a line during testing (grrr).
Had the bug been fixed initially, only one message so far would have
been flagged. That doesn't strike me as a high-impact process - one
message in 3.5 days.
But I am not opposed to the idea of a vote, as you suggest. I wish to
be a good usenet citizen in whatever group I participate in. That's
why I strive to adhere to the Posting Guidelines, and often recommend
that others do so as well. If the community at large doesn't like this
bot then I will certainly shut it down (without anyone needing to
resort to demands or threats). If folks think the bot is OK but the
message sucks, I can change it (and, note, I have removed most of the
"introductory text" but no message has yet been flagged under the new
parameters with the shorter reply-message). I'm a reasonable guy; I
can adapt to whatever the community consensus happens to be, and will
gladly do so.