In May of 1995, Brad Templeton posted a notice to rec.humor.funny , announcing that due to time constraints, Maddi Hausmann-Sojourner could no longer moderate, and that, accordingly, he was looking for her replacement. I've always had great respect for Brad, as I consider rec.humor.funny to be one of the two finest electronic publications (the other being the comp.risks newsgroup). I jumped at the chance to moderate this newsgroup, as did ten or fifteen other people.
I had a couple of advantages over the other applicants. First off, I was local to Brad. This was important, because Brad had plans to develop a RHF web page. That and the yearly humor books require a lot of time and frequent face-to-face interaction. Second, I'd had several jokes accepted to RHF - more than I'd had rejected. That suggested that I at least understood the basic nature of RHF humor. Third, I passed the RHF moderator's test that he gave us (in which he gave us 150 random submissions and we gave him back those that we would accept). Fourth, I had something of a reputation, since I'd moderated rec.arts.startrek.info for five years.
The job appealed to me for several reasons. First off, RHF has a larger readership than RASI does. Second, I wanted to see that the job was done right. Third, I've always respected Brad's work, and I wanted to be able to make as valuable a contribution as he has. So when he offered, I took. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Moderating RHF is vastly different from moderating RASI. The RASI guidelines are pretty clearly carved in stone, and when I reject an article, I can point to a specific guideline that the article violates. This is not the case with RHF. The guiding principle of RHF is that all accepted submissions are "particularly funny". The problem is that "particularly funny" is subjective. The fact that a person has submitted a joke means that they think it is particularly funny. As such, when I reject a submission, I am committing an action which the author strongly disagrees with. This makes the submission audience rather hostile to me. I frequently get hate mail and threats, and there is a much stronger negative reaction than there is a positive one.
In addition to that, there is the fact that humor is subjective, and individual senses of humor are different. That means that when moderators change, there is a portion of the new readership whose senses of humor don't match the new moderator's. So whenever moderators change, there is a small percentage of the readership which unsubscribes. Likewise, there is a small percentage of USENET readers who had previously given up on RHF, but who find the new moderator's humor to more closely match their own, and who therefore resubscribe to the newsgroup. Generally, I think people have appreciated the work I've done. But since I only see the negative reactions to my work, it can be difficult to tell. I say that I think people approve because no one has called for me to be removed yet. Generally, it has been a good experience. Moderating RHF greatly improves ones ability to interact with others. There is the occasional positive feedback. In general, I try to remember my college days, when Brad was moderating, during which I always looked forward to getting a new RHF article, and I hope that I'm having the same effect on people now.