gabor@qantel.UUCP (05/25/86)
Perhaps I'm just being obtuse but what's to prevent roving bands of
nefarious net.philosophers and other riffraff from taking over some worthy
newsgroup such as net.sports.shuffleboard or net.rec.lepidoptera, and go on
with their bandwidth-wasting subversive activities? Mind you, I am not
suggesting anything -- just asking. Re-labeling the boxes that articles go
into will do little to affect their content. The question is whether the
net can continue to function as a public medium where everybody and their
brother can post to their heart's content (including common users who could
not tell an L.sys file from a hole in the ground). No doubt the best way to
assure consistent quality and appropriate subject matter would be to restrict
posting privileges to those who are in a position to judge such things: the
Backbone Administrators. I'm sure the software fixes to accomplish this Great
Leap Forward would not take more than a few hours of a net wizard's time --
then we could all sit back, stare at the screen and marvel at our new,
efficient, clean-cut Born-Again Usenet.
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Gabor Fencsik {ihnp4,dual,lll-crg,hplabs}!qantel!gabor