lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (11/13/83)
Since we now *are* beginning to move into touchy subjects, perhaps
a move of the discussion to net.flame would be in order.
There are several issues to cover:
1) The general problems of Europe and newsgroups.
(Capsule comment: the entire U.S. shouldn't be penalized due
to high transatlantic phone costs. Screening of messages would
appear to be the easiest solution. Commercial satellite systems
for oceanic hops are possible, but still rather expensive, and
bring up the issues of the restrictive European dataflow laws.
Ham-based systems are possible, but a considerable amount of
Usenet traffic could be considered to be commercial or otherwise
outside the realm of legal ham operations. Screening would
be necessary.
Proper group selection for messages is important. However, since
I am firmly convinced that my group selection for my original
messages was correct (and would post to the same groups again)
it is obvious that there are more complex issues here.)
2) Opinions in the News (and "Overnight")
(Capsule comment: there's nothing wrong with opinions in the news,
as long as you know where they are! Virtually all news is
"quietly" biased. At least "Overnight's" segment "comments"
are obviously delineated as the personal opinions of the speaker,
and are not themselves invisibly embedded within the news items.
As for balance, what other show would run neutral scenes
of the Grenada invasion using *both* patriotic music *and*
Lehrer's "Send the Marines" as backround? I for one enjoy
a program where people aren't afraid to tell their opinions
instead of the usual mindless, middle-of-the-road garbage that
spews forth from most news-oriented programs.
You aren't required to *agree* with everything they say!)
3) Lauren is a he, not a she. Making assumptions based on names
can be risky.
If anyone wants to continue this discussion over on net.flame, I'll
see you over there...
--Lauren--laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/15/83)
I can fix Lauren's problem with NBC overnight. We need a USA or a NA distribution group. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
jim@mcvax.UUCP (Jim McKie) (11/16/83)
I hate the following style of repeating what has already been seen, but...
Amsterdam (and any other countries or individual sites) have my official
permission to drop any and all newsgroups that they don't enjoy.
Well, Overnight seems to be doing a great job of informing the
Emerging Nation as to the structure of the world beyond the walls
of mist at the edge of the ocean - Amsterdam is neither a
country or an individual site.
The loss of "Overnight" would mean the loss of one of the few
truly "intelligent" news programs in this country.
It is sad that your TV service is so bad, but, again, why inflict ME with
your views on it? It doesn't even have enough lines on the screen. Also,
see recent discussion in net.ai over the definition of intelligence.
I'd be interested in seeing the complete list of newsgroups
that Europe receives -- I'll bet that there are plenty of
"non-important" messages in there one way or another that
aren't complained about because you find them to be "amusing".
OK, here they are:
net.bugs,net.dcom,net.lan,net.micro,net.news,net.unix-wizards
net.ai,net.arch,net.cog-eng,net.emacs,net.eunice,net.followup
net.general,net.graphics,net.lang,net.misc,net.research,,net.text
Those in the second two rows were only turned on again last week after
they were stopped earlier this year due to too much volume, too much
trivia. Of course, these are the groups for Continental Europe, I can't
speak for Britain, only Ronnie can do that.
There is a difference between being "amusing" and being "trivial". If
you have ever watched a US comedian in Europe you would know what I mean.
If the usa.* type classifications could be generally and precisely
used, it would be much easier to restrict certain materials to the
major geographic community of interest -- but my experience so far
has been that these mechanisms are not yet reliable.
Well, Europe bothered, why can't you? Would you like to see articles
in Dutch, or from a Scandinavian natural-language keyboard?
If you're THAT concerned about messages, then hire someone at the
gateway to screen misc messages before they make the hop -- you can
probably find someone willing to do the job for free --
We've been through this before, it is neither practical or unbiased.
Anyway, would YOU like to ask Armando to do it?
But classifying a topic as "crap" simply because it doesn't happen
to interest you is ridiculous when the topic *does* apply to
the vast majority of readers on the network, and when a reliable
mechanism for reaching those readers in a more precise manner does
not actually exist.
Two for (both Lauren) and two against; one abstention. Lots of interest.
As for another method, haven't you tried hanging out your window and
shouting? It worked for Peter Finch in "Network".....
Proper group selection for messages is important. However, since
I am firmly convinced that my group selection for my original
messages was correct (and would post to the same groups again)
it is obvious that there are more complex issues here.
Someone politely pointed out to me that my original article ('gripe') didn't
conform to the standards set out for USENET etiquette. This is true, and
I apologise. However, one of the problems with sending mail to people about
net abuse is that the perpetrator always has good reasons for their action,
and they spare no effort in telling you so (I can play this trick too).
Since we now *are* beginning to move into touchy subjects, perhaps
a move of the discussion to net.flame would be in order.
I agree. That's one of the groups we don't get.
Jim McKie Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam ....mcvax!jim