cdshaw@watrose.UUCP (Chris Shaw) (05/20/86)
In article <365@imagen.UUCP> turner@imagen.UUCP writes: >i (in the form of my company) just paid for your ideas being transmitted This is utter nonsense. You paid nothing. You don't own Imagen, and it seems the higher-ups (making a few assumptions here...) are content to have what traffic they may on Imagen's machines via USENET. Saying "I, through my company" is a baldfaced argumentative trick designed to give your words more weight than they would otherwise deserve. Cut it out. >> You can send whatever you want at your expense, but when you ask >> me to pay for it (even implicity) you give me the right >> to interfer with it. >horse puckey! first who said that the free (read 'uncensored') >exchange of ideas was free (read 'without cost')? it ain't >second, you have a right to censored what you recieve at your >machine but not what passes thru it. the system i am building >based on email, hence if you are not a newsfeed you bear none of the >costs, if on the other hand you are a newsfeed to others then you >have given your implicit consent to bear the costs of a newsfeed. > >either you're from Stanford and don't know english or UC Berkeley and >don't know math, but you mean function not correlation >(the original joke was MIT and Harvard and has lost alot in the >translation) It has lost much more through its grossly incoherent presentation. I have read the above passage about 4 times, and can still not decide what you mean, Mr. Turner. To confront the points as given, I agree that intercepting mail passing through one's machine is very bad form, and people should stop doing this unless entirely necessary due to technical constraints. Although there is no WRITTEN contract, the custom of USENET is to let mail articles pass at will. News custom is similar except that articles are expected to stay within the confines of the newsgroup subject area. Deleting mail for whatever reason disobeys the spirit of the arrangement. When one considers that USENET is entirely voluntary, this kind of pigheaded authoritarianism makes no sense at all. When one considers the traditions of the countries where USENET exists (liberal democracies), this kind of behaviour is entirely unacceptable. Far better a well-stated policy (eg. no Net.flame) than a capricious enforcement of unspoken bias. >Name: James M. Turner (not the James M. Turner at Lisp Machine Inc.) There has been much talk lately along the lines of "why should I pay for atari sources?". My response is as follows: Clearly, the only way to regulate news traffic is by selectively carrying certain newsgroups. If certain machines don't want ST sources, then don't carry net.micro.atari16. Alternatively, create mod.sources.atari. It happens in every micro group when it gets big, and this case is no different. I would add, however, that whining about the existence of an atari source group in the face of the similar Macintosh newsgroups is nothing short of inane. Net.sources.mac is number 1 in volume month after month. People on the net clearly desire the group, so there is no reason why it should not exist. If it costs too much to carry, don't get it on your machine. In short, stop wailing officiously about cost and do something, you whiners! Put up or shut up !!! Chris Shaw watmath!watcal!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath University of Waterloo In doubt? Eat hot high-speed death -- the experts' choice in gastric vileness !