max@trinity.uucp (Max Hauser) (03/07/88)
In article <1120@athos.rutgers.edu>, webber@athos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes: > The commitment to free speech in this country is rather thin. ... > > The sad thing is the way it gets presented. People argue over > whether or not so and so has a right to post (or any less right than > anyone else) whereas the real issue is whether the rest of the net, > with all of its investment of time and effort, has not yet earned the > right to have these postings available to it. In article <308@nvuxk.UUCP>, perseus@nvuxk.UUCP (A D Domaratius) writes: > In article <68@rolls.UUCP>, news@rolls.UUCP writes: > > ... > > scrooge@rolls will not be posting until he improves his posting style. > > I guess I haven't read many articles from scrooge@rolls. What is > wrong with his style.? Is he a fascist? If that is the reason that > you disagree with his style, isn't that censorship. ...this cannot > be a reason for failing to give access to this person. What is going on here? Are these authors competent adults? The Usenet site in question is a private operation under the control of local administration. How could it possibly be anyone's business but the local administrators' what is the site's policy for granting the privilege of a computer account or the further privilege of posting to Usenet? Have computer hackers so lost touch with reality that, not content to stipulate Usenet access as a job precondition (!), they now regard it as a "right," and its denial as "censorship" or as impairment of "free speech"? If webber@athos or perseus@nvuxk object to the internal operations at site rolls because these deny the Usenet a welcome author, why have they not immediately taken the obvious and reasonable step of providing the author an account on their own systems, and therefore taking some actual responsibility in the matter? Or is it more sensible to presume to tell distant SAs, indignantly no less, how to run their own systems? Oh, and I have a lot of friends whose postings would be welcome and widely read on the Usenet. By the argument that computer access should be determined by the value of the postings to the rest of the net, I insist on obtaining accounts and disk space on athos and nvuxk. By webber's argument, this should be up to the rest of the net, not athos and nvuxk, to decide. For all of the net's investment of time and effort, you know. M. Hauser, incredulous
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (03/09/88)
>What is going on here? Are these authors competent adults? The Usenet >site in question is a private operation under the control of local >administration. How could it possibly be anyone's business but the local >administrators' what is the site's policy for granting the privilege of >a computer account or the further privilege of posting to Usenet? >Have computer hackers so lost touch with reality that, not content to >stipulate Usenet access as a job precondition (!), they now regard it >as a "right," and its denial as "censorship" or as impairment of "free >speech"? >M. Hauser, incredulous It seems well within the scope of reason that even a private organization should use some consistent and fair rules for allowing or denying access to their facilities. If a person who normally has access to such facilities is singled out from their peers and denied that merely because of a disagreement in political focus I think that's grounds for complaint. What level of complaint is another issue, I don't think anyone was talking legal complaint (although it's plausible), more likely just some appeal to a sense of fair play somewhere up the line. The issue really is fair treatment when compared with peers more than fundamental rights (although, as I said, one can enter that realm fairly easily if the rule used is based on mere political scope.) -Barry Shein, Boston University
webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) (03/11/88)
In article <1288@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>, max@trinity.uucp (Max Hauser) writes: > ... > What is going on here? Are these authors competent adults? The Usenet I can understand why, having found nothing that can seriously be objected to in our postings, you have chosen to attack our person instead. Doubtless most people just flushed your posting as soon as they saw your approach and missed the few things you said that had some content. > site in question is a private operation under the control of local > administration. No system that has a phone line (or other net connection) can truly be said to be ``under the control of local administration.'' > Have computer hackers so lost touch with reality that, not content to > stipulate Usenet access as a job precondition (!), they now regard it > as a "right," and its denial as "censorship" or as impairment of "free > speech"? There is no more or less a ``right to Usenet Access'' than there is a right to ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' > If webber@athos or perseus@nvuxk object to the internal operations at > site rolls because these deny the Usenet a welcome author, why have they > not immediately taken the obvious and reasonable step of providing the > author an account on their own systems, and therefore taking some actual > responsibility in the matter? The availability of public access unix systems plus the ease with which facist mode can be bypassed indicate that there is little point in offering an account on a distant system. What the site admin has done is ultimately mere harassment (both of a specific local user at their site and of the net in general). I suppose we can tolerate such site admins as easily as we tolerate forged news articles. > Oh, and I have a lot of friends whose postings would be welcome and > widely read on the Usenet. By the argument that computer access should > be determined by the value of the postings to the rest of the net, I > insist on obtaining accounts and disk space on athos and nvuxk. I can't see why. So far, your postings have indicated no potential for value that would merit access to a Sun 4. I can offer an account on an Apple IIc, though if you would like. You already have diskspace on athos and nvuxk (assuming nvuxk is also recieving news.groups). > By webber's > argument, this should be up to the rest of the net, not athos and nvuxk, > to decide. For all of the net's investment of time and effort, you know. Depending on whether you view the net as a democratic or an anarchistic organization, you may or may not be right in extending my argument to the notion of trying to get the whole net to decide. So far, the net has functioned quite well as a ``tolerant'' organization accepting all postings as being of value, but now that discussion among humans is being drowned out by micro-computer binaries, one wonders how long it will last. > M. Hauser, incredulous Never been in credulous myself, is it near cognito? ------ BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)