chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (03/25/89)
> a) IF we make moderators agree NOT to copyright or otherwise 'control' > their newsgroups, what legal defenses and barriers WILL we allow? In my specific case, if I'm forced to not copyright or control anything in rec.mag.otherrealms, it ceases to exist. It's not an option for me, because much of my material is copyrighted before I get my hands on it and I have no option but to document the copyrights and do what I can to protect them. Another problem with this is that much of the stuff in comp.sources.* is copyrighted by someone. If you try to claim that *nothing* can be copyrighted, you're going to kill off much of that distribution. If you try to claim that stuff can be copyrighted, but not by the moderator, you're talking potentially serious discrimination issues -- and there's nothing to keep a moderator from copyrighting in the name of his dog, his wife, or some shell organization on top of that. > b) if we're going to argue "NONE", is that _really_ appropropriate? Must > it be the case that the ONLY folks eligible to be moderators should be > those that are either lawsuit-proof or foolhardy? If you ask me, the current situation on USENET is already a horrible place to be a moderator. I've given up two of my moderated groups in the last few months. Neither was directly related to the USENET atmosphere, but it was definitely a reason why I chose not to look for ways to keep doing it. If I were thinking of starting OtherRealms today, I wouldn't -- not on USENET. It wouldn't be worth the hassles. Let me make a side comment as someone who's been sitting on the side and watching the whole r.h.f ordeal. Personally, I don't care what happens with r.h.f. I don't read the group, and I neither agree nor disagree with what Brad's doing. It's none of my business. However, It's been obvious to me from the beginning that sooner or later r.m.o was going to get sucked into the flamewar -- probably incidentally -- and I'd get stuck in a position of having to justify actions that have been going on for multiple years without any complaints. This has already happened a couple of times in the last six months, and it gets tired, real quick. I'd made a decision that if things got nasty, I'd simply stop distributing via USENET and stick to the Internet. I'd lose about 5,000 of my readers, but the amount of hassle I get from USENET over picky shit -- all because for some stupid reason I want to do people a favor and let them see OtherRealms for free -- is more than all of the hassles I get from all of other networks by a couple of orders of magnitude. A side note here. The one thing that *everyone* in the r.h.f discussion seems to forget is that *all* of this is here for the readers. Not Brad. Brad's doing what Brad does what he thinks is best for his audience. (the arbitrons, for what it's worth, indicate he's doing it pretty well). USENET isn't run by the sysadmins *for* the sysadmins, but for the users on the system -- the audience. All of this screaming and yelling and posturing has the same general attitude -- *I* don't like this, so it's wrong. Well, what *I* or what *you* think doesn't matter -- because we're here for them. What I see here is the same sort of arguing I've seen in, say, school discrimination cases. One side screams about discrimination, the other side screams about minorities in schools. Neither side thinks to ask the kids whether they really want to ride in a schoolbus for 90 minutes just so the quotas look reasonable. Before you folks go running off making new rules, think about that for a second. Are you doing this because you feel it's good for the net? For the good of the r.h.f readers? Or are you doing it because you don't like Brad and want to make him suffer? And are you willing to make the 40,000 readers that Brad's group suffer as well? Beyond that, are you willing to live with the *other* consequences? If you build a set of rules that make being a moderator unpleasant, you'll find people will stop being moderators. Because you want to 'spank' Brad over r.h.f, are you still going to be happy when rec.mag.otherrealms and comp.risks and comp.sources.* shut down because the moderators are no longer willing to do their job for the net under the new regime? Do *you* want to explain that to the 5,000 OtherRealms readers that might get disenfranchised? People on the net are real quick -- too quick -- to want to write an arguably enforceable rule to 'fix' a problem that all too often doesn't really exist. One thing I *never* see is an analysis of what the new rule is going to do -- what side effects and negative impacts the rule creates. It's bull forward and we'll fix the problems later -- maybe. If people are serious about changing USENET, then writing some ambiguous rules isn't good enough. If people are serious about letting stuff like this happen, then before it goes up to a vote, there needs to be a formal proposal. There needs to be some kind of analysis and open discussion -- the equivalent of the "environmental impact report" and "public hearings" that goverment requires. If you *want* to fix things, then do it right -- get all the information, consider it, write the best regulations you can and *then* vote. this half-assed cockeyed string-him-up-do-it-now knee-jerk reaction causes more problems than it solves. Just look at the garbage that's been flowing through new.* for what seems like decades. USENET has traditionally been a modified anarchy. Everyone does what they want and cooperates where it's necessary/convenient. It's worked. There's been a strong trend in the last year or so, though, towards people (sometimes one or two, sometimes a small group) screaming about some action or another and demanding that someone create a rule to 'fix' this or 'stop' that. Let me give you a hint: in an anarchy there *are* no rules. You can make suggestions, and if enough people agree with you then it happens. If people don't agree with you, it goes away. Simple enough. But by demanding rules, and demanding enforcement, you're saying that USENET can't be an anarchy anymore. It has to become some other organization. Because to have a rule you must have an enforcement mechanism. A rule you can't force someone to follow is no rule at all. And to have an enforcement mechanism, you must have an agreement that people will abide by the rules. USENET has none of that. Good luck getting it. I'll close with one final thought. Let's assume, for instance, that a non-commercialism 'rule' is enacted, making Brad's agreement with GEnie 'illegal' on USENET. Suppose, then, that Brad decides to ignore you and does it anyway. How are you going to force him to comply? Ask the backbone? What if the backbone decides the rule is stupid and ignores you too? Or simply chooses to do nothing because they don't feel like enforcing it? How is the rule going to be enforced? Guerilla warfare? Does the end justify the means? A rule with no enforcement mechanism is no rule. And USENET has never had an enforcement mechanism. Unless you can figure out how to create one, I'd stop wasting my time building rules that mean nothing. And think closely about what the concept of 'rules' on USENET means. USENET is an anarchy. Anarchy has no rules. So by creating rules you are saying that USENET is no longer an anarchy. And think very, very closely about whether central control of USENET is better than an anarchic USENET -- because there is no guarantee that you will be the ruler instead of the rulee, and there's no guarantee that whoever is ruling USENET is going to agree with you. Or that you wouldn't be next. Setting precedents is a really scary proposition -- you get to live with them, for better or worse. And sometimes, they come back and make you miserable. chuq
mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) (03/28/89)
In article <27809@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >A rule with no enforcement mechanism is no rule. And USENET has never had an >enforcement mechanism. Unless you can figure out how to create one, I'd stop >wasting my time building rules that mean nothing. > There only seems to be one: If you don't like it, don't subscribe; if you don't want it passing through your machine, don't subscribe. "Just Say No", as the grocery sacks proclaim. If someone downstream really wants a group, *some* kind of feed is likely, even if at a higher cost than the most convenient feed. At this time, I don't carry *most* newsgroups, period; as of this writing, I'm only a small leaf with a few "hitchhikers". (Net Dictionay and History scribes: I want credit for the term: hitchhiker (n.) a user whose computer utilizes an OS other than Unix or a similar system, and taps into Usenet as a remote terminal only with it.) Thank-you for your support! Cheers, --Mark +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mark Gresham ARTSNET Atlanta, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++