amos@taux01.UUCP (Amos Shapir) (07/19/88)
In article <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> era1987@violet.berkeley.edu () writes: >I will also seek to have all sites not subject to EEO/AA laws, >dropped from Usenet unless they sign a nondiscrimination pledge, ... The trouble is, legally there is no such thing as 'Usenet'; to join, one only needs a feed from a neighbor. How would you define 'dropped from Usenet' in legal terms? >I think the benefits of making Usenet a legal, nondiscriminatory >activity, which corporations, universities, and government agencies ^^^^^^^^ MES seems to have realized that, so how is she going to sue an 'activity'? It's going to be interesting to watch. -- Amos Shapir (My other cpu is a NS32532) National Semiconductor (Israel) 6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel Tel. +972 52 522261 amos%taux01@nsc.com 34 48 E / 32 10 N
mikew@sdl.mdcbbs.com (Mike Whitaker) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun14.081116.4862@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>, herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com writes: > In article <10899@castle.ed.ac.uk>, aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) writes: > This is a good specification. It also provides a cure for the primary > source of doubled .signatures. If the automatic signature goes in the > file before the user who doesn't trust the software to work starts > editing it, he will know it is there (or not there) and know whether > he needs to insert it by hand. > ANU_NEWS (on VMS) already does this. -- MikeW@sdl.mdcbbs.com \ "...there are some sincere people out there Mike Whitaker, Shape Data Ltd, \ who just happen to worship a different Cambridge, ENGLAND +44-223-316673 \ god.." Gael Baudino/Gossamer Axe
karish@mindcraft.com (Chuck Karish) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun14.081116.4862@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com writes: >Doubled .signatures should drop to a very small trickle if all the >posting software would append the .signature file before entering >the editor. > >How do we draw this suggestion to the attention of all the writers >and maintainers of posting software? - Send them E-mail. - Post requests for the desired feature in the appropriate places. - Write a new RFC that mandates this feature (don't try this at home, kids!) - Fix the code yourself, and send patches to the authors. As you've pointed out, it should be pretty easy. -- Chuck Karish karish@mindcraft.com Mindcraft, Inc. (415) 323-9000
cmf851@anu.oz.au (Albert Langer) (06/23/91)
Sharon, I think your article mixes together two different issues: a) The inappropriateness of yelling and whining at volunteers who keep Usenet going by their efforts and don't do it perfectly. On that I agree with you. b) The extent to which Usenet is, and the extent to which it should be, organized to deal with problems. Here I think you are describing an amorphous blob which could not provide a useful email and news service, not the actual organization we have, which does, but which could be improved. In article <1991Jun12.214633.7537@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> sharon@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Sharon Hopkins) writes: >Hmm. I think I will dissent from the view that Usenet is an organization >of news administrators, and present instead the Sharon Hopkins slightly >slanted view of the Usenet Warranty, or lack thereof. This being Usenet, >I think I shall start with an analogy (preferably a poor one :-) : > >When I wander into town and tack notices up on the local signboard, I don't >assume that the existence of the signboard is any guarantee that I'll get a >response, or even that anyone else will see what I've posted there. Maybe >someone will tear my notice down, or cover it up. That isn't *nice*, but >that's how things are with notice-boards. Given where I live, it's quite >possible someone will grafitti over it, or alter it's appearance (somewhat >in the manner of a garbled header). If my notice is defaced in some fashion, >it might well get taken down by some civic-minded person with orderly habits >and an eye towards public decency. [...] If there was no noticeboard, or it kept losing notices, you might get together with others to provide one, or to add a glass case around it etc. More likely, you might find that a local newsletter met your needs better, or perhaps in this day and age, a worldwide email and news network :-) One thing for sure, being a product of modern society, you wouldn't just passively accept whatever is currently in place as having been ordained by fate. >Suppose, when I go to look at my notice, I discover that it is missing. >Would it be reasonable for me to yell at the owner of the wall, who mounted >a nice piece of cork-board for the purpose, for the fact that my notice >disappeared? I would tend not to think so, though I'm certain at least a >few people would disagree. Nope, no point yelling at whoever provided the inadequate bulletin board system and that is a point well worth making when people do. But there IS a point in trying to improve it, and your message doesn't discuss that. >If we want to draw the analogy even closer, then we have to also take into >consideration the fact that we rarely put up the notices ourselves: some >of us pay someone else to put it up for us; others of us rely on somebody's >good will. Can you yell at your notice-carrier if no one responds? Or if >they put it up and someone else takes it down when they aren't looking? Or >if they hand it off to a third party who drops it in a garbage bin? Maybe, >if they were for some reason bound to keep track of your notice for you. If >they had only sort of implied that your notice would be posted, and that >other people would be able to look at it, I would say you have no real right >to complain if things don't go as you would have liked. [...] If I find myself having to rely on a system of noticeboards linked by notice carriers with some of them dropping the notices they carry into the garbage bin, I would soon start sending out notices proposing we re-organize the system - perhaps even suggesting use of computers instead of unreliable human notice carriers :-) The most obvious way to improve it would be to suggest that each notice carrier keep track of the notices they carry and accept responsibility for delivering them only to others who will likewise accept responsibility. >In my particular case, I hand my notices (articles) off to somebody else >headed in the right general direction, who passes them along to someone else, >who may or may not put them where I want. (The fact that a random bunch of >people and organizations with computers are engaged in a cooperative effort >to provide rapid (and often cheap) communication, does not imply to me that >they will necessarily succeed (or even want to succeed) in transmitting *my* >communication.) In other words, I use rn, on a system running C-News, which >is administered by a couple of guys in offices down the hall. Our machine >sends articles and the like to a machine a few buildings over, which is in >charge of getting them off-site; once news leaves my screen, it's pretty >much out of my hands. Actually Usenet is a LOT less haphazard than that and the people engaged in the cooperative effort DO what you messages to get through. Very precise protocols specify the way that messages are passed on and this results in the remarkable fact that most of them DO get through, efficiently and cheaply. It doesn't just happen by accident and it doesn't fail to happen a lot of the time - otherwise most people wouldn't bother trying to use it. But there are MAJOR weaknesses in the Usenet protocols. One aspect is precisely that sites do NOT accept responsibility for keeping track of messages passed to them and don't guarantee to either refuse to accept them, or to pass them on correctly or to return a non-delivery notice if they are unable to pass them on correctly. Designing such protocols is quite difficult technically and could not have been done without the experience of Usenet and internet mail generally. It has been done now in the X.400 standards. I see no reason why many of the people currently engaged in a cooperative effort to deliver mail should not be willing to adopt the additional requirements needed to deliver it even more reliably than at present. Pioneers need not be amateurs. Doing things cooperatively need not mean doing them amateurishly. >Do I get annoyed when articles I spent hours preparing never make it off >our local machine? Sure I do. I get a lot more annoyed when articles I >spent lots of time on get wiped out when the partition I'm in overflows and >vi can't write to disk, but that happens often enough that I've learned to >cope. :-) But when I go long enough without getting a reply to some article >I've posted, my first response is not generally to flood the net with post >after post (after post) complaining, demanding apologies, and the like; for >one thing, it seems like an insufficiently productive way to spend my time, >though that may just be because I'm too shy to yell long enough to get >anyone to do what I want (read up on the parable of the unjust judge :-).[...] Sure, complaining and demanding apologies won't help. But establishing the kind of organization that can adopt the necessary technical measures could help while suggesting that only an amorphous blob is possible won't help. People in some parts of the East learn to cope with disasters much better than people in the West because they have a more fatalistic attitude. I don't want to learn to live with overflowing disk partitions and lost messages any more than I want to learn to live with famines and floods. >You see, I don't think having an account on this particular machine gives me >some kind of inherent right to post articles: if the SA (or management) pulls >the plug, that's it. When the disk crashes, or the next machine in line stops >working, some articles get lost. Oh well. If my articles get disappeared >somewhere down the line, seems to me that's more or less in the same category >with things like disk crashes: I can't fix it, and somebody else may or may >not fix it for me. If I get really desperate to express myself, I can always >write a letter to the editor, or call someone who cares, or wander into town >to tack up a sign. Usenet is mostly just a funner, faster way to carry on a >conversation; as with other forms of conversation, there are no guarantees >that anyone else will be able to hear (or understand) you. There's even less >guarantee anyone will listen. I'm willing to pay what it costs (and to work on help making it cost less) in order to have access to a network where I DO have some kind of inherent right to post articles and can expect them to get through. I believe it can be done a lot cheaper than by commercial services like CompuServe and a lot more reliably than currently by Usenet. Email is becoming a vital business necessity in many areas and the PTTs cannot afford to take your attitude for interconnecting business email systems. Hence the development of X.400 standards. Is there any reason why non-business academic/research/recreational users of email and news should not take advantage of the latest technology in the 1990s just as we did when setting up Usenet with more or less it's present technology in the late 1970s? We can FIX problems (inshallah :-). >Usenet Product Label: "This service carries no warranties, express or implied: > try not to take it too personally." "This service is being expanded and enhanced by the cooperative efforts of all concerned. Please accept the occasional inconveniences while we try to get it right." -- Opinions disclaimed (Authoritative answer from opinion server) Header reply address wrong. Use cmf851@csc2.anu.edu.au