peirce@gumby.cc.wmich.edu (Leonard J. Peirce) (03/10/89)
In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes: > >The logic of this proposal seems slightly skewed. Why limit the >restrictions to undergraduates? If the S/N ratio is becoming >unacceptably low, then _all_ sysadmins--whether of university, >professional, or public-access sites--should consider restricting new >users to read-only access for some reasonable period of time. However, >I don't agree that the S/N ratio among undergraduates is much worse >than the S/N ratio among other posters. If Mr Baird has some specific >examples in mind, or statistics to support his assertion that immature >undergrads are drowning out the useful contributions of other undergrads, >perhaps he could share them with us. > While the argument that not all undergraduates are immature is valid, it is important to note that the few problem posters that a university is bound to have can, with just a few keystrokes, use up resources at thousands of sites. Acting like a child in a local BBS is bad enough, but I don't think that access to a university's computers gives them the right to injudiciously waste resources elsewhere. For myself, I would rather initially restrict posting and deal with the problem HERE, seeing to it that users know what they are doing, rather than turn the hordes loose on the net and spread the problem to other sites. As for the problem of discriminating against one group such as undergraduates, simple: restrict posting initially for EVERYONE. Some people will still complain but no one group feels singled out. If users are so mature, they they should also be mature enough to understand the rationale behind the posting restrictions. -- Leonard J. Peirce Internet: peirce@gumby.cc.wmich.edu Western Michigan University peirce@gw.wmich.edu Academic Computer Center Voice: (616) 387-5430 Kalamazoo, MI 49008
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) (03/11/89)
In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes: >I think the controversy will eventually boil down to whether people >feel USENET should be a large, open forum, or a more restricted, >"professional" network. The latter opinion would lead to such >questions as whether large commercial sites (e.g. Portal) and large >BBS networks (e.g. FidoNet) should be denied USENET feeds, in view of >the large number of young and nonprofessional posters from those >sites. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hold it. Young != Nonprofessional. I'm 13; should I be banned from the net? Since when does Fidonet have a "large number of young and nonprofessional posters" on it? Sure, there aren't as many university students (because Usenet is more common on university machines than Fidonet), but that doesn't mean that they are any more or less professional than you are. Don't make sweeping generalizations; more likely than not, you'll be wrong about at least one member of the group. -- Marc Unangst UUCP : mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us UUCP bang : ...!uunet!sharkey!mudos!mju UUCP bang alt.: ...!{ames, rutgers}!mailrus!clip!mudos!mju Internet : mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us
wisner@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Bill Wisner) (03/11/89)
(Narciso Jaramillo) > The latter opinion would lead to such >questions as whether large commercial sites (e.g. Portal) and large >BBS networks (e.g. FidoNet) should be denied USENET feeds Hah. Just try it.
wisner@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Bill Wisner) (03/12/89)
(Marc Unangst) >Hold it. Young != Nonprofessional. I'm 13; should I be banned from the net? Since when does Fidonet have a "large number of young and nonprofessional posters" on it? Sure, there aren't as many university students (because Usenet is more common on univ >ersity machines than Fidonet), but that doesn't mean that they are any more or less professional than you are. Yes. Anybody that uses lines longer than 80 characters should be banned from the net. (insert smiley here. and say hi to T William Wells for me.)
nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) (03/12/89)
In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> I wrote: > >I think the controversy will eventually boil down to whether people > >feel USENET should be a large, open forum, or a more restricted, > >"professional" network. The latter opinion would lead to such > >questions as whether large commercial sites (e.g. Portal) and large > >BBS networks (e.g. FidoNet) should be denied USENET feeds, in view of > >the large number of young and nonprofessional posters from those > >sites. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) replies: >Hold it. Young != Nonprofessional. Precisely. I meant set union, not set intersection--that is, young posters and nonprofessional posters, not "young and nonprofessional" posters. >I'm 13; should I be banned from the net? No. I was NOT advocating an opinion; I was pointing out that the opinion that Mr Baird holds (an opinion i do not agree with) would lead to such questions. I had thought that my first paragraph was sufficiently clear in stating that I did NOT feel such a restriction was appropriate. For the record, I am both young (17) and unprofessional (in the sense given below). The point I should have made explicitly (which I assumed most people would themselves deduce) is that, since USENET has grown to the size it has, and sites like uunet are willing to sell feeds to any other responsibly-maintained site, "professional" or not, it is highly unlikely that FidoNet or Portal will be cut off, despite the number of people who may want to restrict USENET to professional sites. (Once again, in case anyone missed it, I am NOT one of those people.) >Since when does Fidonet have a "large number of young and nonprofessional >posters" on it? I am using "professional" to mean "engaged in a professional, computer-oriented occupation." I assumed this was the sense in which Mr Baird meant it. On the BBSes I used to frequent regularly, Fido or not, the majority of the population was composed of students or people not employed in a computer profession. >Don't make sweeping generalizations; more likely than not, you'll be wrong >about at least one member of the group. Please, people, _read for content_ before flaming someone; s/he might just be agreeing with you. -- Narciso Jaramillo nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU Graduate Student ...!ucbvax!ernie!nj Computer Science Division University of California at Berkeley
bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (03/12/89)
In article <992@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> wisner@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Bill Wisner) writes:
: (Marc Unangst)
: >Hold it. Young != Nonprofessional. I'm 13; should I be banned from the net? Since when does Fidonet have a "large number of young and nonprofessional posters" on it? Sure, there aren't as many university students (because Usenet is more common on univ
: >ersity machines than Fidonet), but that doesn't mean that they are any more or less professional than you are.
:
: Yes. Anybody that uses lines longer than 80 characters should be banned
: from the net.
:
: (insert smiley here. and say hi to T William Wells for me.)
OK ^ :-)
Hi back.
---
Bill
{ uunet | novavax } !twwells!bill
(BTW, I'm going to be looking for a new job sometime in the next
few months. If you know of a good one, do send me e-mail.)mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) (03/14/89)
In article <21509@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes: >In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> I wrote: > >> >I think the controversy will eventually boil down to [...] in view of >> >the large number of young and nonprofessional posters from those >> >sites. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) replies: > >>I'm 13; should I be banned from the net? > >No. I was NOT advocating an opinion; I was pointing out that the >opinion that Mr Baird holds (an opinion i do not agree with) would >lead to such questions. [...] For the record, I am both young (17) and >unprofessional (in the sense given below). >[...] >I am using "professional" to mean "engaged in a professional, >computer-oriented occupation." I think it's appropriate for old-time computer pros to consider that these guys were both both born *after* the first lunar landing, and that they were probably using computers at the ages most of us were playing with vacuum tubes and just learning about that mysterious thing, the 'transistor'. :-) Certainly all the old-timers helped push to make computerization more prevelant -- and *public*. So can you blame the 'under-21' age group for following through with what you set out to do in the first place? With 'more prevelant and public' comes expanded participation by people whose professions are *not* in the computer industries. Face it, that's happening; I think it's healthy to get more of different kinds of minds on Usenet anyway, expanding the netwide NI (Natural Intelligence vs AI; or Net Intelligence, if you prefer). Just imagine what it'll be like when there are public net-terminals like there are public telephones. (And I don't mean *if*.) Cheers, --Mark "A chicken in every pot; a terminal in every home!" :-) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mark Gresham ARTSNET Atlanta, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
cks@ziebmef.uucp (Chris Siebenmann) (03/19/89)
In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes: | If the S/N ratio is becoming unacceptably low, then _all_ | sysadmins--whether of university, professional, or public-access | sites--should consider restricting new users to read-only access for | some reasonable period of time. I think this is a good idea in general; new users to the net can make really bad mistakes. What I prefer instead of outright read-only access is requiring postings from new users to be approved before they are really posted. In fact, this is what I do here on the Ziebmef. People in a certain group have their postings mailed to news-poster; someone then reads them and either approves and posts them or returns them to the author along with commentary as to what's wrong (occasionally I correct minor mistakes like missing lines between the header and the body before posting, but I never make changes to the posting; it is always a binary yes/no decision). Once users have made a few postings and shown me they know what they're doing I move them out of the require-approval group and they can post without restrictions. Best yet, this took very little work to add to Cnews, and it was all done in shell scripts. I'd be glad to mail details or actual code to people who are interested. | However, I don't agree that the S/N ratio among undergraduates is | much worse than the S/N ratio among other posters. I agree. In my experience, the S/N ratio for undergraduate users here is no better and no worse than the S/N ratio for other sorts of users. I would welcome information from other people about this as well. | I think the controversy will eventually boil down to whether people | feel USENET should be a large, open forum, or a more restricted, | "professional" network. How does one define "professional"? Nominally, most every newsgroup on this network is "professional" insofar as it has been created by the votes of professionals. | The latter opinion would lead to such | questions as whether large commercial sites (e.g. Portal) and large | BBS networks (e.g. FidoNet) should be denied USENET feeds, in view of | the large number of young and nonprofessional posters from those | sites. This battle is lost before it's started; there is no way to close such people out of Usenet. Anyone can give a feed to anyone they like, and there's very little other sites can do about it. And given the existence of uunet, someone who wants a feed and is willing to pay for it can have one. However, I agree that site should bear some responsability for what its users post, and that a gateway should bear some responsability for the traffic the systems on the other side generate. One of the problems I think people had with Portal is that they didn't seem to feel any responsability for what their users did. -- "Though you may disappear, you're not forgotten here And I will say to you, I will do what I can do" Chris Siebenmann uunet!{utgpu!moore,attcan!telly}!ziebmef!cks cks@ziebmef.UUCP or .....!utgpu!{,ontmoh!,ncrcan!brambo!}cks