jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews) (06/13/89)
In article <3305@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes: >The reason we're seeing a lot of proposals like Geoff's and Brad's at >this time is because there's a demand for it. The net has simply >become too large. A better response to these proposals is to come up >with competing proposals that would be free. Too bad... it used to be that the response to that demand would be to work within Usenet for a better Usenet. Brad has been doing some of this as well; I very much support his ideas about article classification, although I don't think it's quite the panacea that he seems to think. In fact, I think his article classification ideas are great. I think we *can* develop news software (Pnews scripts, etc.) and netiquette guidelines that encourage users to classify their articles meaningfully. I think we *can* develop news software that allows news readers to filter out unwanted articles. I think these ideas may lead to a different, and better, way of reading and posting news than the present rn/Pnews. I'm sorry I didn't get into that particular debate when it was going a few weeks ago, to express my support for Brad. Conversely, I think Brad's other activities are constantly stretching the boundaries of netiquette. I find particularly repellent his proposal to exploit the wide availability of netnews software by distributing HisOwnService with that protocol. No, it's not different in kind from many things that have been done before on Usenet -- just in scope. I hope that if Brad makes profits with his Compuserve/ClariNet schemes, and if Usenet ever is hit with one of these threatened lawsuits, that Brad will recognize where the origins of his Usenet profits lie, and support the community of the net that has contributed to his success. --Jamie. jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk "Let the flesh instruct the mind"