gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) (01/06/85)
Lauren, why are you trying to make a perfectly good Usenet distribution service into an electronic Time Magazine? If Time Magazine was good enough for us, we'd buy it at a newsstand, or have them mail it to us. Reread "Bug Jack Barron" by Norman Spinrad for an example of a live public-access nationwide video "issues discussion" and how tempting it is to exercise covert control. Look at the Washington Times for a low-tech example. I certainly appreciate the technical and liason work you're doing, but I really dislike your efforts to tie it to "forced moderation". Please let the net decide what it wants to send over this medium. If the case for forced moderation is good enough, it will stand on its own merits. Is there anyone at Turner Broadcasting (or whatever subsidiary we are dealing with) who sees any of this discussion? Will any of them be at Usenix?
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (01/07/85)
[LONG MESSAGE] John, Feel free to call me if you want to talk about this stuff in depth. I've been over this again and again, and I'm sorry if I'm offending your attitudes on these matters. Be that as it may: 1) There will be insufficient bandwidth to send all materials indefinitely, even with high speeds, and the percentage of netnews that represent repetitious or useless articles continues to grow. This growth will be astronomical as more sites join the net. 2) Even if there WERE such bandwidth, very few people would have the time or inclination to wade through all the muck to find articles of interest. Most people contacting me on this topic have been at least as excited about the prospect of a higher overall quality in netnews as about the means of distribution. A few people can't seem to understand the difference between editing and censorship, or the fact that many people no longer even read netnews since they simply do not have the time to pick through all the flames and meaningless repetitions. 3) The legal issues surrounding national broadcast of materials are sufficiently cloudy that it appears likely that screening will be necessary simply to avoid transmission of materials that may constitute libelous or previously copyrighted works. Even if the project is theoretically in the right if it took a "common carrier" stance (which it can't do anyway due to bandwidth and other considerations) the existence of a single broadcast point will make it a logical target for lawsuits by people who imagine (rightly or wrongly) that their rights have been violated. The project might ultimately win such suits, but we don't want the suits in the first place, for obvious reasons. Every day, I see cases of copyrighted materials posted to the net without permission. Right now there is no one entity to easily sue. With the project, that entity would be much more obvious. The history of such suits shows that both the author and the agency that did the distribution of the material tend to be sued in such cases. 4) The satellite carrier (which is not a subsidiary of Turner -- Turner has nothing whatever to say about this) is not interested in simply providing us a "free" satellite channel to save us phone costs. They are interested in working with us to establish a useful information service with public submission of materials. They are NOT doing this for their health, but hope to have a service that will be of general interest to lots of people. This doesn't mean they expect to get rich quick -- they know they won't and they appreciate the experimental aspects of Usenet and that people don't have a lot of money to spend. There has never been a broadcast service that allows the "public" to submit materials for transmission in this manner. They feel that the time is right for such a service. They think the Usenet community represents a logical group that could contribute to and benefit from such a service, so they are willing to go a long way to help get such a thing started. But this does NOT mean that they are just doing this for charity and saying, "Sure, send all your junk -- we're just swell guys." 5) The company is not on the net, mainly because they simply don't have the time to be. I'm arranging for them to have an account on vortex so that I can forward them materials of interest, but after I showed them an unbiased sample of netnews, one comment I heard was -- well, let me put it to you this way. I had to make it clear that we didn't intend to send that typical sample of material (there were 15 messages saying almost exactly the same thing in net.misc in the random sample I took) without some filtering. They really couldn't believe that people spent money (for phone calls) to send so many low-information-content messages around. I got the impression that they were starting to get cold feet about what they were getting into. And who can blame them. They want a high quality service. Not a high-tech conduit for net.flame. And I agree with them. I convinced them of this and the project went ahead. 6) The satellite people are in general quite reasonable about what sort of material should be broadcast. I think that with common sense we'll have a great deal of latitude. But if we start yelling and screaming that EVERYTHING should be broadcast with no screening or controls, they're going to say, "Why the hell should we help support this? This isn't a useful information service suitable for national broadcast." And they'll pull the plug so fast our heads will spin. Remember that the only reason we have the chance to get the satellite time and access essentially for free is that the company is interested in participating in the project to create something useful. We'd be paying full satellite rates (or rather, not paying them -- since we could never afford them, even collectively, and that would be that: no project) under other conditions. They are NOT simply giving us satellite space and saying, "Go ahead, do anything you like -- we don't care. We love giving away satellite time and computer resources..." Rather, they want to build something of value with us. 7) I encourage those who are not interested in the satellite project, and who insist that an information system is of no value unless EVERYTHING is sent, no matter how libelous, mundane, or useless, not to participate in the project. Feel free to keep using the existing network and send ANYTHING your heart desires. That's what it's there for, I guess. But frankly, the satellite project isn't being operated on the basis of a network-wide vote. Those who don't want to participate need not. Those who want to join in of course are encouraged to do so. There are technical, legal, and practical considerations that shape the project in various ways which are not necessarily subject to personal opinions or desires, including mine. We are working to bring about a useful service. Nobody will be forced to participate. The existing network can continue to operate just as it does now for those who prefer it. But I do not feel prohibited from working toward something that might be a bit better for many of us, for the use of those of us who prefer it. I appreciate your opinions, but you must realize that there are factors in a project like this that are not subject to our personal feelings about how the universe might "ideally" be structured. Usenet, operating as an anarchy of separate machines, is one hell of a lot different than sending data to over 30 million homes (plus direct satellite feeds) over a national network. To put it bluntly, some of you are looking a terrific gift horse in the mouth. And if you keep it up, you'll succeed in destroying something that could be quite nice. You cannot possibly realize how much was involved in even getting THIS FAR -- I haven't emphasized the difficulties and false hopes that eventually led to "success." I didn't just snap my fingers and pop up with satellite time. It was a lot of work and I enjoyed doing it. But please understand that maybe, just maybe, you might not be fully aware of all the factors that must coexist to make such a project possible from a practical standpoint. I refuse to keep going over this again and again publicly. People who want to argue these topics should contact me directly, by netmail or phone. I welcome your opinions, and I'm taking the opinions I hear into account, but that doesn't mean that the project is operating on the basis of network-wide votes. If it did, I can absolutely guarantee that it would never get off the ground. I realize (from my private mail) that the overwhelming majority of you apparently support the project. To you I say thanks, I appreciate your support. If I didn't think the support was there, I wouldn't be continuing with this work. In Dallas, I hope to have the time to discuss some of the aspects of the project that I simply don't have the time to put into written messages just now. I'll of course be happy to talk with any of you there about the project in detail, as time allows. Thanks much. --Lauren--
franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) (01/08/85)
In article <1917@sun.uucp> gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: > >I certainly appreciate the technical and liason work you're doing, but >I really dislike your efforts to tie it to "forced moderation". Please >let the net decide what it wants to send over this medium. If the >case for forced moderation is good enough, it will stand on its own >merits. > Hear, hear! I don't like to disagree with Lauren, but I think he's missed the boat on this one. One of the reasons that USENET is USEful (sorry) is the fact that it is an open channel. If Lauren is so concerned about his node getting sued for something, he better get off the net right now. The last time I checked, most of the traffic is unmoderated. What's the difference in the medium, Lauren? Or does this simply seem to be a good time to put controls on? If some person out there is going to misuse the net so egregiously that one can be sued, why haven't they done so yet? Again, how does the change in medium effect the legality of postings and if the net is unmoderated now, why not unmoderated over the stellite link? I really would like an answer to this (thanks alot). Same as it ever was... Frank Adrian
jack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen) (01/09/85)
First, let me state that I do not doubt Lauren's good intentions,
or the need for a better distribution, but I do have some
doubts about the way the Stargate project is going.
The current idea seems to be to abandon all phone connections for
nation-wide distributions, and have everything sent via stargate.
I believe that it would be a much better idea to have both
distributions in parallel, for the following reasons :
- If you miss an article because of local trouble, you don't have
to ask for re-transmission, you just wait for your telephone-neigbour
to send it to you (or you ask him to send it).
- Since stargate is sent through one machine, if that machine goes
down for a couple of days, all news machines on the net will have
a real hard time catching up with, say, one week of news in one day.
- If we destroy the current infrastructure, and the carrier decides
to drop the project (I *know* that that's not likely, but you never know)
it'll take a long time before we can recover from that.
- Even though the current screeners are completely trustworthy,
and will only remove duplicates, etc. who garantees us that this
will be the case forever? I can imagine a situation where all
screeners are eventually employed by a kind of "usenet, inc." as
"electronic editors". As soon as that happens, there is someone
who can control what we see (I *know* this is paranoid, but I
think that a little paranoia can be good at times).
I think we can have both distributions in parallel with only modest
effort. The only thing that is needed is something like the 'ihave/sendme'
protocol, used only on articles that have 'stargate' in their path.
This way, an article would travel to stargate following the
phonelines (via news, not via mail) and would then be screened
and transmitted. All the sites that are near the originating site
would probably have the article already, but I think that that is only
an advantage, since long distance calls are where the money goes,
not local calls.
--
Jack Jansen, {seismo|philabs|decvax}!mcvax!vu44!jack
or ...!vu44!htsa!jack
If *this* is my opinion, I wasn't sober at the time.ee161aok@sdcc13.UUCP ({|stu) (01/09/85)
I would be far more interested a stargate news service that is screened. First, there would be a much wider audience and better varied contributors. I would hope to see lawyers discussing points of law in a net.legal and marine-biologists in net.marine-biology etc. I am interested in QUALITY discussions and VARIED discussions. Stargate would seem to encourage this by disseminating the net to all sorts of people through the inevitable publicity that will follow its inauguration. The net as it stands is terrific for getting a termcap or for letting people blow off steam, but it is not really as good a source of information as I would want, and I see the screening proposed for Stargate as only the most positive of steps. The net serves a small group of people who have both access to a good sized computer, and an excess of time to wade through the overabundance of crap that arrives on the net each day. I would rather have a different service than that provided by the net, and Stargate seems to have real possibilities in that direction. steve ackroyd
honey@down.FUN (code 101) (01/10/85)
i side with lauren on this. the issue is not legality/censorship, it's simply good taste. if we offend the people *donating* vertical interval, they'll pull the plug. if there is a time to be extra cautious, it is now. isn't all this criticism a bit premature? if you don't like stargate, you won't be forced to use it. if you do like it, you'll suggest ways to improve it. but let's see it off the ground first. peter ps: i won't comment on tony robinson's speculations about ai screening projects -- no, you couldn't drag that out of me in a million years.
reid@Glacier.ARPA (01/10/85)
As usual, Lauren is right, and one of the reasons I think that Lauren is such a major league dude is that he has enough sense and self-confidence and vision of the future to ignore all of the people who are flaming at him while still getting work done, and yet have the patience to keep trying to talk sense into the heads of the flamers. Wow. In the long run, unmoderated channels produce swill. Anybody who hasn't reached that conclusion by watching the growth of Usenet must have overdosed on reruns of "Gilligan's Island" in his early teens. I read a lot. I read magazines, newspapers, a few academic journals, an occasional book, and a few Usenet groups. I really appreciate the role that editors play in making my reading palatable. In fact, I choose my reading material partly on the basis of who the editor is and what his editorial policy is: how he chooses what to publish. Lewis Lapham is a fine magazine editor, for example. So was Norman Cousins for many years. There are also certain authors, such as John McPhee, whose work I will read regardless of where it appears. Unregulated Usenet is drivel. Amusing drivel, perhaps, but drivel. There are factions that claim unregulated publication to be politically correct. For example, when I lived in Pittsburgh there was a biweekly magazine called the Mill Hunk Times, published by a bunch of socialists, whose editorial policy was that anybody who showed up at their editorial offices with some typed copy could get it published, FIFO. It was awful; nobody read it, and it went out of "business". Usenet is different, though. I'm glad it exists, even though I read about 2% of the messages in it. It's a marvelously democratic, unregulated, unregulatable, by-the-people-for-the-people, drivel mill. Makes me proud to be a humanoid. Nevertheless, we need moderated, selected, preened Usenet-style communication, and Stargate is a great way to get it. The reason moderated groups almost always die out for lack of traffic is that they don't offer the author any more reward, any wider audience, any greater thrill of publication, than the unmoderated groups. There is no motivation for a young net flamer to calm himself down and write a professional-quality piece, because he can dump his guts to net.flame or net.religion or net.politics just as easily, and experience the joy of annoying 100 people in 12 hours. Stargate offers something new, and I think we have almost a moral obligation to exploit it appropriately. This new distribution medium will for the first time offer something different in a moderated group, and provide an impetus for all of you budding Menckens to get your work published in a respectable forum. It will be the first real electronic magazine using our beloved netnews technology, and I can't WAIT to see how it turns out. I might even calm down my own flaming for that wider and more selective audience. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods) (01/11/85)
In article <366@hercules.UUCP> franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) writes: >[reference:] <1917@sun.uucp> >> >>I certainly appreciate [...] "forced moderation". Please >>let the net decide [...] it will stand on its own >>merits. >> > Hear, hear! I don't like to disagree with Lauren, but I think he's >missed the boat on this one. One of the reasons that USENET is USEful (sorry) >is the fact that it is an open channel. If Lauren is so concerned about his >node getting sued for something, he better get off the net right now. I don't think that he's worried about his node personaly but rather the potental liability of the carrier. This is a whole different can of worms. > The >last time I checked, most of the traffic is unmoderated. What's the difference >in the medium, Lauren? Yes, that's exactly it. Currently the only people that recieve USENET are people who (A)actively want to get it and (B)have someone who wants to pass it on to them (narrow casting as it were). With stargate it'll be BROADcasting that means that anyone can recieve it weither we (the net as a whole) want them to or not. > Or does this simply seem to be a good time to put >controls on? Sorry, Lauren doesn't work that way. > If some person out there is going to misuse the net so egregiously >that one can be sued, why haven't they done so yet? Who are they going to sue? With Stargate they'd have a target, one with substantal value that could be grabbed. For example blatz@fubar.UUCP posts the ENTIRE source to Sys CCCLX rel 21.7 to net.sources, AT&T decides to sue (to protect its own interests) currently the only place that could be reasonable attacked are the the owner of fubar and M{r,s}. Blatz (and possiably the net as a whole, but I'd suspect that they wouldn't get very far with that). With stargate however there are exactly two places that passed the source out, fubar and stargate (plus perhaps any relay sites [again not likley]) guess who's going to get sued. /* Can you say Stargate and Fubar?, I though you could. :-) */ Personally I'd think that the folks a stargate would be damm-fools (as opposed to just fools) to broadcast ANYTHING that WASN'T screened. > [1] Again, how does the change >in medium effect the legality of postings and [2]if the net is unmoderated now, >why not unmoderated over the stellite link? (1) The difference is between you talking over the phone to someone, and you talking over a radio station to *EVERYONE*. (2) However, the main reason to moderate the satellite link is to cut down on the amount of cruft and redundancy. Many newsgroups won't be sent through the link anyway. > I really would like an answer to >this (thanks alot). As I see it now, the net as it currently is will be here for a long time. There will ALWAYS be news groups that are not sutable for BROADCAST nationwide (E.G. la.eats, ba.wanted). There will also be groups that would from a distribution point of view seem to be reasonable, from a content view are totally out of place (E.G. net.flame). -- Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology) uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb}!cepu!scw ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-cs location: N 34 3' 9.1" W 118 27' 4.3"
carl@hpcnoe.UUCP (carl) (01/11/85)
Personally, I think that in the long run this whole business about
regulated/unregulated will sort itself out, simply due to market pressure.
There are good reasons for an unregulated network such as this to exist, so
I think that it will continue to do so for quite awhile. However, in an
environment of information overload, there will arise a demand for editors
who will preen out the "garbage" (as defined by the reader) and come up
with a condensed information flow. People will even (gasp) PAY for the
privelege, because their time is valuable.
An example of this is our corporate library. Authors submit lots of ideas,
and publishers pick them up. They are edited at that point. When a
publication comes out, quite often this is summarized (edited) again so that
people can quickly scan through it to find the important stuff. When our
library picks that up, they know what each individual is looking for and
tells them when something interesting pops up. It is not unusual for an
article to magically appear in my mailbox even though I never requested it.
And it's almost always interesting (to me).
This is a quite valuable service. If there's anybody out there who wants
to start a company to do the same thing with on-line information they would
probably have a decent chance of succeeding. It's happening elsewhere.
Carl Dierschow
Hewlett Packard
{ihnp4|hplabs}!hpfcla!hpcnoe!c_dierschowfranka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) (01/12/85)
In article <2309@Glacier.ARPA> reid@Glacier.ARPA writes: >As usual, Lauren is right, and one of the reasons I think that Lauren is >such a major league dude is that he has enough sense and self-confidence and >vision of the future to ignore all of the people who are flaming at him >while still getting work done, and yet have the patience to keep trying to >talk sense into the heads of the flamers. Wow. > I agree. Lauren is one hip, together, hoopy sort of guy... >Unregulated Usenet is drivel. Amusing drivel, perhaps, but drivel. There are >factions that claim unregulated publication to be politically correct. >For example, when I lived in Pittsburgh there was a biweekly magazine called >the Mill Hunk Times, published by a bunch of socialists, whose editorial >policy was that anybody who showed up at their editorial offices with some >typed copy could get it published, FIFO. It was awful; nobody read it, and >it went out of "business". > So? Just because YOU think it's drivel doesn't mean that somebody else might not enjoy looking at (reading, throwing up about) it. >Usenet is different, though. I'm glad it exists, even though I read about 2% >of the messages in it. It's a marvelously democratic, unregulated, >unregulatable, by-the-people-for-the-people, drivel mill. Makes me proud to >be a humanoid. > Ah... And therein lies the rub. The major problem with the moderated "stargate" scheme is that nobody is guaranteeing that there will be any unregulated groups anywhere. >Nevertheless, we need moderated, selected, preened Usenet-style >communication, and Stargate is a great way to get it. The reason moderated >groups almost always die out for lack of traffic is that they don't offer >the author any more reward, any wider audience, any greater thrill of >publication, than the unmoderated groups. There is no motivation for a young >net flamer to calm himself down and write a professional-quality piece, >because he can dump his guts to net.flame or net.religion or net.politics >just as easily, and experience the joy of annoying 100 people in 12 hours. > I agree. However, I also think that we have a responsibility to provide an open forum, also. This is with the explicit reccomendation that a disclaimer be posted on the unmoderated groups that the opinion is that of the poster. >Stargate offers something new, and I think we have almost a moral obligation >to exploit it appropriately. This new distribution medium will for the first >time offer something different in a moderated group, and provide an impetus >for all of you budding Menckens to get your work published in a respectable >forum. It will be the first real electronic magazine using our beloved >netnews technology, and I can't WAIT to see how it turns out. I might even >calm down my own flaming for that wider and more selective audience. As I've said before, no problem with that. I do want to have an unedited channel, though. If people are worried about possible legal action, consider this. The phone company acts as a carrier of information and disinformation. If someone libels someone else on that "network", it is the libelous person who is arreigned, prosecuted, etc. If message contents is not controlled, then the carrier is NOT responsible for content. There are several legal rulings on this. If, however, you put a moderated forum on the stargate, the moderator and carrier (if the carrier endorses such a scheme) can and will be held responsible for any and all news items posted on that group. It seems that the most valid thing to do to prevent legal hassels for the carrier is to leave the newsgroups unmoderated. Secondly, it may make an interesting case in court that the USENET might provide an "electronic communication easement". For any of you legal eagles, an "easement" is bad legal juju. It basicly says that if you have been using a facility for years without prior permission, the fact that you have not been stopped provides a de facto contract between you and the supplier to continue that facility. Buildings have been stopped for easement purposes. E.g., if Pacific NW Bell were to say that they were closing down tommorrow, the court might find it in the best interest of the people to force them to keep this communications easement. The case of an "electronic communications easement" has not been tested in court, but I think it might be interesting to ask the ACLU about this... Of course, if all you want are moderated groups to prevent overload, you might try having a combination of moderated and unmoderated groups and be a bit more honest about it than hiding behind legal possibilities. >-- > Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid > Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA I must say that this diatribe is the opinion of myself, myself only, and has absolutely no bearing, indication, or whatever of what my employer may or may not think. Frank Adrian
geoff@utcs.UUCP (Geoff Collyer) (01/12/85)
Much of current USENET traffic is truly USEless: trash, tripe, gossip, misinformation, repeated requests, ad nauseum. I look forward to reduced volumes of swill arriving each day and to moderation of even that traffic. Very little of what we discuss needs to travel so fast that moderation will hurt the discussion. Note that transmission of fewer newsgroups or moderation of same is quite likely on USENET-by-phone, let alone by satellite, since at least one backbone site is finding the escalating phone bills unjustifiable. And this will happen by fiat, not by voting.
mjs@alice.UUCP (M.J.Shannon,Jr.) (01/13/85)
Ladies & Gentlemen of the net:
The moderation of Stargate vs. the unmoderation of the rest of USENET is
completely analogous to what you may view on commercial TV vs. what you may
view on cable TV. Commercial TV is broadcast (this is THE KEY WORD) into the
homes of people who expect to see things having some modicum of taste; cable TV
(in particular, the public access channels), have no such expectation placed on
them.
How many of you would be upset if, say, one of the national networks started
broadcasting the sort of movies that appear on something like The Playboy
Channel, or perhaps something much more vulgar (yes, I know that vulgarity is
in the eyes of the beholder, but more importantly, it is in the eyes of the
censor!)? A more important question is: How much of the commercial-TV-viewing-
public would be upset? I'd be willing to bet my net worth that there would be
such an uproar that any network that tried it would have so many suits filed
against them that a) the broadcasting of such material would cease quickly, and
b) the network could potentially fold while restraining orders were served.
Is this what you want to happen to Stargate? Look, I don't appreciate
censorship any more than any of the rest of you, but it is necessary to the
success of the Stargate project. Anyone who doesn't agree just isn't being
realistic! I don't care to see Lauren and/or the folks providing the satellite
connection being sued for libel, slander, or obscenity (independent of my views
on obscenity), nor do I care to have our network disbanded when the attempt is
made to broadcast such things. Please, people, consider what the rest of the
public may or may not be outraged at; they are the folks who will judge us
based on what we broadcast. Consider too what the FCC would have to say about
what we broadcast. In some sense, THEY are the `supreme authority' here, not
Lauren, and not the folks providing satellite time.
Enough flaming for now. As usual, the opinions expressed above are unrelated
to any opinions my employer might have on the subject (if any). (Note that
this disclaimer is DIRECTLY RELATED to the subject at hand; I don't care to
lose my employment on the basis of what I say (or don't say) on this
unmoderated forum.)
--
Marty Shannon
UUCP: {alice,research}!mjs
(rabbit is dead; long live alice!)
Phone: 201-582-3199spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford) (01/13/85)
Folks, "net.news.stargate" is out there now. Please direct all further
discussion about satellite netnews transmissions to that group,
including the censorship issue, coverage, technical questions, etc.
Thanks.
--
Gene "7 months and counting" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaffranka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) (01/14/85)
In article <425@cepu.UUCP> scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods) writes: > >As I see it now, the net as it currently is will be here for a long time. >There will ALWAYS be news groups that are not sutable for BROADCAST nationwide >(E.G. la.eats, ba.wanted). There will also be groups that would from a >distribution point of view seem to be reasonable, from a content view are >totally out of place (E.G. net.flame). >-- Again, I reiterate... Stargate is wonderful. Stargate is fine. But what I want to know is if there will be any unmoderated groups around after stargate is implemented. As far as I can see, the basic scenario goes like this: Stargate is implemented. Certain groups are moved there (net.unix-wizards, etc.) and moderated. Certain other (unpopular, unmoderatable without changing their character) groups remain on phones (net.flame, net.motss, net.abortion, etc.). Backbone site A (followed quickly by backbone sites B, C, ..., X, Y, Z) decide, "Well, we're on the stargate system. No need to support the groups on the phone nets, anymore." And now only those subjects which a small elite group of "moderators" (censors, Facists, *ssh*les) think are ac- ceptable are discussed. And what we have is no longer USENET. What you have is a form of ARPANET digested materials. Not only that, but the "moderator" can edit or delete any message from you without your permission. Nor can you protest. The moderator blocks any message saying you were misquoted. Yes, it's a fine little net you want me to give my active support to. My feeling is that what you are doing amounts to de facto censorship without recourse. Again, if you will tell me how "politically unpopular" news groups will survive, I will stop making such a big issue of it. But it seems that you people want to have stargate, regardless. Well, who out there is in favor of getting around the current people who run this net and forming a new one. I suggest the name ALTERNET and a new newsgroup called net.alternet to discuss it.
honey@down.FUN (code 101) (01/16/85)
i think alternet is a great idea. might i suggest the first top level group be alternet.paranoid? i want to know who runs this net and why they're out to get me. peter
peterb@pbear.UUCP (01/16/85)
Steve, You don't need a good size computer to get to the net. Last I looked, I saw some PC/XT's that were running PC/IX and getting on the net. So it doesn't take that large a machine. Also, if you don't like the garbage that it running in a group, drop from it. It isn't that hard to skip a group that doesn't have any good stuff. Or if you can swing it, create a program that keeps track of machine!user and build a list of people that create "garbage" and have your news filter it out. (I am not saying that the stuff on the net is garbage, just that if STEVE thinks its garbage he can filter it out.) I don't think that stargate screening is proper. Stargate should be used to speed up the sending/receiving of mail/news. This would definitly speed up the posting and distubution process. But if stargate is set on screening, those items that it refuses can still be deffered through land lines. Hopefully they will not be dropped. ima!pbear!peterb
scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods) (01/17/85)
In article <377@hercules.UUCP> franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) writes: >In article <425@cepu.UUCP> scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods) writes: >> >>As I see it now, the net [... deleted comment about local groups...] >> ...reasonable, from a content view are >>totally out of place (E.G. net.flame). >>-- > Again, I reiterate... [...]s I can see, the basic scenario goes like >this: > Stargate is implemented. > > Certain groups are moved there (net.unix-wizards, etc.) and > moderated. > > Certain other (unpopular, unmoderatable without changing their > character) groups remain on phones (net.flame, net.motss, > net.abortion, etc.). > > Backbone site A (followe[...]phone nets, anymore." > > And now only those subjects which a small elite group of > "moderators" (censors, Facists, *ssh*les) think are ac- > ceptable are discussed. I really resent the implication that moderators have to be censors, Facists and/or Assholes. Personal attacks will prodouce nothing but an unwillingness to listen to your side of the story. > > And what we have is no longer USENET. What you have is a form >of ARPANET digested materials. Not[...]ts to de facto censorship without >recourse. > Again, if you will tell me how "politically unpopular" news >groups will survive, I will stop making such a big issue of it. Somehow is suspect that you'll never be convinced but... > But it seems that you people want to have stargate, regardless. >Well, who out there is in favor of getting around the current people who >run this net and forming a new one. I suggest the name ALTERNET and a >new newsgroup called net.alternet to discuss it. I do like that name, perhaps thats what you can call: YOU CAN ALWAYS CREATE A NEW NET!!!!!!!!!!!!! MAJOR ASSUMPTION, the backbone sites will drop the net. (they might, then again they might not) How do you get around it? Well you connect you site to someother site (that is willing to connect to you and exchange net.flame (or whatever) (Gee, sounds just like usenet to me). Just because the backbone sites don't exsist doesn't mean that the net will wither away. REMEMBER they didn't always exsist!!!!! YOU CAN ALWAYS CREATE A NEW NET!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just how in the [explitive deleted] do you think USENET got started in the first place? It didn't spring full grown from the forehead of AT&T you know. -- Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology) uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb}!cepu!scw ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-cs location: N 34 3' 9.1" W 118 27' 4.3"
rodrique@hplabs.UUCP (Mike Rodriquez) (01/23/85)
Frank, are you as dense as you pretend to be? The point has been made so many times, I can't believe that you don't get it. Whether you agree or disagree is one thing, but to ignore the points that Lauren and others have made, effectively invalidates any legitimate concerns that you may have. THE POINT IS: it is not the changing of the medium that makes us concerned about legalities of postings; it is the fact that there will be a focal point for lawyers to sue, if they have a mind to. That point being the sattelite company through which all postings will flow through. Also, another point concerns the information content on the net. It really costs money to send 25 redundant answers to, for example, "what is the name of this song?". PLEASE, think about it. I share some of your concerns, but when you rant and rave and recommend totally obnoxious behaviour (spit on them in public), NOBODY will pay any attention. Mike Rodriquez VAX System Administrator HPLabs Palo Alto "this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago" generic disclaimer goes here "it's me not HP you see?"