gazette@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) (01/15/91)
Text intended for this Wednesday's Gazette:
The provost last week announced the names of the people who will
make up the new {advisory committee on network news}, to set UW's
rules on the controversial text transmitted across UW and around
the world by computer.
Creation of the committee was promised in December after the
provost, Dr. Alan George, reversed himself and rescinded a ban on
a series of the newsgroups. One category of them, those dealing with
sex, remains forbidden on UW computers, and the single newsgroup
{rec.humor.funny} is heavily censored here.
The committee is charged with writing {a clear statement of principles}
for the use of the newsgroups, whose topics range from computer codes
to sewing. It is also to review each individual group {and make
recommendations on whether it is appropriate for University resources
to be used to distribute, store, read, prepare, and submit articles
belonging to that newsgroup}.
Chair of the new committee will be statistics professor Dr. Greg Bennett.
The other faculty members: Dr. Ian Gibson of earth sciences and Dr. John
Moore of management sciences.
Bud Walker, director of data processing, will sit on the committee as
representative of the University Computing Committee. (He is also chair
of UW's staff relations committee.)
Completing the membership are Vic Neglia of the arts computing
office; computer science graduate student Anil Goel; and CS undergraduate
Paul Check.
In a memo to the new members, officially appointing them, George wrote:
{I would welcome an opportunity to meet with you to talk about the
public and political implications of material which is carried on the
network. Other UW officers would, no doubt, also be pleased
to meet with the Committee.}