Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/23/84; site ucbcad.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad!faustus From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.stargate,net.followup Subject: Re: STARGATE (READ THIS!) Message-ID: <65@ucbcad.UUCP> Date: Thu, 17-Jan-85 21:02:02 EST Article-I.D.: ucbcad.65 Posted: Thu Jan 17 21:02:02 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jan-85 01:42:09 EST References: <504@vortex.UUCP> Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA Lines: 39 Xref: watmath net.news:3014 net.news.stargate:54 net.followup:4362 I will be the first to agree with you that the way Frank Adrian expressed his opinion of the Stargate project was inexcusable. The people who have been working on this project certainly deserve a lot more consideration and respect than this. But before this message was posted, I hadn't heard a word about Stargate, and I suspect that most of the people on the net hadn't. I wish that somebody had posted something to net.general or net.announce to alert people to what was going on in net.news.stargate before Mr. Adrian got around to it. This is an important point in the development of Usenet, and I think people should have been made aware of it before now. As I see it, the reason that people are so worried is that there will be some sort of moderation on almost all newsgroups. But what sort of moderation are we going to have? If the only problem is to protect Usenet from possible legal problems, I suspect that only a very small fraction of articles will be susceptible to censoring. Dirty jokes, communist propaganda, and so forth isn't the sort of thing that should be censored. In fact, aside from quotes of copywrighted materials, I haven't seen a single article (except perhaps for Frank Adrian's, ironically enough) that is appropriate for censoring. But if the purpose of censoring is to make sure that news is of higher quality than it has been so far, all I can say is that if people start to throw out articles because they feel that the things discussed have been discussed before, or because they personally don't like what is being said, or even that it has been posted to the wrong groups, I will stop reading netnews. The ONLY purpose of censorship should be to make sure that Usenet will not be held legally responsible for what is posted, and I would very much like to hear the people in charge of the Stargate project adopt this position. Aside from this one point, I am very much in favor of Stargate, because it offers Usenet a chance to go from being a second-class network held together by bubblegum and string to a position of respectability. UUCP just won't cut it any more. The only thing to worry about is that in the conversion to Stargate the nature of Usenet will be changed too much, in the wrong ways. Wayne