Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate
Subject: Re: Need for Stargate screening?
Message-ID: <702@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 00:42:28 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.702
Posted: Mon Jan 14 00:42:28 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 06:26:56 EST
References: <494@vortex.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Columbus
Lines: 115

Jack Jansen says:
>Before you can connect to stargate (as a *sender*) you have to sign
>a contract, that makes you responsible for all news to goes
>to stargate through your site.
>Now, when a site wants to send it's news via stargate, it starts
>asking it's neighbours to sign a similar contract *with them*.

Aside from the obvious upward compatibility problem, and what to do
about hosts that haven't signed anything yet, the basic flaw in this
plan is that it transfers the responsibility from the individuals doing
the posting to the organization that owns the machine.  If you carry
this out to its natural conclusion, you'll quickly find that any orginization
that has signed such a contract will immediately take steps to prevent
anyone who has access to the machine from posting anything which might
cause trouble for the organization.  This will usually mean that either
(a) nobody will be allowed to post anything, or (b) all postings will
have to be approved by a local moderator first.  It will prevent any
participation in any nontechnical groups at companies, and given the
lack of control universities have over their students, it will probably
prevent all postings at universities.

Frank Adrian (responding to Brian Reid) says:
>>Stargate offers something new, and I think we have almost a moral obligation
>>to exploit it appropriately.
>As I've said before, no problem with that. I do want to have an unedited
>channel, though.

You want an unedited, free-for-all channel.  It's clear that there are
lots of others out there that want this too.  And in principle, most
people on the net don't mind you having such a channel.  However, you
(collectively, that is, all the people screaming for unmoderated news)
also seem to feel you are entitled to have this at somebody else's expense,
that is, you don't want to pay any of the phone bills.

I must point out that there is a very significant volume of people who
want either (a) lower phone bills, (b) higher quality netnews, or both.
Both of these groups are very interested in stargate, moderation, and
other ideas that may help meet these goals.

The complaining that I'm seeing seems to follow the logic below:
(a) The current state of Usenet is high phone bills, high volume, little
    or no moderation.
(b) Ideas for saving money and moderation involve moving a significant
    volume of the traffic to moderated newsgroups.
(c) This would in turn cause some of the organizations that are paying
    the bills to turn to moderated, possibly broadcast, newsgroups as a
    cost saving measure.
(d) Your free forum that currently exists would dry up.

I must point out that the people paying the bills get to make the decisions.
The people going along for the free ride can shout all they want, but if
the bean counters say "shut it off" or "restrict it to certain things",
the rest of us will have no choice but to go along.  (I am not a bean
counter - they could cut me off just as easily as the rest of you.)

So it comes down to this.  If the idea of completely unmoderated newsgroups
is really worthwhile (to the bean counters), then it will stand on its
own merit.  That is, if people who pay phone bills are willing to spend
them on net.all, even when mod.all exists, they will do so.  If the stuff
on net.all is really worthless drivel, they won't.  If some of you people
out there feel wronged that the other guy won't pay for your drivel, you
still have the option of paying the phone bill yourself (depending on the
circumstances, you may have to buy your own UNIX machine, but these are
getting cheaper all the time; right now a news-worthy IBM PC costs about
6 months worth of typical phone bills) and continuing to transfer drivel.

Unmoderated net.all will continue to exist as long as there are people
out there willing to pay for it.  Those of you bitching and moaning about
mod.all existing apparently are unwilling to pay for net.all yourselves,
so you're effectively agreeing that it's worthless drivel.

Now, for the rest of us, we want a higher quality service.  Your bitching
and moaning about how you think our higher quality service might lead to
you losing your freebie drivel channels just adds to the drivel level.
It isn't going to stop the rest of us from proceeding with this new
technology.  Lauren will proceed with the StarGate experiment; I will
proceed with the mod.all experiment, and you won't stop us.

>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.

I strongly urge all people interested in the legal issues to either read
the current issue of login (the Usenix newsletter) or else attend the
second talk at Usenix in Dallas (the one by the lawyers.)  Usenix has just
had them research this entire issue.  I'll summarize my reading of it here,
but don't just believe me, get the details.  (Perhaps the article can be
posted to the net?)

Basically, they point out that there are no court decisions about things
like Usenet yet, but there are three possible ways a court would rule:
(a) Usenet is a common carrier, like the phone company.  It has no control
over what it carries, so it is not liable for the content.
(b) Usenet is a broadcaster, like a TV station.  It has control over what
it carries, so it is liable for the content.
(c) Usenet is some new thing, and new interpretations of the law are needed.

In my opinion, we are now facing a crossroads and can proceed down either
path (a), by pursuing net.all, or path (b), by pursuing mod.all.  If our
only goal were to make sure nobody sues us, obviously (a) is better.  If
we also want to get some work done, and keep our costs to a reasonable level,
we have to consider option (b).  It seems to me that both paths should be
explored.

My own guess at where we'll eventually wind up is with a large number of
moderated newsgroups, and a small number of unmoderated groups.  It's
similar to TV: there are lots of channels that have reasonably high
quality (and some control over what gets on) and people watch them.
There are also a few public access channels over which anyone can do
anything; there aren't many people who watch them.  The demand and the
willingness of people to pay the bills will determine what happens.

	Mark Horton