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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Need for Stargate screening?
Message-ID: <498@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 18:01:50 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.498
Posted: Sun Jan  6 18:01:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 05:16:11 EST
References: <1917@sun.uucp>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 145

[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--