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From: franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Need for Stargate screening?
Message-ID: <373@hercules.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 16:15:06 EST
Article-I.D.: hercules.373
Posted: Fri Jan 11 16:15:06 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 03:19:07 EST
References: <494@vortex.UUCP> <1917@sun.uucp> <366@hercules.UUCP> <2309@Glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 82
Summary: 

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