Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site pbear.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!yale!pbear!peterb From: peterb@pbear.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Is anyone else offended..... Message-ID: <6700010@pbear.UUCP> Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 16:13:00 EDT Article-I.D.: pbear.6700010 Posted: Fri Jun 28 16:13:00 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 06:46:25 EDT References: <266@timeinc.UUCP> Lines: 58 Nf-ID: #R:timeinc:-26600:pbear:6700010:000:2855 Nf-From: pbear!peterb Jun 28 16:13:00 1985 I have been watching this debate and the "villians" for a time now, and I feel I should add my 2 cents worth. As the network grows, the distrubution of users varies, but it always include those persons who make themselves highly visible by insulting other users. Lately users over at ucla have been drawing a lot of attention to themselves by the way they insult other people. Notifying the SA after the fact does not correct the damage created by those persons. Also the SA can not be 100% dependable to police the site. Also some SAs may be hesitant to convict and sentence personnel that vagrently violate the guildlines of USENET. What I suggest is that some person at the site read every article and reply that originates at the site and refuse transmission of any article/response that can discolor the site. This would also remove the need of all the disclaimers floating around. Also this one person would be responsible for releasing any articles that contain questionable content. Also this person would activlely converse with other "court officers" the set up guildlines for policing the net. If an "officer" finds an article that is questionable, the article would be diverted back to the originator's mailbox with added comments that state this and suggestions on how to correct the problem. This officer would not wade throught the mail, just the articles that get posted to news/notes, thereby cutting down on his/her load. If an article gets out of a site, it would contain in it the "rubberstamp" of the officer conatining loginid and date/time stamping. So if at a later date it is deemed questionable, there is a path back to a person who released it. This will remove the "videogame" approach to the net. Sure people play games with it, but with a level of buffering in between, all the obviously bad articles can be "trapped" and vectored back for editing/correcting. I know somebody out there is going to jump up and down and yell "Censorship! Censorship! Don't violate my rights!" If people don't post questionable material, they would never observe the interaction of a censor. On the other hand, the article should never have been posted anyway. I know that I have not addressed all of the issues here, but I have tried to present a possible alternative to dropping groups entirely. I hertily agree with an SA's wish to drop a non-useful group such as net.flame, and to pull the plug on other groups. It's their bill to pay to transmit it, so they can decide whether or not to transmit it. Usenet is an anarchy, and if everybody plays clean ball, no one will know this. Else somebody is going to get upset when their article is pulled or their group is dropped. All I can say is tough... don't say that I didn't say its coming nor agree with it. Peter Barada {ihnp4!inmet|{harvard|cca}!ima}!pbear!peterb