Xref: utzoo news.admin:3262 news.software.b:1553
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cfa!cfa250!donna
From: donna@cfa250.harvard.edu (Donna Irwin x57134)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Usenet is not a BBS (Was: Re: Results of "moderation poll" (LONG))
Message-ID: <1061@cfa214.cfa250.harvard.edu>
Date: 16 Aug 88 15:25:17 GMT
References: <6627@conexch.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Lines: 24


> It is my feeling that the difficulties that usenet is experiencing at this
> time are due to novice usenet users not being _required_ to learn the "rules"
> of this unique medium before they are being permitted post to it.

I'm a novice user who searched through a number of Usenet directories
without finding any rules of net etiquette, or even instructions on
how to use the system.  Until I read this entry, I didn't know Usenet
was anything but a bulletin board.  People might try improving the
on-line documentation before they flame the novices.

Similarly, veterans should be more charitable toward people who post questions
and ideas Usenetted before.  The vets may have seen the previous postings,
but I would guess that at least 20 percent of the Usenet
users have been on the system less than six months.  The novice
users might be intrigued by what the vets find tiresome.

Those who are trying to maintain the "electronic journal"
quality of Usenet are fighting a losing battle.  The nature of
a computer network makes flamefests and bs-ing inevitable.  The
electronic journal folks' only hope is the kind of centralized
editorial authority that computer networking was supposed to subvert.

Allison Bell, using Donna's terminal