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