Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The Dynamics of Debate on USENET
Message-ID: <1989Oct1.135803.11181@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 1 Oct 89 13:58:03 GMT
References: <35033@apple.Apple.COM> <46115@bbn.COM> <35037@apple.Apple.COM> <1989Sep27.175601.5363@ladc.bull.com> <822@swbatl.UUCP> <265@dbase.UUCP>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: North Coast Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, OH
Lines: 46

As quoted from <265@dbase.UUCP> by dveditz@dbase.UUCP (Dan Veditz):
+---------------
| In article <822@swbatl.UUCP> uusgta@swbatl.UUCP (Tom Adams ISO 5-4237) adds:
| >If what bothers you is [the] style,...spelling, grammar, immaturity, 
| >pomposity [etc.] ...of the poster,... *use mail first*.
| 
| Everyone here in news.admin seems to agree with these guidelines of socially 
| acceptable USENET behavior, but how do you 1) make all net-posters aware 
| of these guidelines, and 2) make them follow these guidelines.
+---------------

You can't, aside from exhorting people to read Spaf's "Emily Postnews Answers
Your Questions About USENET" posting in news.announce.newusers.  And we've all
seen how well *that* works.

Historically, the Usenet has had a simple but (usually) effective way to deal
with violations of its rules:  individuals would remind the offending poster
of the rules, and in extreme cases notify the offender's sysadmin of the
problem.  One of the problems with this self-policing is that there is a small
but vocal group of people who insist that attempts to enforce the "rules" of
Usenet will destroy the Usenet, and try to intimidate others into silence;
they have a point, but they are over-reacting a bit.

Another problem is that it seems to be becoming somewhat less effective as
time passes.  This may reflect a change in society in general, or simply an
indication that it doesn't work too well when the Usenet reaches a certain
"critical mass".

Not that there's any alternative that wouldn't radically change the nature of
the Usenet.  I suspect we're stuck with it.

+---------------
| These are rules of civilized behaviour, while our society is becoming
| less civilized.  We would be better for it if these ethics were adopted
+---------------

Opinion withheld, except to note that this is a worthy topic for one of the
"soc" groups, IMHO.  (In other words, I'm not certain we should get into that
in *this* group.)

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@NCoast.ORG
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
bsa@telotech.uucp, 161-7070 BALLBERY (MCI), ALLBERY (Delphi), B.ALLBERY (GEnie)
Is that enough addresses for you?   no?   then: allbery@uunet.UU.NET (c.s.misc)