Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!yetti!oz From: oz@yetti.UUCP Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: USENET PAPER (1/2) INTRODUCTION and MISCELLANIA Message-ID: <214@yetti.UUCP> Date: Sun, 29-Nov-87 17:16:31 EST Article-I.D.: yetti.214 Posted: Sun Nov 29 17:16:31 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 1-Dec-87 05:32:28 EST Reply-To: oz@yetti.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) Distribution: world Organization: York U. Computer Science Lines: 169 What you are about to get in the next posting is a paper [draft] titled USENET: An Examination of the Social and Political Processes of a Cooperative Computer/Communications Network Under the Stress of Rapid Growth by: Jerome Durlak Rory O'Brien Ozan Yigit This paper was originally presented at the Montreal Conference of the Canadian Communications Association. To our knowledge, it is the first paper that takes a serious look at the USENET as a Computer-Mediated Communication Medium, and also the first paper being made available to the audience of the very network it is investigating, for their commentary, suggestions etc. Unlike D. Norman's famous UN*X paper, this posting is done by the authors, to generate as much discussion as possible about the paper, and to encourage a serious look at the "net". It is our hope that further research will be undertaken as a result of this posting. The Posting: We have decided to post only a single copy of our paper, formatted by using a set of "generic" typesetting commands. Two "sed" scripts are used to convert the "generic" format to either N/Troff(MS) or LaTeX: sed -f dorof.sed usenet.fmt >usenet.n sed -f dotex.sed usenet.fmt >usenet.tex If you do not have n/troff or LaTeX, than you should be able to tweak the sed scripts and the header files (header.tex | header.n) to generate a version typesettable under scribe, script, roff, proff or whatever. PLEASE NOTE: Both this introduction, and the USENET paper itself are Copyright 1987, Jerome Durlak, Rory O'Brien, Ozan Yigit Rights are hearby granted to print or typeset for personal or academic research purposes only. All other forms of publication, distribution through bulletin boards or distribution on any network other than USENET, CDNNET, NETNORTH, ARPA Internet or CSNET requires prior written permission of the authors. This means: typeset it, and distribute internally in your organization, distribute through the networks mentioned, but do NOT try to publish it in a journal, or post it to bix, compuserve or your favorite bulletin board without our permission. A special permission is hereby granted to ;login:, The USENIX Association Newsletter, to publish a condensed version of this paper, provided that the condensed version is made available to the authors for a review before publication. Bit of History: This paper initially got started about a year ago, as one of the authors felt that USENET was consuming too much of his time [read: news-craving] and it deserved some formal attention. He managed to convince two innocent souls to join him into looking into USENET a bit more seriously, and hence this paper. Since than, the authors have gone over literally hundreds of news articles dating back to 1985, and are currently engaged in several other papers related to USENET. What is and what is not: This paper is about USENET, but not about whether USENET is good or bad. In other words, no messages from the Surgeon General. From the very start, we have decided to treat USENET as something that requires attention, much like an organism, rather than something that needs to be shot-down or glorified. [There are plenty of individuals engaging in the former or the latter daily, so you are not missing much.] It is also our unanimous feeling that a Computer Mediated Communication System as large and influential as USENET requires careful study before it is exposed for its weaknesses or strengths. At least one individual who read an early version of this paper remarked that we did not want to "offend" anybody. This is not entirely true. It is just that this particular paper is free from any hard conclusions that may be offensive to some. We are just scratching the surface of USENET. This paper is also a DRAFT. The purpose of this posting is to get some initial reactions to the paper, and correct any misunderstand- ings on our part before the final version. This paper also does not claim to have the appropriate socio- political and mass-media related models or theories. We think we have found some, and no doubt some of the net readers will suggest others. One model that sticks in our mind can be described as ANARCHY. We think this one requires close attention. Net Issues: We have, over the period of a year, observed USENET, and came up with many issues, each of which may be a basis for a separate study. Just to mention a few: legal issues, politics (gate-keepers vs readers), information-overload, evolution of a netiquette, chaos-vs-moderated conversations, asynchronicity in communication, adequacy of user interfaces for filtering/massaging, REAL costs of the net [reader/organization], quality of information [fallacy of "Gospel according to USENET"], and so on. Undoubtedly, many of the net readers have noted other issues worth investigation. This is probably as good a time as any to think about them. Feedback: The purpose of this posting is to generate feedback, whether it be your thoughts about relevant issues [some of which mentioned above], your thoughts, suggestions, flames about our paper, or any other comments you care to make. In our view, if you have anything to say, PLEASE SAY IT, either via private mail, or via the net. If you choose to e-mail to us, and you do not wish us to refer to that particular piece of correspondence in our future papers, please indicate it as such. In short, we will be looking forward to your comments in any shape or form. We would especially like to hear from the female readers of the net, as their voices are rarely heard in the matters relating to USENET itself. If you choose to include parts of our paper for any posting to the net, we would appreciate it if you keep such inclusions to bare minimum. We expect our paper to be read by many, and hence, there is no need to keep reposting it in small parts. All e-mail correspondence may be sent to: uunet!mnetor! ---+ ihnp4!utzoo! ----+--> yetti!netters .....!utgpu! ----+ or netters@yuyetti.BITNET or mindscan@yulibra.BITNET All written (surface mail) correspondence may be mailed to: Dr. Jerome Durlak Mass Communications Programme York University 4700 Keele Street North York, Ontario, M3J 1P3 Canada Acknowledgments: Few people had a chance to read a version of this paper, and made some very helpful comments. We would especially like to thank John Quarterman, Dave Taylor, Lauren Weinstein and John Gilmore for their comments and suggestions. We will include a more complete acknowledgments section to the final version of this paper. -- You see things, and you say "WHY?" Usenet: [decvax|ihnp4]!utzoo!yetti!oz But I dream things that never were; ......!seismo!mnetor!yetti!oz and say "WHY NOT?" Bitnet: oz@[yusol|yulibra|yuyetti] [Back To Methuselah] Bernard Shaw Phonet: [416] 736-5257 x 3976