Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: In Moderation
Message-ID: <8863@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 5 Jul 89 04:34:21 GMT
References: <8831@chinet.chi.il.us> <3300@epimass.EPI.COM> <197600001@inmet> <14403@bfmny0.UUCP> <3749@viscous.sco.COM> <24A91A67.28396@ateng.com> <3579@looking.on.ca> <1147@intercon.UUCP> <8853@chinet.chi.il.us> <485@logicon.arpa>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 50

In article <485@logicon.arpa> Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes:
>In article <8853@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>>You should use your own tools,
>>as you are doing, to make the Digest convenient and useful for yourself.

>I consider the In Moderation Network to be nothing more than a tool to
>make reading news more convenient.  Your objection to distribution of
>the TELECOM Digest through IMN denies me the use of that tool.  I am
>astounded that you can blithely apply your own judgement in deciding
>how to present the TELECOM Digest, yet refuse to allow me to use my
>own judgement in deciding how to read the Digest.  What business is it
>of yours whether I delegate article selection to a human or a machine?

Apparently you somehow did not read the earlier message on this. The 'tool'
known as In Moderation will not function like a press clipping service
where everything from the net is available and you advise them what you
want and don't want. I think that would be a fine idea, if it existed.

If you subscribe to In Moderation, you will only get what *they* want
you to see. Imagine having an editor installed in your computer, but you
are not allowed to personally operate it. I come in, read all the news
and edit it for you. *I* decide what you should read or not read from
the net. Now that is a bad idea.

You say that In Moderation is nothing more or less than an editing tool,
but the catch is Geoff G. will do the editing and selecting. I suppose
his judgment is as good as anyone else's on things, but the point is, it
is not you, taking your personal copy of the Digest and editing it for
your convenience. It is someone else doing the editing, of work that does
not belong to them. Then they claim it to be a whole new package as a
result, and sell it to you making a profit for themselves.

Quite a difference, and the fallacy involved in saying that In Moderation --
like the [Reader's Digest] is 'nothing more than an editing tool.'
This just isn't so.


Now, if you would like me to put you on the mailing list, and send you a
copy of the Digest, I will do so. Then if you wish to take *your copy, after
it is in your possession* and forward it to Geoff with a request that he
select some things for your to read, that is fine also. But I won't send
it to him first, to make your reading choices for you. What I am sending
out to the net is *my idea* of what you should read. My intellectual
efforts. My work. I won't let someone else take my work and repackage it
as their work and then sell it for a profit.

-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956