Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!logicon.arpa!Makey
From: Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: In Moderation
Message-ID: <487@logicon.arpa>
Date: 6 Jul 89 05:58:35 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> <8863@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Future Procrastinators of America
Lines: 60

In article <8863@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>If you subscribe to In Moderation, you will only get what *they* want
>you to see.

So?  TELECOM Digest subscribers only get what *you* want them to see.
An important difference is that any IMN subscriber can always get an
unfiltered news feed if they wish.  To the best of my knowledge, there
is no way for Digest subscribers to read the raw stream of submitted
articles.

>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 said it, so you're probably right.  Letting *you* do the editing
would be a bad idea.  What I fail to understand is why you think you
know what is good or bad for *me*.  If I want to let someone else
select news articles for me, and even pay them to do it, it's none of
your business.

>the point is, it is not you, taking your personal copy of the Digest
>and editing it for your convenience.

The point is, I don't *want* to do the editing myself.  If I wanted to
read an unedited TELECOM Digest I would simply subscribe to it (or
comp.dcom.telecom) directly.

>It is someone else doing the editing, of work that does not belong to them.

Once again, so what?  You edit TELECOM Digest submissions that do not
belong to 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.

I don't want to read *your* idea of what I should read.  I want to
read *my* idea of what I should read.  It is my decision -- not yours
-- whether or not IMN satisfies my needs.

Have you ever eaten a bowl of corn flakes?  It's little more than
processed corn, repackaged and sold at a profit.  Here you are telling
me that I should buy raw corn every morning and do
whatever-it-is-you-do-to-make-corn-flakes just so I can eat breakfast.
Frankly, I'd much rather *pay* the Kellog company to give it to me in
a box, but no.  You, the farmer, have put weeks of hard work into
growing that corn, and you'll be damned if you'll let anyone eat it
unless they husk the ears themselves.

Say whatever you want, but if you truly valued the intellectual effort
you put into the TELECOM Digest then *you* would be charging for it.
Your actions belie your words.

                           :: Jeff Makey

Department of Tautological Pleonasms and Superfluous Redundancies Department
    Disclaimer: Logicon doesn't even know we're running news.
    Internet: Makey@LOGICON.ARPA    UUCP: {nosc,ucsd}!logicon.arpa!Makey