Xref: utzoo news.admin:6423 news.groups:11199 gnu.misc.discuss:49
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Changes to Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies
Message-ID: <647@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Jul 89 17:26:43 GMT
References: <7429@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <323@ncis.tis.llnl.gov>
Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
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In article <323@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>I would have no objection to FSF sponsoring newsgroups/mailing lists
>on publicly-funded networks that were merely open forums for the discussion 
>of FSF software, goals, or philosophy.  But by stating that contrary
>political viewpoints or taboo subjects will be "off-limits", FSF has
>crossed from sponsorship to private advocacy, and that is wrong.

What do you think about moderated newsgroups in general?  Are they
never acceptable?  Acceptable only if the filter applied to articles
isn't political, or what?  It may be that you have a reasonable
position here, but I'm not sure what it is.

However, I think you should also consider the following.  No one has
said topics contrary to GNU aims and political philosophy are considered
off limits on Usenet, only that they shouldn't go in *this* newsgroup.

The whole point of newsgroups is to classify articles by topic.
So, to me, political categories that don't prevent the articles
from being posted in other groups are not objectionable.