Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: misc.headlines.unitex moderator RESIGNS
Message-ID: <36577@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 17 Nov 89 05:54:28 GMT
References: <3708@ccnysci.UUCP> <2388@stl.stc.co.uk> <9739@zodiac.ADS.COM> <5408@cps3xx.UUCP> <9813@zodiac.ADS.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 60

>How does this tie in with Patt's resignation?  Did she not resign
>because she was pressured by the powers-that-be to publish certain
>kinds of articles?

Not exactly. What *did* happen was that the Unitex folks told her to post
messages that were nothing more than blatant fundraising, of the order "send
us money or we'll shoot your dog" type.

She told them that this kind of message was against USENET policy (and
against Internet policy as well). They got abusive. Patt resigned. They
threatened to get her kicked off the net, then got abusive when Patt's
sysadmin told them to stick it.

Patt came to myself (as newgroup czar) and I brought in Spaf and Greg (as
other long-time net.pharts). She originally wanted to unmoderate the group.
I convinced her and Greg and Spaf that this was a really stupid idea,
because (1) that'd just give them free rein to post their fundraising
messages, and (2) the group would turn into a flame-discussion group rather
than an information disemmination group. 

We suggested to the Unitex folks to drop the fundraising messages. Their
responses to both myself and Spaf were abusive. Since they were unwilling to
consider having the group except on their terms (we tried more than once),
it made no sense to look for a new moderator since the first thing that
would happen would be the moderator would have to fight over the fundraising
messages. So I told Patt to resign and request having the group nuked.

Under the circumstances, it was the proper thing. If we allow one charity to
start fundraising on the network, you're opening up the doors for *every*
charity to spend the networks money pushing their causes. The possibility of
seeing a couple of hundred groups (no matter how good the causes) posting on
the network looking for bucks was enough to scare me -- much as I like the
Sierra Club or Amnesty International, USENET is a place for information, not
fundraising drives.

>Did she not attempt a political power play of
>her own by declaring the newsgroup dead simply because she was
>stepping down as moderator? 

No, if anyone did, *I* did. Patt followed my request. I sent out the
newgroup. If you're going to yell at anyone, yell at me. But we were in a
fairly nasty situation, with some rather unpleasant mail traipsing back adn
forth and this wasn't something that would lend it to the typical USENET
"we'll argue about it until March and then decide whether or not there's
something we feel like doing" public format.

I was kind of hoping this'd all just fade away and we could avoid bringing
some of this public. That's not happening. I'm sure there will be people who
don't like what I did. That's life -- flame away if you want. But not every
thing lends itselt to long-running consensus discussions that USENET likes.
And the flames that this might cause are nothing to the flames that'd happen
when PBS starts running its auction over the net....


-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>    Editor,OtherRealms    <+>   Member SFWA/ASFA
chuq@apple.com   <+>   CI$: 73317,635   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

All it takes is one thorn to make you forget the dozens of roses on the bush.