Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsh!wcs From: wcs@cbnewsh.att.com (Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Anarchy Message-ID: <1990Nov24.000319.21796@cbnewsh.att.com> Date: 24 Nov 90 00:03:19 GMT References: <1990Nov18.162646.15957@com50.c2s.mn.org> <1990Nov19.192456.3726@com50.c2s.mn.org> Organization: Here, beside the rising tide Lines: 42 In article <1990Nov19.192456.3726@com50.c2s.mn.org>, craig@com50.c2s.mn.org (Craig Wilson) writes: > In article <> curt@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca (Curt Sampson) writes: > >Oh? How about some examples of this centralised authority? There is > >on the internet, but I have yet to see any on the usenet. > Moderated newsgroups and the newgroup creation "rights" consolidated in the > hands of the moderator of news.announce.newgroups; to list the most obvious. That's not authority - that's anarchy at it's best! In the absense of coercion, people will create order when order is useful, and that's what's happened here. Cooperation, not coercion. Drag out your old Greek dictionary, and look at the words: ana = not, arche = rulers. "No laws" would be something like "annomos" or "antinomy". Let's look at the structure of Usenet - most of us use a small number of software packages to transmit the news, and those packages give us the ability to originate, accept, and retransmit articles, and to read them in a convenient fashion. The software has convenient mechanisms for creating or deleting newsgroups, either automatically or manually, and we can decide whether to respond to requests, and whether to send out newgroups or rmgroups. The "rules" are agreed on by the community as a convenience, and define what will or will not annoy the general public. You don't have to follow them, and other people can ignore your control messages and complain to you about annoying them. By contrast, Prodigy's managers control their net, and they can censor messages or dump users if they want. The net.gods here can only flame you or refuse to relay your postings - they can't get rid of them. There are islands of archy in this anarchy - my employer has policies about use of their resources for netnews, so they can boot me off if I break the rules, and I can't create newsgroups on this news server machine, which feels somewhat coercive (it's not really, since my employment is a voluntary agreement between me and them.) But they can't tell YOU what newsgroups you can carry on your machine. -- Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs AT&T Bell Labs 4M-312 Holmdel NJ Government is like an elephant on drugs: It's very confused, makes lots of noise, can't do anything well, stomps on anyone in its way, and it sure eats a lot.