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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site duke.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!mcnc!duke!bek
From: bek@duke.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: net.sources, the rise and fall of the net etc.
Message-ID: <4528@duke.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Jul-84 10:00:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: duke.4528
Posted: Thu Jul 19 10:00:37 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Jul-84 05:59:33 EDT
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 23

yetti!oz has some good insights about the nature of network postings.
I also think that the PRISONER'S DILEMMA applies.  What's good 
for one may be bad for all.  What is easy for one may make it harder 
on all of us.
   But I do think there is a solution.  We are playing the ITTERATED
prisoner's dilemma, and if my software were agile enough to respond
to specific persons' cooperations and defections, such persons might
have an insentive to cooperate.  I once threatened to suspend forwarding
of news from X because of X!jerk.  If only I had the software to back up 
my threat.  But alas, my only defense is to unsubscribe, and since my
machine still forewards stuff I don't read, the article glut still
threatens to kill the ntework.
   I would also like to see more groups similar to net.announce, which,
I have just learned, is moderated.  If the software could support
dymanic, collective approval of moderators for some groups, we could
elect (pure democracy for the first time in history?) the people we want 
to listen to.
   Please note that I DO fear majority rule censorship, but I do think
that rules (enforced by the software) can be created so that the net
is still free for all opinions.

Barrett Koster    ..!decvax!duke!bek
...from duke! ... Somebody around here started this mess.