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From: john@chalmers.UUCP (John Hughes)
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate
Subject: Printer and publishers: a proposal for monitoring
Message-ID: <218@chalmers.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Feb-85 21:38:13 EST
Article-I.D.: chalmers.218
Posted: Tue Feb  5 21:38:13 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Feb-85 02:12:36 EST
Organization: Dept. of CS, Chalmers, Sweden
Lines: 46

This is a proposal for managing Stargate that might appeal to both camps.

Both sides of the argument seem to have legitimate concerns. Obviously
nobody wants to be sued, or to find themselves carrying an uncontrollable
volume of data. On the other hand, Stargate represents a new information
medium which may become very important in the future. We all OUGHT to be
concerned if any organisation has a monopoly of supplying information, no
matter how benign. We would all worry if one publisher bought all the
national newspapers.

The present ideas about "moderation" seem unsatisfactory on both counts.
There is no guarantee that moderators will keep the volume of information
low enough, and there is a possibility that some time in the future they
will become censors.

The alternative I suggest is based on an analogy between the carrier and a
printer, and the moderators and publishers. There are two basic principles:

1. Anybody at all should be able to become a moderator, and start
publishing their own newsgroup. This guarantees no censorship. The only
catch is that they have to sign a contract accepting legal responsibility
for libel, obscenities etc in their own publication (I'm no legal expert,
but surely such a thing can be made as near watertight as makes no
difference).

2. Only the most popular publications go via Stargate (measured by the
number of people subscribing to them). The carrier can choose how much
bandwidth to devote, by taking either the top 50 or top 1000 or whatever -
the point is the volume is controllable.

With this system net.oneeyed.parrots is safe, if enough people read it. If
it is dropped, the carrier and the moderators can't be blamed - who can
argue with democracy/market forces? The system encourages publications
that people actually want to read, whatever their subject. At the same
time, anybody who thinks the news is biased can set up 
net.my.personal.opinions, so long as he can persuade enough people to read it.

New publications must be able to get "airspace" somehow. Either they could
get top priority (because no-one has unsubscribed to them yet), or, if
that was abused, advance orders could be required. In this case, there's
obviously scope for someone to moderate a net.adverts.

It seems to me that a system like this avoids very many of the problems
that have been raised. What do the rest of you think?

John Hughes, Chalmers University, Gothenburg.	john%chalmers%ykxa@ucl-cs