Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site looking.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Blocking messages from a site is perfectly legitimate
Message-ID: <226@looking.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jan-85 00:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.226
Posted: Tue Jan 29 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 04:15:11 EST
References: <10300006@ccvaxa.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 26

It's wondeful to hear all the proponents of our 'free' and 'unrestricted'
anarchy net yell so much at the suggestion that Adrian's messages be
blocked off.  (I thought this message was a joke anyway, few would go to
the trouble to actually modify the code in this way...)

Get it through your heads what free and unresticted means.   It means
anybody on the net anywhere has the right to do anything.  Block sites,
block people, block groups.  Even EDIT messages passing through to the
side administrator's liking.   It's what unrestricted means.

Sure, if a site gets nasty, you try and convince people not to feed it,
or try not to take your news from it, and that's all fair game, too.

The only way you can assure consistent quality net service is to pay the
people providing the service.  This means "Usenet, Inc." or some variation.
And we all know about all the flames directed towards Usenet, Inc. from
all the defenders of the "free, unrestricted" net.   The fact is that the
only way to make sure that the net provides the services you want is to
pay for them.   Anything worth having is worth paying for to have it done
right.

But Usenet Inc will perhaps never come to be because all the advocates of
the "free, unrestricted" net (which now costs various sites >$600,000 per year)
shouted down the people who thought it might improve things.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473