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From: mark@mimsy.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,sci.physics,sci.bio,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Parapsychology, Pro and Con: BBS Call for Commentators
Message-ID: <5888@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Mar-87 16:04:12 EST
Article-I.D.: mimsy.5888
Posted: Thu Mar 19 16:04:12 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Mar-87 06:47:12 EST
References: <599@mind.UUCP> <707@xanth.UUCP> <719@xanth.UUCP>
Reply-To: mark@mimsy.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Organization: PRISM Group, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
Lines: 33
Keywords: I don't want to fund your business with public money.
Xref: mnetor comp.cog-eng:84 sci.physics:939 sci.bio:169 talk.philosophy.misc:509

In article <719@xanth.UUCP> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>In article <707@xanth.UUCP> [I wrote]:
>>
>>I would like to register an objection to BBS, Inc. conducting their for-profit
>>business over this publicly funded network.  
>-> Reposting announcements of products or services is flatly forbidden.
>  [^^^^^^^^^                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ]

Reposting is not the same as posting--I have seen only a single
BBS posting per commentary request, and sometimes several requests
per posting, which is nice of them.

In any case, I guess I don't understand why BBS asking for commentary
on their articles is announcing a product or service, except very
indirectly.  (They can hardly ask for commentary without saying a
*little* about the journal.) But otherwise it seems to me to be
very analogous to conference announcements, which also solicit
people to submit things to them.  An advantage of the BBS postings
over conference announcements is that they give a real abstract of
a paper, so you can learn a little about current research.  Although
BBS may be, strictly speaking, profit making, their primary purpose
is dissemination of scholarly work.  And you can always read the
BBS in your library, making them no money at all.

I like the BBS postings, I think they are quite within the spirit
of the net, they serve to open the BBS commentaries to something
wider than the "word-of-mouth" which prevailed before, and I would
like to see them continue.

-mark
-- 
Spoken: Mark Weiser 	ARPA:	mark@mimsy.umd.edu	Phone: +1-301-454-7817
After May 1, 1987: weiser@xerox.com