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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: "try-out trials" (and some general opinions)
Message-ID: <965@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Apr-87 13:50:41 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.965
Posted: Tue Apr 14 13:50:41 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 04:42:55 EST
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 75

Regardless of whether or not such "try-out trials" exist in the U.S.,
I personally would have no interest in Stargate "sending out everything"
in any case.  My opinions on this subject are pretty well known--I think
that a large proportion of netnews is a waste--repeated messages
(how many times do we need to see different people answering the same
question in the same ways or repostings of the same game programs?),
"vanity" postings, flames that really should be sent as private mail
(if sent at all), etc.  Overall traffic on Usenet continues to grow at what
can honestly be called an alarming rate, and traffic volume can fluctuate
fairly widely over short periods due to the actions of even a few
prolific posters.

This isn't to begrudge anyone their "rights" to "get everything"
if they want to.  As always, sites can get whatever Usenet newsgroups
they desire from any other site willing to provide them.  But I
frequently wonder how many people really have the sheer time or
mental "stamina" to wade through all that stuff--surely most people
have better things to do with their time than read 100 messages
all informing us that Bullwinkle's middle initial is "J".  The quality
issue applies regardless of the monetary cost of receiving netnews.
Even if everyone could receive all netnews for free (and disk space
and CPU cycles also were freely available and not needed for other
purposes) I strongly believe that the provision of "quality" materials
is a useful and desired service.  I've had many people tell me that
one of their primary interests in Stargate is our desire to provide
quality materials that would provide more value for the time spent
reading them.  As I've discussed in the past, quality can range
from relatively straightforward removal of obviously inappropriate
or repetitious messages up to professional journal quality, depending
on the situation and information involved.

Stargate views a netnews subset as but one element of a useful information
service, but we want to go far beyond that.  We've already received
queries from persons interested in providing specialized information
for Stargate, and it appears likely that organizations unrelated to
Usenet, but with a lot of useful information and talents, are interested
in participating.  Stargate's ability to get any given information
to essentially all direct subscribers at the same time, at any hour of 
the day or night, opens up a range of information possibilities that
can be very exciting.

By the way, on the issue of common carriers... Simply declaring yourself
to be a common carrier means nothing.  In fact, even organizations
who behave as common carriers can get sued.  Even entities such as
phone companies have been sued over issues such as knowingly allowing
pornographic materials (as defined in any given state--there are
wide variations!) to be sent by phone.  In the netnews context,
it seems likely that any organization that promotes itself as
a central netnews distribution site for uncontrolled (unmoderated)
materials is setting themselves up as a potential target--particularly
if they are collecting money for such services.  They will be the
obvious entity to attack by any party who feels certain material
made available was unlawful, damaging, etc.  This is especially true
with material coming from Usenet, where the authenticity of articles
and authors is generally impossible to verify--so blaming the
author of the article can be difficult or impossible.  So who can they 
blame?--the entity that centralized and made widely available the material.
How the courts will deal with such situations is unclear--similar cases
involving BBS's have gone both ways with wide variation from case to case 
and locale to locale.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.  Stargate's focus on "quality" relates
not only to technical and legal issues but also, very importantly, to the
inherent worth of quality material itself.  As for the issues discussed
above, I am not a lawyer, but I do follow this area as closely as I can.

Finally, I'd like to point out that I am but one of 5 persons on the
Stargate governing board.  I do not have administrative authority
over the project--the money (such as it is), orders, etc. are handled
by another board member.  While I still of course want to see the
project succeed, it is no longer a one man operation.

Thanks much for reading through all this.

--Lauren--