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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!brandx.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin
Subject: Re: EndOfSourcesList+AnnouncementOfNetOmbudsman -- communication?
Message-ID: <272@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 22:52:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.272
Posted: Tue Jun 30 22:52:27 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jul-87 01:09:17 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 73
Keywords: solving the moderation bottleneck
Summary: responses to three common misinterpretations of what i have said
Xref: mnetor news.groups:1114 news.misc:657 news.stargate:210 news.sysadmin:254 news.admin:575

In article <8225@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> ...
> Please be advised that unless you have the consent of the moderator for this,
> which I've seen no indication of, utzoo reserves the right to discard such
> falsely-moderated messages.  We strongly support the moderated groups and do
> not want to see them destroyed by holier-than-thou bozos who believe it is
> their God-given right to post anywhere they please.

The message you are replying to specifically mentioned that it was
always assumed that some people would choose not to carry some things.
Indeed, I was quite surprised when I found out that the stuff you all
call `Facist mode' doesn't work for stuff that isn't locally created.
Certainly it should and doubtless soon it will.  [Incidently, your
situation had alot to do with why I announced that Distribution usa
would be used instead of Distribution na.  Some Canadians thought they
were experiancing typical American nearsightedness when I made that
announcement.  Hopefully the new net ombudsman (weemba@berkeley.edu)
will understand the significance of such actions.

> If you think that an unmoderated group deserves to exist on a particular
> topic, start one.  A newsgroup, not a mailing list.  Carried on your own
> uucp links, not the existing backbone, so that *YOU* are paying for it.
> [needless vulgarity edited].

This is basically the classic `love it or leave it' arguement that
people have used since the beginning of time to act as if they somehow
owned the status quo and everyone was freeloading off them.  No one
site or even a group of sites as large as the `backbone' has the
resources to supply any aspect of net news as a free service to all
the thousands of sites on the net.  This net would not exist without
the efforts of a great number of people -- including the posters who
thanklessly supply the flow for the networking people to experiment
with managing.  Currently there is no notion within Usenet of what 
constitutes due process for agreeing to an action because every site
maintains the right to completely ignore any action it wishes.  Well
the flip side of this is that every user maintains the right to make
whatever action he wishes and let the sites handle it as they may.
Currently, neither party exercises these rights much since it would 
result in a chaos that neither wants.  However, over time there are
bound to be disagreements with regards to what constitutes proper
actions.  When this happens all parties have two choices, they can
run around and rant and rave or they can communicate and try to
resolve the issues involved.  While the tendency of some backbone
sites to rant and rave and threaten sometimes makes it seem like
it would be easier to just stop using the news system at all, the
usenet is such a wonderful idea that it seems a shame to abandon it.

> (Among your other services to the community, you've probably delayed the
> release of C News a little bit, because Geoff and I need to put our heads
> together on what can be done about better security for moderated groups.)

This is real good.  I definitely favour improved security and quotas
for controlling the flow of news.  I have had many discussions with
people about what can be done and it looks to me like you can get a
level of security comparable to the security of a person's login
password on a typical unix system -- i.e., too easy to be worth
breaking, but hard enough so that it isn't broken casually.  Of
course, my basic understanding of C News is that it is an attempt to
make the same old mistakes run faster.  Much more interesting would
be to abandon the notion of backwards compatibilty.  This would yield
a new net that was initially smaller and preserved many of the virtues
of the old Usenet.  Of course, as always, connectivity would be a 
problem.  Of course this is completely different from the `alternative
backbone' silliness that I find quite incomprehensible.

Incidently, it is the lack of the above kinds of controls that I
believe has put the backbone in its current position of trying to
ad hocly control everything from a subjective point of view -- leading
to such silliness as confusing the question of moderation with the
question of whether or not a particular discussion category is needed.


------ BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)