Path: utzoo!yunexus!maccs!sparkles!dan
From: dan@sparkles.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Dan Trottier)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Leonard Peltier P.O.W.
Message-ID: <1865@sparkles.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Date: 27 Jan 89 13:44:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: sparkles.1865
References: <568@yunccn.UUCP> <1840@sparkles.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <351@ists.ists.ca>
Reply-To: dan@sparkles.UUCP (Dan Trottier)
Followup-To: can.general
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Lines: 63

In article <351@ists.ists.ca> mathieu@ists.ists.ca (Pierre Mathieu) writes:
>In article <1840@sparkles.dcss.mcmaster.ca>, dan@sparkles.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Dan Trottier) writes:
>> In article <568@yunccn.UUCP> john@yunccn.UUCP (John Hummel) writes:
>> >Keywords: Justice Sovereignty Native People
>> 
>> Regardless of good intentions the Usenet is not a place where on should
>> be canvasing for donations. 
>> 
>Although I will admit that this article should probably not have been
>crossposted so heavily and perhaps should have been shorter, I do not
>agree that the net is not the place for such items. I for one was very
>interested in learning about this man and I don't believe that I would
>have ever known about this if not for this posting. I find this sort of
>thing far more useful than a discussion on how many inconspicuous 
>numbers one can find on our paper currency for instance. :-)

I agree that the information contained in the article is of a useful
nature and is by all means welcome on the net, as far as I'm concerned.
I just think that presenting the information as a prelude to explicitly
asking for money is not tasteful.

Perhaps we need a group for this kind of posting:

    can.support-my-cause

>	It was perhaps not very wise to ask for contributions on the
>net but I think that deleting the article for this reason is a rather
>draconian measure. After all, if this rule of thumb starts applying,
>should not "FOR SALE" and "FOR RENT" articles also be banned from the
>net? Are these not also personal causes? 

We can get into a religious war about this but let me just say I don't
believe FOR SALE articles fall into the same category as SUPPORT MY CAUSE
articles. It's like getting flyers in the mail. I keep the supermarket
flyers but generally throw away any support my cause flyers (and usually
curse about junk mail while doing so)

I just don't want to see resources on the net wasted on junk mail.
(Can you say asbestos, sure I knew you could...)

>                                        Or should people start paying
>for posting? (***shiver*** :-))

oh oh, another can of worms... I can't resist though :-)

What will happen when most people can affort a home computer that can 
be connected to the network (UUCP, Internet, whatever)?  The backbone
sites in each city will take on responsibilities similar to that of the 
phone companies. People will send electronic mail because it will be
cheaper and faster that sending paper mail. At some point the capacity
of the backbone machines and the network as a whole will be reached.

It will take money to expand the capacity of the network and the backbone
sites will have to charge for mail passing through their machines. Either
that or more uunet like sites will spring up and charge for connection time
which is essentially the same as paying for each seperate mail message.

I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow but it will happen.

-- 
Dan Trottier                                            dan@maccs.McMaster.CA
Dept of Computer Science                       ...!uunet!utai!utgpu!maccs!dan
McMaster University                                      (416) 525-9140 x3444