Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!netsys!killer!rpp386!jfh From: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Changes to the monthly postings Summary: This can be handled better. Keywords: rec.humor.funny policy change Message-ID: <12223@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> Date: 3 Feb 89 21:22:54 GMT References: <2706@looking.UUCP> <2844@epimass.EPI.COM> <1448@vsi1.COM> <371@twwells.uucp> Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) Organization: River Parishes Programming, Dallas TX Lines: 37 In article <371@twwells.uucp> bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >Do y'all know the purpose of that bullshit? It is not to prevent >anyone from reading the newsgroup, it is to cover his ass in the >event that some JEDR comes along and tries to sue him or censor the >newsgroup. Huh? Censorship is censorship. Preventing one person or one thousand is no different. The effect of Brad's policy change is that some sites ENTIRE COLLECTION OF USER'S won't be able to receive r.h.funny. This is more like revenge than censorship. Oh - and Brad came out and said if money was to be made he might like a slice of the pie. Not that I see anything wrong with this, I support his recent compilation efforts. But let him sell books, not newsgroup redistribution licenses. >Because of him saying what he does, there are two legal possibilities: >if the offended party hasn't obtained his permission he gets thrown >out of court. If he has, then he has agreed to the bullshit, and gets >thrown out of court. End of problem. First, he can publish a notice at the beginning of every article that the information contained might be offensive. Second, he can rotate every questionable joke article. Since the reader must take an explicit action to read the article, he would be considered to have accepted the risk. To make it slightly more airtight, each rotated article could have a special decoding string prepended to it that the user must type in to decode the article. Or ... There IS a technological solution in there someplace. Censorship is what got this started in the first place. Censorship is not the correct solution. -- John F. Haugh II +--Quote of the Week:------------------ VoiceNet: (214) 250-3311 Data: -6272 | "Get it through your head: InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US | CARS ARE THE ENEMY." UucpNet : !killer!rpp386!jfh +------ -- Bob Fishell ----------