Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!humu!uhccux!wilson From: wilson@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Tom Wilson) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: posting privileges Summary: (long) Message-ID: <3439@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> Date: 10 Mar 89 23:51:19 GMT References: <7524@pyr.gatech.EDU> Reply-To: wilson@uhccux.UUCP (Tom Wilson) Distribution: usa Organization: East-West Center, Honolulu of Hawaii Lines: 147 do allow undergraduate posting? I've noted Stanford, MIT, rutgers, penn state, and others. If there isn't such a count, send me the name of your school and whether undergrads can post or not, and I'll add 'em up and post. Maybe add a count of the approximate undergrad population allowed to post, too? And being relatively new to the net, has this particular discussion occurred in the past? Seems like most other debates have multiple occurrences. In article <7524@pyr.gatech.EDU> (gus baird) writes >Breaking my rule about replying to stuffed-shirts or personal attacks... >But hell, it's *my* rule, what's life for if you don't have any fun... I hope this falls into the personal attack category; I seldom have the pleasure of being lumped into the stuffed-shirt category. Usually I'm just placed in the 'looks like he slept in his shirt' crowd ... In my reply to your original posting, I wrote >>I find myself outraged six ways from Sunday from the previous paragraph, >>moreso as I re-read it. From this, we may conclude (1) by analogy, undergrads >>are not adults (2) undergrads have nothing to contribute, (3) you seem to >>class "your" undergraduates in the same category as "your" daughters--some >>kind of ownership (4) The paragraph is even a slander on your daughters of >>whatever age--children often can have as much or more insight as "adults". His replies were >1) My point is that enough of them do not act like adults for all of them >to be afforded unrestricted access to the net. >2) The contributions they can make are likely to be drowned out, along with >everyone elses, by the noise of the immature. See response below. >3) How much circumlocution am I supposed to use to express the relationship? >"My club" does not imply ownership. "My friend" is not a person I own. > ** Sheesh! ** Maybe it is just your figure of speech. However, in the context I read more into it. But I'll concede this point. >4) Just how much effective communication would *you* do if you loftily >refused to discipline your children, if you inflicted them uncontrolled >on adults trying to talk? And how much would your friends appreciate it? >Kids often do have insights, but that's not the way to bet. In an adult >forum their contributions need to be filtered. USENET is similar. >I don't say the same, *similar*. Similar protocols may have a similar >beneficial effect. This is still an argument by inappropriate analogy. I think the reasoning here is 1. It is undesirable for children to interrupt adult forums (the point made in the preceding paragraph) 2. Usenet is intended to be an adult forum. (no argument here) 3. (implied third assumption) 4. Therefore, undergraduates should not be allowed to post to the net. I think that the implied third assumption is 3. Undergraduates are children. Granting points 1 and 2, I think a more appropriate chain is 3. Some people act like children on Usenet. (independent of age) 4. Such people should modify their behavior, or be removed from posting. Usenet is *not* similar to inflicting children on one's friends. Usenet is not a room at a meeting where children can run around making noise disrupting conversation. The only way of affecting the newgroups at all is by taking part in the same activity as the 'adults': posting. I think some self-selection that occurs here: the *stereotypical* beer-drinking football jock will gravitate toward some other activity than passively sitting in front of a terminal. As I recall going to my parents' friends' houses as a child, I had no interest in sitting and listening to their conversation. If undergraduates are really as immature as you argue, then they will soon be bored with all this yammer. Then all we are left with are the ones who are really interested. And at that point we all gain: more self-selected adults. >>[my posting referred to his attitude as 'patronizing'] >From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary... >patron n >1 a: a person chosen, named, or honored as a special guardian, protector, >or supportor. To me, your proposal doesn't exactly seem very supportive or protective of undergraduates. >patronize vt >1: to act as a patron of. >Thank you. That's exactly what I am, and exactly what I try to do as >well as I can, with respect to *my* undergraduates. No, try the second usage (same source): 2: to adopt an air of condescension toward If this is what you considered to be a personal attack, so be it. Seems to me that you are dismissing an entire group based on assumptions of their behavior (or the behavior of some of them). Maybe it's not condescending. If your proposal had been made based on sex or race, it would be called sexist or racist. I thought we were supposed to be beyond treating people as groups instead of individuals. Prior to 20th century western culture, 18 year olds (or younger) were generally considered adults. (We even have this strange custom of letting them vote in elections.) Perhaps the prolonged childhood imposed by our culture leads to a child-like response by those so constrained? >>Second, I believe that there are already many sites where >>undergraduates are allowed to post; it hasn't destroyed the net so far. >But it's hurting us. It may get a lot worse. I guess I just don't see where its hurting. Can you name specific newsgroups? I am a regular reader of news.groups, comp.lang.c, comp.dcom.modems, sci.math, sci.math-stat, sci.dynamic-sys (sp?), comp.unix.xenix (intermittently), comp.graphics (intermittently), talk.bizarre (religiously), and alt.activism. [That's scary - how do I get any work done?] I don't see a 'problem' with undergrads in any of these. There is an occasional homework question from an undergrad in sci.math; the general reaction is (1) giving an answer to the question, or pointing out where to get help, and (2) pointing out that asking for help in their own neighborhood might be a better use of net resources. But it's generally a fairly gentle rebuttal. In fact, there have even been some interesting threads arise from one person making a correction or improvement in someone else's answer [I found the recent discussion of the exact meaning of O(f(n)) vs o(f(n)) intriguing and a little enlighten- ing.] Comp.lang.c is similar, although the RTFMs are more frequent (no matter what the age of the poster). As many others have pointed out in this thread, an awful lot of the regular valuable contributors to the net are undergrads. (Or younger. Note the very coherent response in this thread from the 13-year-old; sorry, I didn't note your name). And when someone does get out of line, they get flamed to the ground. I would guess that a lot of other new readers (undergrad or not) see this happen and realize that net.etiquette is not merely a suggestion, but weakly enforced by peer pressure. In conclusion: I just don't get it. The problem seems minor to me; yes, there are some costs, but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Anarchy can seem really unmanageable, but this is not chaos. There is a recognizable net culture, and one of the (biggest?) taboos of that culture is to make continuous, repeated stupid postings. And because this culture is not geographically based, ostracism and ultimate exile really do work; a site admin can exile someone from the net. Yes, maturity is desirable. But age and maturity are not good correlates. There's a lot of brainpower out there that can make a valid contribution, and the "immature" will probably just leave in boredom. -- Tom Wilson Internet: wilson@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu wilson@uhccux.UUCP wilson@uhccux.UUCP || wilson@uhccux (Bitnet) Give us your tired, your poor huddled undergraduates yearning to post freely