Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!artsnet!mgresham
From: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Restricting posting privileges
Message-ID: <172@artsnet.UUCP>
Date: 14 Mar 89 03:58:47 GMT
References: <125.24183820@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us> <21509@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: ARTSNET  Atlanta, GA  USA
Lines: 47

In article <21509@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes:
>In article <21422@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> I wrote:
>
>> >I think the controversy will eventually boil down to [...] in view of
>> >the large number of young and nonprofessional posters from those
>> >sites.              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) replies:
>
>>I'm 13; should I be banned from the net?
>
>No.  I was NOT advocating an opinion; I was pointing out that the
>opinion that Mr Baird holds (an opinion i do not agree with) would
>lead to such questions. [...]  For the record, I am both young (17) and
>unprofessional (in the sense given below).
>[...]
>I am using "professional" to mean "engaged in a professional,
>computer-oriented occupation."

  I think it's appropriate for old-time computer pros to consider
that these guys were both both born *after* the first lunar
landing, and that they were probably using computers at the ages
most of us were playing with vacuum tubes and just learning about
that mysterious thing, the 'transistor'. :-)
  Certainly all the old-timers helped push to make computerization
more prevelant -- and *public*.  So can you blame the 'under-21'
age group for following through with what you set out to do in the
first place?
  With 'more prevelant and public' comes expanded participation by
people whose professions are *not* in the computer industries.
Face it, that's happening; I think it's healthy to get more of
different kinds of minds on Usenet anyway, expanding the netwide
NI (Natural Intelligence vs AI; or Net Intelligence, if you
prefer).
  Just imagine what it'll be like when there are public net-terminals
like there are public telephones.  (And I don't mean *if*.)

Cheers,

--Mark

"A chicken in every pot; a terminal in every home!" :-)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mark Gresham  ARTSNET  Atlanta, GA, USA
E-mail:      ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham
or:         artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++