Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!vnend
From: vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: posting privileges
Message-ID: <7072@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 14 Mar 89 16:20:08 GMT
References: <7502@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 80

In article <7502@pyr.gatech.EDU> gus@pyr.gatech.EDU (gus Baird) writes:
)Undergraduates should not be allowed to post articles.
 
)Hey, folks, I love my undergraduates.  I love my daughters, too.
)But when I take the girls to a meeting where adult discussions
)are conducted, they're expected to keep quiet.  That's reasonable.
)They are not yet able to *contribute* to the discussion, but they 
)may learn from it.

	So certain is he.
 
)We need this net as a forum for adult, often professional, discussion.
)If undergraduates with minimal professional and social skills are given 
)free rein, then the signal/noise ratio will decrease to the point where 
)the net will become useless for what I consider its main purpose.  
)Remember that as bad money drives out good, inane convervation drives 
)out the exchange of ideas.

	Oh dear, the immenent death of the net yet again.
 
)Were you like me, when you first got on the net?
)I must have read news for six months before I posted anything.  Working 
)stiffs tend to be similarly considerate (or timid!) here and in 
)conversation.  They'll usually listen quietly for a while to get the 
)drift of the dialog and to find what points have already been made, 
)before putting in their own oars.  That's an attribute of an adult.

	I guess I'm a faster learner, it only took me 3.  I suspect that
there are those who can do it in far less.
 
)Undergraduates tend not to act that way.  Part of the mission of colleges
)is to get them matured to the point where they will.  Meanwhiles, they
)shouldn't be encouraged to trash the conversation.

 	And giving them posting privledges *encourages* them to do so?
I don't think so.
 
)I suggest that the "powers that be" of the net administration community
)should discourage colleges from giving posting privileges to undergraduates, 
)*as undergraduates*.  It's appropriate for a student who is also holding 
)down a job to post from his "professional" account, but he shouldn't be 
)let to use his "student" one.
 
)More and more sites will be making UNIX and this net available to their
)youngsters.  The immature portion of tens of thousands of them may soon
)be posting articles, drowning out the conversation we expect to carry on.
)It would be wise to take steps now to prevent degradation of this forum.
)gus Baird

	Gus, how long *have* you been on USENET?  Do you have any idea how
much various undergrads have contributed to the net?  Like Irwin Tillman,
who wrote VM netnews while an undergrad at Princeton?  Like David Herron, 
who built ukma into a (once-upon-a-time) backbone site, while an undergrad?
Like probably dozens if not hundreds of others I don't know personally?

	Need I also point out that in general the most abusive posters are 
the professionals you think are better than students?  

	The last time I looked the percentage of news readers that post
was *far* less than ten percent.  Given the literally thousands of undergrads
that already have access to the net, and the lack of disruption caused
by them as a group, I'd say your fears are groundless.  And, worse than
groundless, harmful.

	I think that the ability to participate in the dialog that occurs
on the net could be an important part of the education that you recognize
universities are to impart to students.  I vigorously oppose *any* system
that wants to use USENET postings without letting people participate, be
it gatech or Compuserve.  And that is just what you are proposing, using
the net without contributingback into it.  And to my mind the most important
thing that any site can contribute is the minds of the people who read there.
And, hopefully, post from there.



-- 
Later Y'all,  Vnend                       Ignorance is the mother of adventure.   
SCA event list? Mail?  Send to:vnend@phoenix.princeton.edu or vnend@pucc.bitnet   
        Anonymous posting service (NO FLAMES!) at vnend@ms.uky.edu                    
           Love is wanting to keep more than one person happy.