Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!shamash!raspail!bga
From: bga@raspail.cdcnet.cdc.com (Bruce Albrecht)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: posting privileges
Message-ID: <1612@raspail.cdcnet.cdc.com>
Date: 15 Mar 89 04:27:08 GMT
References: <7502@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Control Data Corporation, Arden Hills, MN
Lines: 39

In article <7502@pyr.gatech.EDU>, gus@pyr.gatech.EDU (gus Baird) writes:
> Undergraduates should not be allowed to post articles...
>
> Look back over old articles since significant numbers of undergraduate 
> students started posting.  Sometimes it seems that the very first thing
> every one of them does is post all the fourth-grade jokes he can remember,
> not realizing that they were all posted just the week before.

Oh, dear, rec.humor has a low S/N ratio.

> Then he discovers that the language and system newsgroups are just the
> place to get help with his homework, or to avoid having to buy manuals.

I don't read comp.lang.c, but most of the other comp.lang groups have pretty
low volume, and I haven't noticed the problems you describe.  I think this
is true of most of the comp.* groups.  
> 
> 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.

There are a number of moderated newsgroups, mainly to alleviate this problem.
If there is a lot of S/N ratio problems, more moderated groups will pop up
where people dedicated to a topic are willing to take the time to keep the
group at the desired S/N ratio.

I don't have the time or inclination to read a lot of newsgroups, but I'm
not convinced that the comp.* ones that I currently read are being adversely
affected by undergrads posting to them.  Sure, there are a bunch of rec.* and
alt.* groups that have a garbage posting problem, but not all of them are
caused by undergrads (immature people, yes, but many are not clearly affiliated
as undergrads of any universities).

I'd also like to see Gus Baird post his follow-ups as follow-ups, and not as
new postings, if he's going to complain about other people not following
netiquette.