Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!texbell!splut!jay From: jay@splut.UUCP (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Obligations (Re: Freedom of hate) Message-ID: <2575@splut.UUCP> Date: 10 Apr 89 01:57:38 GMT References: <14130@gryphon.COM> <8132@chinet.chi.il.us> <8154@chinet.chi.il.us> <3763@ficc.uu.net> <8176@chinet.chi.il.us> Reply-To: jay@splut.UUCP (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX Lines: 111 Background: For a long time, sugar (Peter's other site is a 386 :-) was my primary newsfeed. The Houston area news sites communicate with each other regularly. Even though sugar is no longer my primary feed, I feel that I can comment, as a potential and past downstream site from him. In article <8176@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: >In article <3763@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >>I have no problem with the rest of your message, but this paragraph seems >>to imply that every site on the net has the obligation to pass any message >>originating from a site upstream. >>I dispute that. No site other than uunet has entered into any legal agreement >>to provide a feed. No commercial site has any first-amendment obligation to >>pass objectionable messages. >There is no first amendment involved, so please do not bring it up. Certainly >in a case like uunet, where a contract has been entered, the news has to be >passed in both directions unmolested and intact. No argument here, although I'm surprised that you've quit yelling "CENSORSHIP!!" about the concept... >But I say this applies to the voluntary arrangments between all sites. If >I say to you 'pick up the news from me every day' you have every right to >assume what I give you will be intact and the way I got it. What messages are there, yes. There's nothing that says I have to waste disk space on any posting on this net, though, and if I make that decision before the news gets batched, sorry... Personally, I'm not interested that much. I do respect someone else's right to be, though. >What you display on your local machine for your local users under your >immediate supervision is one thing. Cancel out anything or everything. Give >your users only what you want to give them, because after all, it is your >machine and your phone lines. Exactly right. >But what we pass between each other other, using the other's site as a >gateway must be intact. Would you like writing a message, fully expecting >it to be seen everywhere only to have the first guy down the line who >polled you every day look at it and decide to zap yours and pass along the >rest? Another good reason for redundant newsfeeds. Any message that I send is broadcast to five sites, and hence is less susceptible to being deleted completely when a sysadmin decides that that message doesn't belong on his system. >If you are really, truly saying you feel it is perfectly okay to zap any >messages you personally don't like while passing the rest of it along, then >I sure would hate to be a site downstream from you, trusting you for a full >feed every day! I would have no objections to such a use of the sysadmin's power; after all, it's his system. If I got unhappy enough, I'd find another feed, but I would NOT try to coerce him into using his computer and his phone bill to carry something he didn't want. >Do as you wish with the feed you offer your users, but don't you DARE tamper >with what is entrusted to you to pass to the backbone, or from the backbone >to some other site. If I trust someone that far, then I deserve to get burned. It's HIS system. Not mine. Not yours. His. Nothing in this world says that he has to support me. He's doing it out of the goodness of his heart. >Do you presently poll other sites, or feed news to other sites now? I think >I will find out, and sent their sysadmins a note telling them you feel no >obligation to play with a full deck of cards when they hand you their >traffic every day. Don't bother sending me that note; I'll blatantly ignore it. I'll save you some trouble, though: if you'd like, pass it along, and I'll post it to houston.general. >Tell me this: do you at least have the courtesy to tell the sites on >either side of you that you have zapped the stuff you did not want to pass >along, or do you just send it minus a message here and there and assume >with the heavy volume they won't know the difference? Who gives a fuzzy rat's posterior? If he doesn't want it on his system, there's nothing I can do to make him pass it along. It's HIS system. >I would really hate to be a site dependent on moving traffic through you. >How would I know any of it got anywhere, if you were on some kind of a >tangent the day a user on my site happened to post a message you took a >dislike to. I have depended on moving traffic through his system; if he didn't like what I said, and felt strongly enough about it to remove it from his system, then there's not a whole lot I can do about it. >I think if you are presently feeding anyone you ought to resign, and ask >them to find a feed elsewhere considering your attitude about the system. That would disqualify a LOT of sysadmins, who aren't willing to give up control of their system to some self-appointed protector of a non-existent right to free speech on the net. >No one is telling you to allow stuff to stay in your machine you disagee >with, but how could you even think of screwing up someone else's traffic >in the process? Shame on you. It's his right. It's his system. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can uucp: uunet!nuchat! (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- {killer,bellcore}!texbell! | "Less great!" "Tastes filling!"