Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!oresoft!news From: news@oresoft.uu.net (Daniel "Paperboy" Elbaum) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Should access be restricted Message-ID: <1990Feb22.193109.24930@oresoft.uu.net> Date: 22 Feb 90 19:31:09 GMT References: <2284@promark.UUCP> Reply-To: news@oresoft.uu.net (Daniel "Paperboy" Elbaum) Distribution: usa Organization: Oregon Software, Portland, OR Lines: 56 In article <2284@promark.UUCP> mark@promark.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) writes: [about his reasons for disallowing net access for undergraduates] :2. There are too many students and we don't have time to police postings : or have a desire to do so. :3. There is the cost factor... ... :4. When we do get rec, and talk, etc, they will be able to post to them. :6. If he needs help with a Unix related problem or theory problem there : are computer center people to answer his questions as well as masters : and Phd level Mathematics/Computer Science people here to answer it. :7. I don't want anyone to interpret my statements as being anti-undergrad. : They are merely statements of the facts here. I pose: Is a first, second, : year undergrad student who has taken some required liberal arts classes : with a few math and intro computer science classes able to make a : positive contribution to a discussion in many of the comp groups? : I am aware the exceptions exist, but I am not speaking of the exceptions. There's a lot wrong here. One part of this argument appears to be that undergrads should not be allowed to post to technical groups because they aren't technically competent and so have little to offer. But the thousands of undergrads who do have access aren't necessarily more competent, and they don't seem to me to be a source of noise disproportionate to their numbers. The fact that they're in college means that they're interested in learning. If you want to find a source of noise, look to the public-access sites--yet they, too, have every right to post, and sometimes make valuable contributions when they do. Another part of the argument is that postings are expensive. But the rec and talk groups have a much smaller signal-to-noise ratio than the tech groups. The point that users who need help should seek locally first is as applicable to professionals as it is for undergrads. In fact, a user who is not yet comfortable with the local system is more likely to ask the person at the next terminal or to send e-mail to the site administrator. A lot of net.garbage comes from people who use the net as a substitute for spoken communication. Finally, this argument makes too little of the talent of the undergrad and too much of the quality of information on the net. Okay, so somebody who's just taken a semester of introductory computer science isn't going to have much to say to comp.protocols.iso.x400. But lots of useful postings from undergrads turn up daily in the comp.sys. groups, for example. When I was an undergraduate, I learned a lot from other undergraduates. But leaving the undergraduate world did not instantly qualify me as an expert in all the technical newsgroups. I could post, with confidence, simple-minded and wrong information to literally dozens of newsgroups even though I don't pay thousands of dollars a year to be browbeaten by bureaucrats (now I get that service for free :-)). Some of the most interesting discussions I've seen in tech groups began with questions from undergrads. Don't exclude them capriciously. -- ..!{uunet,sun!nosun}!oresoft!news news@oresoft.uu.net