Re: A message to USENET censors that be.

[epiwrl!epimass!jbuck@seismo.CSS.GOV (Joe Buck)]

"ROSSI J.A." writes:
>While I do not fully understand the actual genesis of USENET as a network, per
>se, I have been under the impression that it generally consists of university
>addresses, etc.  Please correct me if I am wrong.

Many Usenet sites are at universities, but most sites are commercial
companies or government.  There are also home computers and public
access machines on the network.  It's an amazing, but unstable,
anarchy.  The total number of users on machines that receive Usenet
is in excess of 800,000 people!  That's an amazing number; Arpanet is
tiny by comparison.  (Only a few thousand read this list though).
This is a public forum, remember that.  

> One can probably assume
>that it is not overly used by impressionable young childern who need the
>protection of Tippi Gore from rock music, sexual provocation, Hofmann and
>Wicinski.

As Usenet administrator at my company, I have no problem with
four-letter words used to express strong feelings.  Personally
I have much bigger problems with streams of vile abuse directed
at individuals, even if such abuse doesn't contain a single one
of the Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On Television.

But remember that even a newspaper can't print anything it wants to.
Let's say Tim reviewed records for Spin and Sue T.  reviewed records
for the Village Voice.  Now let's say Tim wrote that Sue only knew
what she did about music because she had oral sex with various
record producers in trade for inside info (which is exactly what he
did say, remember?).  We're talking massive libel suit here!  You may
think that this is somehow a private mailing list, but one libel suit
may destroy Usenet.  Now do you understand the problem?  If anything,
what's said in this forum has LESS legal protection than what's
printed in newspapers.  The only safety is that it's difficult
to prove who really authored an article.  However, there's one
person who is a sitting duck -- the moderator.  I'd be very careful
if I were him.  Also, Usenet is dangerously dependent on a few
"backbone" sites who pay much of the phone bills.  If they dump
this group, major sections of the country won't get it.

Four-letter words are fine with me.  Extreme personal attacks,
of the kind Tim W. specialized in, ARE NOT and they cannot be
tolerated, because this whole network could come crashing down
as a result.

No censorship of ideas.  But keep the personal attacks and abuse
out -- people can flame each other in private mail.
-- 
- Joe Buck    {hplabs,ihnp4,sun,ames}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck
	      seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck