🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4898kv$79v@felix.junction.net>,
Michael Dillon <michael@okjunc.junction.net> wrote:
>In article <487mdn$8g4@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, Chris Lewis <clewis@bnr.ca> wrote:
>>In article <485p3c$pr@felix.junction.net>,
>
>>It doesn't matter whether the subtle distinctions are lost or not,
>>real-world implementations _do_ care about them.  The cable companies
>>isn't proposing something that looks like the Internet.  Nor are most
>>of the other major players.

>All the serious proposals I have heard of that are still in existence 
>are either built on top of the Internet or somehow include the Internet 
>in their systems. For instance, the cableco's want to build Video on 
>Demand networks but will offer services such as email and WWW browsing 
>that must needs be interconnected to the Internet.

You're mistaken.  A "can.internet" would obviously not be the place
to discuss, say, CRTC regulation of cable digital broadcast (eg:
teledon-ish stuff) etc.

>I think the term "moderated" will frighten a lot of people away from the 
>newsgroup. It makes the group sound more like a private club of academics 
>than an open public forum.

While you're other respondant on this point is a paranoid nut, this really
isn't a very good reason.  Indeed, it'll probably be the reason why everyone
would flock to it... ;-)

>> If you're going to insist people stay
>>on topic, the name and charter is going to have to be a lot more inclusive
>>than something suggested by "internet".

>The term "internet" *IS* inclusive. You and I may have a very specific 
>idea of what the Internet is and what it is not, however the general 
>public perception is that the Internet is the current implementation of the 
>information highway.

The group is going to be moderated, thus we _have_ to be precisely,
pedantically, anal-retentively accurate.  Otherwise the moderator will spend
all of his time handling flames.

"The Internet" is a very precise technical term.  Intentionally muddying
the waters is not in our best interests.  Rather like Rim's study concluding
that the Internet is 100% pornography because the adult BBSs he looked
at were.

>In fact, most people view AOL, Compuserve, MSN, 
>Prodigy, BBSes and so on, as part of the Internet.

That will be a big surprise to them ;-)

>The Internet is getting almost as dificult to define as USENET is. 

The Internet is very easy to define: those machines talking to each
other via TCP/IP.  The Usenet is very easy to define: those machines
exchanging news.announce.important via news protocols.

You wouldn't want to call it can.usenet just because Usenet is difficult
to define would you? ;-)

>>That's all we're trying to do with infohighway - a wonderfully vague
>>term that covers what we want it to cover.  Not the inane drivel which
>>has taken over.

>Well, I still like the infohighway term better. I suppose we could always 
>try something like can.infohiway or can.iway or can.datahighway as 
>alternatives. The can.* hierarchy is small enough that I'm not overly 
>worried about having a relatively flat hierarchy.

If we must choose a name other than can.infohighway, I think
can.infohighway.moderated is the best.  If only to make it abundantly
obvious (even to those people who can't tell the difference between
the CRTC and the Internet ;-) what the difference is.