🚀 go-pugleaf

jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura) writes:

>In article <2327@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes:
>>Hmm. Alot of traffic on comp.sys.atari.st screaming, pleading,
>>apologizing, etc, about the posting of Usenet articles on GEnie.
>>
>>From what I have read, a majority of the posters disliked the idea
>>very strongly, that Usenet messages appear on a pay service, that
>>is, a one-way link- Usenet on GEnie, but nothing from GEnie to
>>Usenet.

>     This is a long standing problem and we've been wrestling with
>it on BIX.  If I can blow our horn a bit, at least on BIX we *care*
>about how people feel about moving messages from Usenet to BIX.
>I've shared messages from 'rec.arts.anime' with some specific people
>on BIX, but I've only made general postings of things on special
>occasions and usually with specific approval by authors.  You people
>must realize that there are specific *commercial* Usenet nodes
>around, don't you?  Actually, I've long felt that it was improper to
>post *anything* on the Net which was not FULLY PUBLIC DOMAIN.  This
>has nothing to do with legality, but simply a recognition that the
>Net exists because the NODES PAY FOR IT.  Since every node contributes
>effectively to everyone else on the Net, how can you justify stopping
>anyone on the net from making the fullest possible usage of anything
>that you post to it?  If you've been following 'comp.os.os9' you'll
>know that *every* program I have posted to Usenet which was my own
>work over the years has been declared fully public domain.  Nor do
>I restrict any other postings I make which are my own work (not that
>most people care about whether I declare my opinion messages as
>public domain or not :-).

As Managing Sysop of the SF & Fantasy Roundtable on GEnie, I had to respond
to the implied remarks above regarding GEnie.

The SFRT has never carried any Usenet material that I did not explicitly
clear with the author or moderator beforehand.  I am very respectful of
the personal rights of the Usenet authors. If and when a Usenet gateway to
GEnie is available, the policies I apply to it will depend a great deal on
how the gateway is technically implemented

Quite frankly, I really don't NEED 1E6 new messages coming in over the
net.  I've already got more message traffic than I can handle just from
the regular users.  A lot of my users would like an EMAIL gateway, and
I'd be all for that.

>     But this leaves me with a problem:  If people are doing this on
>Compuserve and Genie, then BIX may be at a competitive disadvantge
>because I've been the "good guy".  So maybe I should change my practice
>and start posting a digest of 'rec.arts.anime' on BIX?  I don't know.
>How do you people feel about this?

Do you really think you're going to get a consensus on this?  You could
ask "Should I go around killing babies?" on Usenet, and you'd get opinions
on every side of the spectrum.  Frankly, Usenet is it's own worst enemy,
because it is almost impossible to reach consensus of any kind on non-binary
decisions.

If you want to port over the message traffic here, it's between you and the
users here.  For the moment, I've I consider it more effort than it's worth
compared to the more interesting projects I'm working on.  I MAY contact
folks about individual articles of merit, but that's between me and the
author, and the rest of the net has no say in the matter.

James Turner
Managing Sysop
SF & Fantasy Roundtable
GEmail: SF