🚀 go-pugleaf

kono@csl.sony.co.jp (Shinji Kono) writes:

>In article <2711@aegis.or.jp> , 
>	davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes 
>>As I understand the situation, it is impossible for WIDE or any
>>other network/organization can take part in the Internet....

Sorry, what I meant to say was that Junet/WIDE can't take part in
the Internet as a *public service* until the Japanese laws regarding
telecommunication over leased lines are changed. 

>Junet/Wide project are taking important part in the Internet. Like
>bitnet/decnet, Junet/Wide have their own rules, which are respected
>from Internet society.  For example, we cannot allow alt.sex.pictures
>in Japan. And who pays Japan-US internet link? If US pays we are ready
>to obey Internet rule, of course.

From what you say about alt.sex.pictures not being allowed in Japan,
I suspect there may be another reason why Junet/WIDE can't take part
in the Internet: people can access anything. There is no easy way to
say limit kind of information can be obtained. 

FYI, there was a long thread about this on the kidsnet listsever a
while back (I think, maybe it was alt.bbs). The question was about
K12NET where children of all ages have full access to everything:
whose repsonsibility was it to make sure they only looked at certain
things? Some people were saying that the sysops/sysadmins of the net
were responsible, but the sysops/sysadmins were saying that they had
no effective way of keeping track of a) how old people with accounts
were, and b) what they were reading/seeing.

The thread ended when somebody put up the guidelines of the American
Library Association. I don't have an exact quote but the main point
was that librarians must make available whatever they have in their
library without discrimination due to age, sex, nationality, etc.
Understanding the some people would like their children to only see
certain things, parents are permitted and encourged to come to the
library and tell their childern, and *only* their children, what
they should read or not read. 

>You cannot force your own rule without taking democratic procedure.  If
>we admit jobs advertisment in fj.wanted or fj.jobs, we have to take a
>risk against our goverment. This is also true when we re-transmit news
>article from site to site. The decision is ours, and the decision was
>made in the recent discussion in fj news group.

I think you are concept of 'rules' is misguided when applied outside
of Japan. I've never seen any rules of this kind for the internet
and have simply asssumed that they would be along the same lines as
USENET where there aren't any.  People are free to put up what they
want, and read what they want: If you're interested in something,
put it up. If you don't like something, don't read it. As far as I
know this is a *convention* not a rule: thus there is no need for
any procedure, democratic or otherwise. 

This is not to say that networks in Japan can't make rules: as you
say, the decision is yours. However, if it has been decided that in
Japan certain articles are forbidden or not to be sent from site to
site, I would very much like to see a translation of what they are.
I don't need to have the rules translated to English. Japanese
would be fine as I have people here who can translate for me.

Thanks,

Dave

--
Dave McLane  davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087