🚀 go-pugleaf

uk.net.regulation <6evidu0me9jaik92netdnl7b58dtuu0sms@news.kempston.net> 
Wed, 8 May 2002 20:41:02 Mike Mann <mike@kempston.net>:

>On Tue, 7 May 2002 23:10:52 +0100, "Wm..."
><tcnw51@tarrcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In mid February this year I reported a group that Demon carried to the
>>IWF and included an example posting (I think the posting, which was part
>>of a series, was cancelled at the time).
>>
>>Sometime in the last few days Demon pulled the ng, presumably as a
>>result of a notification from the IWF along with a few others [1]
>>
>>What I'm wondering about is the turnaround time and where the bottleneck
>>was.
>
>You're assuming that your report and Demon deciding to drop the group
>were connected.

Please note I said "presumably as a result of a notification from the 
IWF"

I have my correspondence with the IWF, you don't.

>  Perhaps they were; perhaps they weren't.  You don't
>seem to have offered any evidence of a causal relationship between the
>two events.

How true. Y'know funny thing is I *can't* offer any connection because I 
am not part of the IWF and just a customer of Demon's.  Hence I asked.

Having said that if you've worked with data for a while you sort of 
start seeing patterns and they repeat themselves (no, my name is not 
William Gibson).

>You also seem to be under the impression that dropping groups is a
>"good thing" and to be further assuming that this view is widely held.

No, I think dropping groups is a bad thing, perhaps you missed the last 
part of my posting on purpose.  The group in question was, however 
(unlike other groups I've looked into and found un-offensive) entirely 
filled with images that I think would be illegal in the uk unlike many 
of the other groups that have been pulled by demon.

>I think you are mistaken: the dropping of newsgroups, especially by a
>small parochial ISP, has hardly any effect on the availability of
>those groups and probably makes it more difficult to detect those who
>use the groups for illegal purposes.  There's certainly no consensus
>that dropping groups achieves anything much.

I agree entirely.  If you send me an e-mail I'll tell you the group I 
reported that got pulled and I think ought to have been pulled and why.

Part of what I'm asking is why demon and the IWF don't bother saying why 
they are pulling groups.  In this case I was involved.  I have e-mails 
from the IWF saying yes, we'll investigate further, demon pull the group 
a few months later.  Maybe you're right, maybe the events are 
unconnected but I don't think they are.  Point is I can no easily prove 
that demon's pull was connected than you can easily prove that demon's 
pull was disconnected. You with me?

In the case of the group concerned I'm happy it was pulled.

But what I am also doing is pointing out the lack of transparency.  In 
general I don't think groups should be pulled and have said so before. 
I'm also not a stuck record.

-- 
Wm ...
address valid for at least 31 days from date of posting