🚀 go-pugleaf

"Richard Clayton" <richard@highwayman.com> wrote in message
news:TI13kiPlX9H8EAzE@turnpike.com...
> In article <o4xT7.1414$8%.418515@monolith.news.easynet.net>, pisces
> <pisces48@yahoo.com> writes
>
> >Under "Anti-Terrorism" Act, ISPs can now be compelled to log the kind of
> >data that would enable NCS actually to do what they initially said they
were
> >doing.
>
> nope :(
>
> under ATCS ISPs will now negotiate a Code of Practice that relates to
> keeping data .. since I doubt that many ISPs would have any necessity to
> be logging the type of data referred to (records of downloads from news
> servers) the question of retention wouldn't arise anyway.

That is indeed arguable - but on the face of it, government must believe it
broadens the kind of data and length of time for which it can be retained,
and allows them to insist that data which is not currently retained by a
particular ISP will be in future - if not, what is the point of this
legislation ?
...
> >(and RIP gives power to access)
>
> nope :( it's still not in force (middle of 2002 at the earliest)

True - but if we are being pedantic, what I said was literally true also.
...
> you should probably note the "Big Browser" aspects of the RIP Act which
> means that gathering information on "web activity" is likely to be hard

...depending of course on whether ISPs are aware of this, and choose to
interpret it in this way

...
> because crossposting is evil - and at this width, affects how far
> articles travel :(

Why is cross-posting evil ? Do you think that every cross-post is a troll ?

Surely, it depends on the nature of the subject matter is (whether
intrinsically of interest to a number of groups), and whether the
cross-posted groups are relevant in that context.

> >There are many
> >interests peripheripherally or centrally affected by Net regulation. Why
> >should they all be subsumed into discussion in uk.net.regulation ? That
is
> >exactly what cross-posting is *for* ?
>
> Cross-posting at the start of threads is usually done to cause mischief.

It can be. But what you don't seem prepared to acknowledge is the that the
justification for crossposting is intrinsically a gray area. Nobody devised
the Usenet hierarchy with any kind of cladistic plan, and the following each
group attracts may or may not be familiar with subject matter usual in other
groups.

Nevertheless a single post may be quite genuinely be of interest and
relevance to several groups, and fruitful discussion may occur as a result
of cross-posting, that wouldn't have occured by posting to a single group,
or using multiple separate posts.

> Removing cross-posting thereafter compounds that mischief :(

I don't agree with that either. If somebody wants to pursue a particular
line of argument relevant only a subset of the original groups, that seems
fine to me (and considerate)

What I object to is "thou shalt not cross-post" apparatchiks trying to chop
off somebody else's cross-post at the knees by pre-emptively replying with a
restricted Follow Up, and claiming some sort of moral netiquette high ground
in doing so.

Sure most cross-posts degenerate into rambling irrelevance - but so what ?
Usenet was ever thus - no amount of finger-wagging will stop this, and it's
plain unhealthy to try and inculcate the view "crossposting is evil". It
depends on the intent.