Subject: Re: REQUEST: BBS list for Toronto/(416) area

From: [email-masked] (Evan Leibovitch)
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 15:52:05 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jim Omura) writes:

>It seems to me that you're presuming that there are people
>who read Toronto Computes!, who have never heard of Usenet and
>who we would *want* on Usenet.

What pompous arrogance!

Who in the hell are you (or me, or anyone else,) to judge who is "the
kind of person we would want on Usenet"?

This isn't some ivory tower club for members only. Neither is it a backlash
against society from people who couldn't make it into the cool cliques in
high school. It's a communications medium designed to allow discussion of
ideas in a manner not available anywhere else.

Look around. This ain't just a place to debate Berkeley versus System V
anymore. There are discussion about politics, religion, major social
issues, consumerism, and relationships between cultures. People are
debating here how to raise their kids, relate to the opposite sex, or
buy a car. Maybe you want to limit this discussion to the old traditional
enclaves of students and employees of large companies. I don't.

The history of the net has meant that it's dominated by well-educated
urban males. But this narrow perspective has meant that many
discussions lack a depth that raises significant doubt regarding their
conclusions. It's my preference to expand the community, not restrict it.

At least someone who reads Toronto Computes, reads something. A basic
level of literacy is what *I'd* consider a minimum, and it's a benefit
certainly not shared by all who post to Usenet at the present time.

>I'd rather have people who at the very least had
>their first Usenet experience under the control of a school's
>system administrator who might be prepared to act responsibly
>and make sure that Net resources are not wasted.

You mean like the dork who e-mailed 50MB of stuff from his account at
Seneca College to his home machine, tying up resources at uunet, uunet.ca
and a number of Toronto UUCP sites along the way, not two weeks ago? (The
last link in this chain was a 2400 baud UUCP line.)

Yeah, those Seneca admins sure made sure *he* knew how to use Net
resources wisely.

Get a clue.

>Similarly, people
>who get their first experience on the Net while working for large
>companies are unlikely to act poorly because it would reflect
>badly on the company (and it does, despite any disclaimers tacked
>on in .signature files).

Anyone who judges the merits of a company by the words of one employee
is a fool, unless that employee is specifically selected by the company
to represent it. The disclaimers exist to state, beyond a shadow of a
doubt, that the person does not represent the company.

But this point is becoming moot. The growth of anonymous posting services
means that people no longer have to take responsibility for what they say,
no matter where they're from. And an incredible amount of drivel comes out
of these services.

It's going to be very hard to tell who are "the kind of person we would
want on Usenet", when you can't even tell who they are or where they're
coming from...

-- 
 Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
         [email-masked] / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
Americans have the right to bear arms. Canadians have the right to bare breasts.