From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Thu Apr 11 09:14:43 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Subject: Ac Freedom mailing List
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 23:14:54 -0700
Sender: Rob Kling 
Status: R


Please include me... Thanks /Rob Kling


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Thu Apr 11 10:06:56 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 10:49:21 EDT
Sender: kadie@eff.org (Carl Kadie)
Subject: Admin stuff
Status: R

As of a few minutes ago, caf-talk got it's 100th subscriber (some
of whom are organizations).

The mailling list is set up so that any note sent to
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org (or caf-talk@eff.org) will
immediately forwarded to everyone on the list.

It would be better if 1) notes were automatically collected and
sent out in digest form 2) notes where automatically gatewayed
to a Usenet newsgroup. I would be very grateful for information
and help toward either of these goals. Please send me email at
kadie@eff.org.

- Carl Kadie
Remember, to add or delete yourself from the list, don't sent e-mail to the
list. Send e-mail to listserv@eff.org with the line:
  add comp-academic-freedom-talk
or 
  delete comp-academic-freedom-talk
or (for more information)
  help


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Thu Apr 11 10:06:57 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 10:54:13 EDT
Sender: kadie@eff.org (Carl Kadie)
Subject: Annoucing the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
Status: R


This is an electronic library of information about computers and
academic freedom.

It is available via anonymous ftp to eff.org (192.88.144.3) in
directory "academic". For more information, to make contributions, or
to report typos (and scanos) contract Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org).

=================
caf-talk
-----------------
A discription to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list.

=================
ecpa.1986
-----------------
Portions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) related
to e-mail privacy.

=================
eff.rights
-----------------
An overview of the electronic frontier and the U.S Bill of Rights

=================
email.privacy.essay
-----------------
"Computer Electronic Mail and Privacy", an edited version of a law
school seminar paper by Ruel T. Hernadex

=================
jmcabstract
-----------------
Professor John 	McCarthy lead the effort to restore "rec.humor.funny"
at Stanford. In March of 1991, he travelled to the University of
Waterloo, a place where "rec.humor.funny" was (and still is) banned.
At Waterloo, he gave one talk on a new computer language and a second
talk on "Network Publication and Free Expression". This is the
abstract of that talk. (Also, see "stanford.statements")


=================
k12.networks.survey
-----------------
Results of a survey by EDUCOM and IBM on the status of
computer networking in K12 education.

=================
library.canada
-----------------
Canadian Library Association Statement on Intellectual Freedom

=================
library.porn
-----------------
A parody of a real newpaper article published in the Houston Chronicle. The
parody is my Carl Kadie. It was published in rec.humor.funny.

=================
library.us
-----------------
The "Freedom to Read Statement" of the American Library Association
and Association of American Publishers.

=================
library.us.excerpts
-----------------
Excepts from the "Freedom to Read Statement" of the American Library
Association and Association of American Publishers.

=================
nsf
-----------------
The tentative statement by the National Science Foundation on
acceptable use of the backbone networks.

=================
stanford.statements
-----------------
"In 1989 rec.humor.funny was suppressed in some of the Stanford
University computers.  After a campaign it was re-installed in those
computers." 

This file contains 
1) the "Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny" 
2) a statement by the Stanford faculty committee on libraries
3) Notes from Professor John McCarthy on how censorship was fought at Stanford

(also see "jmcabstract")
=================
student.freedoms
-----------------
Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students -- This is the main
statement on student academic freedom.

=================
uiuc.code.excerpts
-----------------
Excerpts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Code on
Campus Affairs and Regulations Applying to All Students (Aug. 1985)

=================
=================
Last update
Tue Apr  9 22:48:42 EDT 1991


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Thu Apr 11 10:06:58 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: brendan@cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe)
Subject: Re: Annoucing the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 11:03:02 EDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: R

You wrote:
> =================
> nsf
> -----------------
> The tentative statement by the National Science Foundation on
> acceptable use of the backbone networks.

   There's an archive of other acceptable use policies for schools and
   networks on ftp.cs.widener.edu [192.55.239.132], which may be of
   interest to the readers of this list.

-- 
     Brendan Kehoe - Widener Sun Network Manager - brendan@cs.widener.edu
  Widener University in Chester, PA                A Bloody Sun-Dec War Zone


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 09:20:13 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: <@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu:FFDMG@ALASKA.BITNET>
Date:     Thu, 11 Apr 91 21:02:44 -0900
Sender: "Dean Gottehrer"  
Subject:  Digest vs. direct
Status: R

I personally disagree that digest is better than sending messages directly
back to subscribers.  I subscribe to forums that are run both ways and
I personally prefer those forums where messages are automatically sent
out to everyone on the list.  Perhaps it's more chaotic at times, but
I find it truly a marketplace of ideas.  And after all, isn't that what
academic freedom is about.  I have more of a sense of community with
those forums where I know there is no moderater between me and everyone
else, either when I send something or when I receive everything.  Here's
one vote for unmoderated free speech on this forum.

Dean Gottehrer
Anchorage, Alaska


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 09:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Cc: bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct 
             <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 01:18:23 -0400
Sender: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
Status: R

I agree with Dean Gottehrer -- individual messages are more 
interesting than digests.  Besides, the digest format implies
an editor (or at least a moderator).  Is this really desirable
in a discussion on academic freedoms?

(I'm also all for gatewaying this list to a Usenet group;
someone should check with the people on one of the groups
that is gatewayed, like comp.dcom.telecom, on how to go
about doing this.)

TSD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 09:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 0:35:58 CDT
Sender: Werner Uhrig 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Mailer: MM v0.90
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct
Status: R


	in a group with several messages a day likely, I would prefer
	to be given a choice to receive either all messages directly
	or a digest (at most one daily, please) or simply a message
	indicating that a new digest volXnoY is available for FTP,
	if the size of those digests get large (>32k maybe?  that is
	the smallest message size I know of that causes a certain
	email-gateway to barf)

	this would allow those who want to have a lively discussion
	to go right to it, and it would allow others to keep both interest
	and sanity (appreciating the discussion all in one single sitting)

	someone might even have the kindness to reduce the digests
	(of ALL messages) into (condensed and extracted) highlights
	or summaries to be sent as an even (more infrequent) value-added
	service (people could even take turns at summarizing, something
	that might not be much of an extra effort as one reads the digest,
	and there could even be summaries from different people, kind of
	like getting the news from your favorite commentator :-)

	I assume all of the traffic and digests would be available for
	FTP somewhere, for when curiosity for details strikes ...

	reactions?

			Cheers,		---Werner

ps: such "expert discussions" can often be found in TELECOM, RISKS and
	other digests, where a few people write back and forth several
	times, and all the articles appear in one digest together.  Most
	enjoyable, nearly like reading the transcripts of the discussion
	of a panel of experts at a conference sometimes...


pps: both digesting and gatewaying to USEnet can be automagically;  the
	software is around for the asking (with FTP)

ppps:  I don't consider reading the paper or magazines or conference
	papers a limitation of "freedom of speech";  quite the opposite:
	I can't take part in discussions on all the topics that might
	interest me, so reading up on things (delayed, of course) is
	often the only realistic alternative to simply ignoring the fact
	that a discussion had occured in the first place.


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 09:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: <@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu:FFDMG@ALASKA.BITNET>
Date:     Thu, 11 Apr 91 22:05:06 -0900
Sender: "Dean Gottehrer"  
Subject:  Re: Digest vs. direct
Status: R

As long as I had a choice between direct and digest, I would not object to
the existence of the digest because I would choose direct.  I realize
others feel differently and a diversity of service is the best option, but
if limited labor is available, I still vote for direct. I don't consider
a moderator to be quite the same as a censor, so much as a director or an
editor.  The effect however has still been for me a chilling effect.  I
subscribe to RISKS and it was the moderated forum I had in mind when I
first wrote on this subject.  The moderator of that forum does what I
consider to be an excellent even-handed job.  I have sent a grand total
of one message to it and it never was sent out, even though I thought it
right on target with what the group was about and it conformed to what
was advertised in desired messages.  Haven't send another message since.

I do, however, respond to unmoderated forums with much less of a chilling
effect because I know no one sits between me and the other subscribers.

I don't have all that much time to put into forum reading and subscribe
to too many already.  But digests simply don't do it for me--they make
it much more of a passive activity and I think do end up having a chilling
effect on the majority of the subscribers.

I'll shut up and listen.

Dean Gottehrer
Anchorage, Alaska


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 09:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 7:51:02 EDT
Sender: Christopher M Mauritz 
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct
Status: R

Yes, I vote for an unmoderated direct message system also.

Cheers,

Chris

------------------------------+---------------------------
Chris Mauritz                 |Show me the way to the
cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu   |next whiskey bar...
cmm1@msb.com                  |-The Doors-


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 19:45:21 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 17:32:46 -0700
Sender: George William Herbert 
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: R

I can't imagine any admin refusing to carry an eff-affiliated newsgroup.
Direct mail may be more jam-proof, but some of us already have 30+msg/day
mail spools, and don't need _quite_ as much as we've been getting here...

-george william herbert
gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:32 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Cc: bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
             <9104121840.AA27561@eff.org> 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:13:28 -0400
Sender: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
Status: R

Oops!  I just re-read the message I replied to, and I better clarify
what I originally said.

I think that this discussion should be carried on both in a 
mailing list _and_ in a Usenet newsgroup.  That way, people
will be able to choose the most convenient way to participate
in the discussion.

(These should be bidirectionally gated -- posts to the newsgroup
are mailed out to the mailing list, and messages mailed to the
list would appear as posts in the newsgroup.)

Whether the mail list aspect should be distributed as raw
messages or in a digest format is a separate subject.  I
think that if it were possible, it would be best if both
formats were offered, allowing people a choice The digest
form might also serve as a means to check on censorship at
one's institution.

TSD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:33 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: 12 Apr 91 15:46:00 EDT
Sender: "ANNETTE CARVER" 
Subject: DIGEST VS DIRECT
Status: R

I receive enough digest-type material in the regular mail.  Direct E-Mail
is a refreshing change of pace.  I don't even mind the typos! (or are they?)
Please count me in for direct mail: freedom to read as is! 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
Anne Carver                            "I have a gallon of ice cream and
Computing Services                      I'm not afraid to use it!"
Alfred University
Alfred, New York

BITNET: CARVERA@CERAMICS
INTERNET: CARVERA@BIGVAX.ALFRED.EDU



From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:33 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: Matt Hucke 
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 13:20:17 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: R

It has been suggested that this forum be a newsgroup.  Although this would be
more convenient for most of us, we must remember that the purpose of this
discussion is to debate censorship by administrators- who could refuse to
carry the newsgroup.

Direct mail, however, is more difficult to censor, and therefore safer, and
well worth the nuisance of finding 20 pieces of mail each day.

+-----------------------------------+================================+
| And in the end,                   | mrh43601@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu      |
|   the love you take,              | Real programmers don't         |
|   is equal to the love you make.  |   eat quiche.                  |
+-----------------------------------+================================+



From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:33 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: Bruce Howard 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:54 EDT
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: R

	From: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
	Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
	Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
	
	Bruce Howard (bhoward@citi.umich.edu) writes:
	
	[Digest vs. individual messages.]

	i don't have time to read netnews everyday.  for the groups too
	important to me to miss, i prefer reading via mail.
	
	
	While I _try_ to read news every day, sometimes I can't.  And
	this is where the handy features of a program like 'rn' let me
	read through a large group of messages fairly quickly, allowing
	me to weed out subjects I'm not interested in and follow the 
	thread of a discussion from message to message without interruption
	by other mail messages (from other lists or friends or just on
	different topics).
	
	TSD

my point was not to start a discussion over which is better.  clearly
some people may find one distribution mechanism more suited to their
needs and work patterns that the other available mechanisms and there
is no technical reason i can think of not to offer all options so as
to encourage and maximize participation.

do you feel only having options of either netnews or a continuing flurry
of individual messages is appropriate?  is there a non-technical reason
you think might make it inappropriate to offer the list in a digested
form?

			curiously,
			bruce



From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:33 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date:         Fri, 12 Apr 91 14:49:55 EST
Sender: "Thomas E. Kunselman" 
Subject:      Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
 
 
Status: R


        Matt Hucke  writes:
>It has been suggested that this forum be a newsgroup.  Although this would be
>more convenient for most of us, we must remember that the purpose of this
>discussion is to debate censorship by administrators- who could refuse to
>carry the newsgroup.

It was suggested that it be carried on usenet in addition to being on the
listserv.  I personally think all newsgroups should be gatewayed in order
to provide a means for everyone to engage in discussion.  You will still have
the option to receive this by mail if you can't or won't read it on usenet
news.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas E. Kunselman                   |
Information Specialist                |    INTERNET: VAATEK@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Office of the Assistant Chancellor    |      BITNET: VAATEK@UKCC
#7 Administration Building            |
University of Kentucky                | "If you aren't going to let us
Lexington, KY 40506-0032              |  play with your toys, we'll
Phone:(606) 257-1633                  |  just get our own."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:34 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: Bruce Howard 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 14:37 EDT
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: R

	From rodan.acs.syr.edu!bwdavies Fri Apr 12 14:18:40 1991
	From: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
	Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
	Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
	
	I'm beginning to see the benefits of a digest format already --
	logging in to find ~20 messages on the subject!  But I'd still
	like to see a bidirectionally gated Usenet newsgroup -- I really
	like the flexibility that newsgroups allow -- you can read posts
	on subjects you're interested in and easily get rid of those
	on subjects you're not interested in.
	
	TSD
	-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
	bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
	bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
	-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

is this really an either/or situation?  at some point, all messages go
through a single point for redistribution.  you can forward messages
immediately to those folks who wish immediate satisfaction.  for the
digest types, dump the message into a queue which gets digestified
periodically.  the period may be defined according to need.

i don't have time to read netnews everyday.  for the groups too
important to me to miss, i prefer reading via mail.

				bruce


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:34 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
             <9104121837.AA17412@rodan.acs.syr.edu> 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:06:07 -0400
Sender: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
Status: R

Bruce Howard (bhoward@citi.umich.edu) writes:

[Digest vs. individual messages.]

i don't have time to read netnews everyday.  for the groups too
important to me to miss, i prefer reading via mail.


While I _try_ to read news every day, sometimes I can't.  And
this is where the handy features of a program like 'rn' let me
read through a large group of messages fairly quickly, allowing
me to weed out subjects I'm not interested in and follow the 
thread of a discussion from message to message without interruption
by other mail messages (from other lists or friends or just on
different topics).

TSD

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:34 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 09:35:17 -0700
Sender: John McCarthy 
Subject: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: R

The only way I will be able to remain a recipient of this information
is via a Usenet newsgroup.  Otherwise, there is just too much mail.


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:34 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
             <9104121615.AA01556@rodan.acs.syr.edu> 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 13:47:08 -0400
Sender: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
Status: R

I'm beginning to see the benefits of a digest format already --
logging in to find ~20 messages on the subject!  But I'd still
like to see a bidirectionally gated Usenet newsgroup -- I really
like the flexibility that newsgroups allow -- you can read posts
on subjects you're interested in and easily get rid of those
on subjects you're not interested in.

TSD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:35 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date:         Fri, 12 Apr 91 12:35:05 EDT
Sender: The Zen-Master Sphinx 
Subject:      Re: Digest vs. Direct
Status: R

As I see it, a digest format will be mostly used by those who read the
list but don't post often.  I think a direct version is necessary, because
a digest format would result in a similar format to a magazine - major
essays or articles, with some followup letters to the editor:  not really
a discussion.  A direct discussion is important to get more people involved
more regularly, and to keep the personal feel.  The digest is a good idea -
as someone else pointed out, a good way to provide a source if any of the
list's material is quoted - but as a feature, not the primary means of
communication.

Crash

+----------------------------+------------------------------------------+
: THE ZEN-MASTER SPHINX      :    SPEAK SOFTLY, DRIVE A SHERMAN TANK,   :
: ST101293@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU : LAUGH HARD, IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE BANK! :
: ST101293@BROWNVM.BITNET    :          -THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS           :
+----------------------------+------------------------------------------+
: YOU MADE MY DAY, NOW YOU HAVE TO SLEEP IN IT  -THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS   :
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
: JUST REMEMBER, NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE -BUCKAROO BANZAI :
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
: DEATH TO XEDIT! : DEATH TO XEDIT! : DEATH TO XEDIT! : DEATH TO XEDIT! :
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:35 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date:      Fri, 12 Apr 91 10:09:26 PDT
Sender: "Info Security 3-9797" 
Subject: Information Gridlock
Status: R

Speaking as one person who has reached information gridlock and is
trying to manage to squeeze still more information into my life, I
am finding that I need better and better ways of filtering what I
read.  For a forum like this one which is not part of my primary job
responsibility, my involvement must be necessarily limited.  And yet
I want it to be high quality time.  Thus, a digest is best for me.
Why can't we have individual profiles drive what we get?  A monthly
digest is too long between issues.  I'd prefer a daily digest.
Direct is far to much interruption for me.  I realize that by
suggesting individual profiles requires someone to do some work.
This is not something I am willing to volunteer for, so it is unfair
to ask someone else to do it.  Yet, if it isn't done now while this
list is still fairly manageable, it may either get unmanageable or
fall into disuse by some people who might otherwise like to
participate.

This list may be small right now, but as it grows, (and it will),
the interruption factor may become intolerable even for those who
like the instantaneous feedback.

Bill Bauriedel Stanford Univ.


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:35 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 12:32:27 EDT
Sender: Christopher M Mauritz 
Subject: Computer Administration and service
Status: R

Date:         Fri, 12 Apr 91 09:29:35 EST
Subject:      Computer Services Philosophy and Academic Decision-making
 

>I have worked for the administration of several different kinds of Universities
>From small to large as a staff member engaged in providing various types of
>management information.  Throughout all of my experiences, I have dealth with
>many coputer services people and the one thing I find lacking in 90% of these
>people is SERVICE.

Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  You should see the petulant response you get around here
at Columbia from "those in charge" when you question their divine authority
or ask why some measure or another has been taken.  It is nothing short of:
"How dare you lowly students question our decisions?"  Inevitably a flame
war ensues and the administration ends up alienating itself further.  The
bottom line is that no action is taken unless a lot of people bitch, and
bitch loudly.  There is no way to discuss service shortfalls in any kind of
reasonable manner.

>I'm sure there are several reasons for this, job security, feelings of owner-
>ship of equipment, software, data, information.  The desire to be needed,
>wanted, respected.  I'm sure I could go on and on, but are any of these an
>excuse for not answering a question from a user, or to accuse a user of asking
>too many questions?  (One of the silliest things anyone has recently accused
>me of.)

YES!  I think the primary problem is that certain individuals get more involved
in playing petty politics and trying to maintain the status quo than listen
to the concerns of the students.  It comes to the point where it seems that
the administration seems to be more interested in supplying a playground for
the computer cognescenti than trying to provide a service that the students
want.  And when you do question...Oh boy.  I have heard from friends of mine
that work in the administration that they are checking up on my status as
a student to see if I can be shuttled out of the picture.

>It is this Information Hoarding Culture that is the main problem in any
>discussion of coputers and interference with academic freedom.  And I don't
>mean to imply that Computing Organizations within an institution are the only
>people guilty of this.  Quite often various administrative units of an
>organization behave in precisly the same way for precisely the same reasons.

I agree that this situation exists in most companies, but it should NOT
be alloweed to occur in a university, where the "goal" is to allow
intellectual curiosity to flourish.  For an example, students here are
not allowed to read any of the security news groups on Usenet.  How are
we supposed to learn anything if the administration picks and chooses what
we will be "allowed" to learn?

Anyway, I could go on, but I think I've gotten my point across.  In the
end, I wound up setting up a public access unix site with a friend so that
I could enjoy all the benefits of the net without any Big Brotherly
editing and harassment.


When this account expires at the end of the semester, I will transfer
my "flag" over to my site.  How long can you bang your head against an
immovable wall?

Cheers,

Chris

------------------------------+---------------------------
Chris Mauritz                 |Show me the way to the
cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu   |next whiskey bar...
cmm1@msb.com                  |-The Doors-


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:35 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: rsk@juniper.circ.upenn.edu (Rick Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 12:07:32 EDT
Subject: Re: Computer Services Philosophy and Academic Decision-making
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 12:07:32 EDT
Organization: Cardiothoracic Imaging Research Center, Hospital of UPenn
X-Queued-Mail: 594messages
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: R


As someone who has in the past been part of the "computer service"
community at a large university, I thought about responding to this point
by point, but I really don't want to start an argument...I think I would
like to instead (1) concede that many of Thomas Kunselman's points are quite
valid and (2) talk a little bit about the other side of the fence.

1. Many people in the computer service organizations of universities are
empire-builders; many of them feel threatened by the pervasive use of
micros and workstations as opposed to mainframes, and they're not taking
it at all well.  Many of them don't understand what their users are doing
and some don't even want to understand ... all of which can combine to
create considerable, err, friction.

2. On other other side of the coin, many people in computer service
organizations have to deal with users that want everything NOW and don't
have the slightest grasp of just what it takes to install software or
hardware properly ("properly" == so that it works for everyone, continues
to work, can be upgraded, includes documentation, etc.).  I don't expect
all users to become computer gurus; but a certain amount of education
is needed simply so that users can understand *why* some things can't be
done overnight.  (Or, conversely, why they can be done overnight.)

Many users are downright rude -- I know that I put up with a lot of this
at one place I worked.  After putting in 80-hour weeks for months on end
trying to keep obsolete and flaky hardware and software running, the last
thing anyone needs is to be treated in this fashion...but it happens.
Personally, I have a zero-tolerance policy for this, which explains why
I'm not in the computer service organization game anymore. ;-)

Many users want the latest and greatest version of every piece of software
that they use...but they don't want to stop using the old version(s),
they don't want anything that they're working with to change, and they
want the upgrade done completely transparently.  Depending on what software
one is working with, these goals may be trivial -- or impossible,
especially if the source code isn't available.  It's almost as difficult
to explain this sort of problem to the users as it is to solve the problem.

Many users don't pay the slightest attention to announcements of downtime,
software changes, hardware upgrades, documentation...and then wonder why
support people get upset with them.  (Thus the origins of one of my
favorite acronyms, RTFM.)  Just as it is the support organization's task
to keep the users informed, it is the users' task to keep abreast of
the information being provided to them.

Etc.

I'm not trying to shift the blame for the problems that exist to the users --
I think the "blame", if such must be assessed, lies equally with users
and support people.  But I simply wanted to point out that there is another
side to this problem, and it's no fun over there either. :-)

Cheers,
---Rsk


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Sender: Bruce Howard 
        comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Cc: bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 12:15 EDT
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: R

	From eff.org!comp-academic-freedom-talk-request Fri Apr 12 01:30:54 1991
	From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
	Cc: bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu
	Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct 
	             <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
	
	I agree with Dean Gottehrer -- individual messages are more 
	interesting than digests.  Besides, the digest format implies
	an editor (or at least a moderator).  Is this really desirable
	in a discussion on academic freedoms?

it doesn't necessarily imply a moderator at all, really.  i prefer
digested material for high-volume lists simply to reduce the number
of individual mail messages i have to sort through.  you could even
put the phrase "unmoderated" somewhere in the digest banner page.

	(I'm also all for gatewaying this list to a Usenet group;
	someone should check with the people on one of the groups
	that is gatewayed, like comp.dcom.telecom, on how to go
	about doing this.)

gatewaying is cool as long as it is bidirectional.

				bruce


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1991 09:26:39 +0600
Sender: sheehan@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Re: Digest vs. Direct 
Status: R

I cast my ballot for direct. I agree with those who have remarked that a
conference on freedom should steer clear of filters. And I think that the
issues raised here lend themselves particularly well to real-time,
impassioned oratory.

Taking the other side for a minute, though, one advantage of a digest
system is that it'd be a little easier to integrate into a textual
database, assuming (reasonably, I think) that someone somewhere will want
to use these postings as reference material. As to the frequency of a
digest, for my purposes a weekly compilation would be plenty. The digests I
read (risks, mac apps.) I just get to once a week at most. If this
conference WERE available in both forms I'd probably use both.

One last item: I too would like to see this conference cross-posted to
netnews. Reading it there, while arguably less convenient than having it
delivered to my electronic doorstep X times a day, saves a lot of MY disk
and OUR (yours and mine and Al Gore's) network bandwidth.


 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |        Mark Sheehan, Technical Communications Administrator           |
 |-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------|
 | University Computing Services     | BITNET: sheehan@iubacs            |
 | Indiana University                | Internet: sheehan@ucs.indiana.edu |
 | Bloomington, Indiana USA 47405    | Telephone: (812) 855-0913         |
 +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+



From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1991 10:55:36 +0600
Sender: sheehan@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Re: Computer Services Philosophy and Academic Decision-making 
Cc: sheehan@indiana.edu
Status: R

Whew!  Good note!!  I'm a computer services administrator at Indiana
University and recognize very clearly parts of what you're talking about. 
Let me just respond to a couple of points. 

You mention: 

>Throughout all of my experiences, I have dealth with
>many coputer services people and the one thing I find lacking in 90% of
these
>people is SERVICE.
>
>I'm sure there are several reasons for this, job security, feelings of
owner-
>ship of equipment, software, data, information.  The desire to be needed,
>wanted, respected.  I'm sure I could go on and on, but are any of these an
>excuse for not answering a question from a user, or to accuse a user of
asking
>too many questions?  (One of the silliest things anyone has recently
accused
>me of.)

I don't think there's any GOOD reason for a computer center to fail to
provide good service. What you've run into is common, nevertheless, at a
lot of computer centers (and hardware stores, and auto repair shops, and
restaurants, and... and....). I think it boils down to poor morale, and
that's a management issue. My guess is that the working conditions at all
these places are wrong in one way or another. Maybe management doesn't
reward good service. Maybe it doesn't discourage (or recognize) poor
service. Almost certainly, staff have TOO MUCH TO DO. That was the one that
got to me when I was providing direct user support.  I really liked the
users I worked with and valued what they were doing. But as their
population exploded I got overwhelmed. I'll bet that's at the root of a lot
of it.

There's some talk about "computer people" not being "people people."
There's some validity to that, but not as much, IMHO, as the general public
imagines.


Also, you mention: 
>An example of this at the University of Kentucky, involves NSFNET interim
>guidelines stating that the network is to be used for educational and
research
>purposes only.  This is all very good and agreable, in my mind.  But which
>group decides what has educational and research value?  I suppose the
Faculty
>Senate or maybe even individual members of the Faculty might decide this.

IMHO this is DEFINITELY the role of a computer services advisory committee.
We have two at IU Bloomington. One for campus academic computing issues,
and one for statewide administrative computing issues. They're active and
involved because the computer center LISTENS and takes their advice as the
core of its actions. I'd hope that every university would have such
committees and such a commitment to use them.

I think it's probably a mistake for ANYone or any committee to set firm
guidelines about what is "educational" or what constitutes "research." We
had a fairly steamy conference going on a university-based BBS system many
years ago. It got gratuitously obscene by the standards of our advisory
groups, so we yanked it. Interestingly, the biggest howl came from a grad
student in folklore (or was it linguistics?) who was studying the use of
certain obscene words for a research paper he was writing. 

IMHO again, seems like life is learning, and not much of what people do is
unrelated to life.

You mention:
>When we have technicians, be they programmers, network jockeys, system
>administrators, or computing administration, telling us what we can or can
>not do on their systems we have lost our academic freedom.  Well, when we
>let them get away with it.  What do these technical people know about
academic
>freedom?  Do they have tenure or faculty status, belog to the faculty
senate?

Hmmm. *I'm* one of those types, and *I* don't have any interest in telling
academics what to do. I don't have tenure or sit on the faculty senate, but
I think I'm on your side.  Don't mean to flame, but: Am I still irrelevant?

You ask:
>Why are people that we hire to support the needs of the academic community
>making academic decisions for this community?

Again, I think anyone in this position needs to fire up their faculty
advisory committee.

You mention:
>How many departmental computing centers have sprung
>up at your campus?  All these are signs of lack of service on the part of
>the central computing organization.
>

Yep. You're right. Computer centers just CAN'T support departments as well
as they can support themselves. There are things we CAN do, like design
training materials, publish newsletters, maintain mainframes, and manage
networks (if we do it wisely) that are a lot more efficiently done
centrally. Here at IU we have a "distributed support" program in which we
fund departmental (academic and administrative departments) computing
support people.  They belong to the departments, but we pay them. Works
very well. Of course we maintain a general access consulting staff as well
for people without departmental affiliations (a lot of students -- 28,000
accounts on our VAXcluster!).

Thanks for your thoughtful posting!  I can see that this is going to be
fun!


 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |        Mark Sheehan, Technical Communications Administrator           |
 |-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------|
 | University Computing Services     | BITNET: sheehan@iubacs            |
 | Indiana University                | Internet: sheehan@ucs.indiana.edu |
 | Bloomington, Indiana USA 47405    | Telephone: (812) 855-0913         |
 +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+



From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 11:30:45 -0500
Sender: "Carl M. Kadie" 
Subject: FYI: Jim Sanders censored no more
Status: R

Xref: m.cs.uiuc.edu alt.censorship:752 alt.conspiracy:1303 talk.politics.mideast:7685
Path: m.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!aburt
Sender: aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt)
Newsgroups: nyx.misc,alt.censorship,alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Jim Sanders censored no more
Message-ID: <1991Apr12.140541.8984@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: 12 Apr 91 14:05:41 GMT
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Lines: 279


I feel like I'm about to step from the frying pan into the fire...

Well, here's the verdict -- Jim Sanders will be allowed back on the air again.
BUT READ THIS ALL BEFORE YOU FLAME...  this is a very difficult matter,
not a black and white issue; I'll try to convince you this is the "right"
choice; or at least the lesser of two enormous evils.

People are on both sides of the fence about this, of course, but please
read through this all before flaming... (and if you can avoid flaming, please
do!)  We're trying to get this resolved in the way fairest to all concerned,
"society as a whole" included.

CLEARLY we can't please everyone; and there have been plenty of flames so
far.  So let's let this lengthy posting be the final one on the matter.

I'll try to go through the history a bit, inject some personal opinions, and 
tell you DU's opinion, while I explain how decisions were made.

Pertinent Background:

Nyx is a public access system run by DU, specifically the Math/CS dept.,
wherein I (Andrew Burt) am a professor and system admin for our various
departmental machines.  Nyx is NOT an official project of the department
or DU; it's all volunteer run and donation funded.  I run Nyx on my own time;
DU owns the hardware.  DU does not "support" Nyx in any way other than
pay the electricity and allow the use of old hardware that would otherwise
be shut off.  I started Nyx as a personal project, to give Unix/net access
to the public; consider it a hobby of mine.  DU tolerates it.

Nyx is completely open to the public; it is completely free to users --
no charges.  Anyone can sign up for an account.  We have a full newsfeed,
and allow posting to anyone.  All users are asked to read the netiquette
documents, which are made easily accessible (the whole thing is menu oriented).
I believe Nyx provides a valuable community service, by making netnews
accessible to many who would otherwise never know of it.

Jim Sanders is one of the 3000+ people who've tried it.  He has NOTHING
to do with DU -- not a student, employee, anything.  (And, as it goes, he's
the only user we've had any kind of "problem" with.)

We have a disclaimer as users log in that reads:

    Disclaimer:  The University of Denver disclaims everything it can
    relating to Nyx.  DU doesn't support Nyx in any way.  There.  We said it.

DU's policy for its students, staff, etc., forbids doing anything
"inconsiderate" with a usercode.

Also, DU is a private school, with a nominal Methodist affiliation.  (Though
I haven't a clue how many Methodists are in high places.  I doubt it's much
more than a nominal affiliation.  I'm not Methodist at any rate, nor are
the few people whose affiliations I am aware of.) 

And bear in mind that DU shut down the school paper for several months 
last year because it ran blatantly offensive, sexually biased "advertisements".
Well, not ads, but the back page was sort of a free-for-all; folks paid
to say whatever they wanted, and it wasn't censored.  Some of the remarks
were patently offensive, and the staff didn't seem to care.  They were also
in the red financially.  So they just shut it down, fired all the workers;
it has just recently resumed publishing (mid-March).

What Jim Sanders did:

Jim Sanders began posting pretty inflammatory material, heavily criticizing
lawyers, oilmen, etc.  Later, the criticisms were leveled at one particular
ethnic/religious group, namely Jewish people.  His postings were of personal
opinion mixed with quotes from various published sources.  They often included
considerable profanity (even after being asked to stop).

Further postings in his name appeared apologizing for the original notes.
He alleged he did not send them; or sent the wrong file; even though postings
weeks earlier promised these files would be posted.  He later alleged that
his account had been violated (I found no local evidence of this, but forging
e-mail and postings is simple enough without that).  At any rate, he began
posting from the account of Evan Ravitz, apparently a business associate
of his.  Since eravitz's account predates jsanders, I presume eravitz
gave jsanders his password to use.  (I don't see this as an issue, however --
since jsanders could have signed up under any name at all just like a new
user would.  I remove obvious phony accounts like 'mmouse', but a qsmith
or whatever wouldn't get removed.)  Additionally, he posted the same
files on a regular basis, a basic breach of netiquette.

What other people did:

With his anti-semitic postings, tempers flared wildly.  Many people,
including people from inside DU, voiced their outrage at his postings
(lots of adjectives were used... "filth", "trash", "anti-semitic
drivel", and on and on).  The outrage was both directed at his opinions
and at the fact that DU/Nyx's-system-admin (me) would allow such postings.

Everyone stated their displeasure with his postings.  Most asked that Jim
Sanders not only be told that his behavior was not appropriate for the
net but also that he be stopped, or asked to stop.  I read the net articles
in response to his, and saw articles saying he shouldn't be allowed to say what
he said, but none (over the couple days that I watched anyway) saying
"no, that's censorship, don't do it". The general consensus on the net
seemed to be that his postings were absolutely ludicrous and a waste of
net bandwidth, not to mention that he was "breaking" many net "rules" of
conduct.

Some netlanders even contacted DU administrative officials to complain about
the situation.  This is when the real problems started.  DU brass are not
computer people.  They don't understand bulletin boards, let alone the
Usenet anarchy; they're not sure DU even should be involved with a "BBS"
type system.

What DU did:

Legally, DU has the right to decide what postings are allowed or not
allowed from DU property, which Nyx's hardware is.  The initial reaction
was to apply the same regulations to Nyx-originated postings that apply
to all other systems -- again, not to allow postings that are construed
as inconsiderate, into which category racist and profane postings clearly are.
Indeed, some DU brass had a MAJOR fit about this -- and talked of
shutting Nyx down (remember, DU has reservations about running Nyx in
the first place; racist postings "from" DU don't help, and this is how it
was presented to them by some net folks, or is at least how they understood it;
they were told "DU students are sending obscene messages").  It would
certainly silence Jim Sanders to kill Nyx; but it would also be a loss
to the community.  

Remember, this sounds a lot like the newspaper issue.  People being offensive,
nobody doing anything about it, etc.  From a school with a religious
affiliation to "answer to", "uphold", phrase it how you will.

So the basic idea was: if I don't shut Jim Sanders down, Nyx is shut down.
To prevent Nyx from being shut down, and feeling that (a) he had broken
net rules, and (b) he had gotten his message out (over and over in fact) -- so
I wasn't really preventing him from airing his views (I mean, he had done
so for a while and was only being redundant) -- I chose the lesser evil.
I asked Jim Sanders not to post, and enforced this restriction at the software
level.  Since he could easily get back on under another name, I
monitored outgoing postings to verify he didn't post (he didn't).  I
didn't intend to censor anything else; and nothing was censored at
all.  Jim Sanders did not attempt to post once asked not to.

[begin personal opinion:]  I *personally* am totally against
censorship.  I thought it was pretty ironic to get called a nazi
fascist pig censor!  I told Jim Sanders many times that I disagreed
with his opinions vehemently, but I believed in and would defend his
right to express them.  I did not WANT to censor him, but I didn't want
Nyx shut down either.  It skates on thin ice as it is.  And he'd made his
point thoroughly anyway; so while an evil, it looked better to keep
Nyx -- I mean, Jim Sanders loses the ability to post from Nyx either way.

I firmly believe in freedom of speech; after further discussion here,
and with the help of overwhelming net protests against censorship,
I have gotten DU to agree that freedom of speech is more important than
silencing offensive speech.

DU as a whole in no way supports the views of ANY Nyx users, Jim
Sanders included.  (Indeed, I have added a "Disclaimer:" header to
all Nyx postings stating exactly this point.  Too many people seemed to
assume that DU supported jsander's views simply because it came from a
DU system.  Silly, but true.)

Rationale for final decision:

I could offer the "easy" way out, and point out that Jim Sanders could
have been cut off for knowingly breaking net rules.  But that too would
be censorship, in the same vein as convicting Al Capone on tax evasion
was convicting him for his other crimes.  Further, it *is* DU's
system.  DU is a private school, and can decide what constitutes
inappropriate use of its hardware.  DU has the right to censor
postings.  Again, this is an easy way out.  If Nyx is truly a public
system, all the views of the public should be allowed, no matter how
offensive to groups or incredibly ridiculous readers may find them.  If
the posting was clearly illegal, that's different (e.g., posting credit
card numbers).  Nyx will, however, adopt the stance that it is simply a
carrier, and not responsible for the postings of its users; like the
phone company isn't responsible for, e.g., drug deals done by phone.

Some folks might say "we pay for our newsfeed, and don't want to waste
our money on this."  I think the best analogy here is to a newspaper.
If a newspaper carried a story you found offensive, you wouldn't get a
refund of 1% because you disliked one of the 100 articles.  You bought
the whole paper, both good and offensive.  (You could cancel your
subscription, or not buy it again -- with respect to netnews, you can
drop your feed or quit reading some groups; or put jsanders in your
kill file.  The "Just say 'n'." approach.  Or get the net to agree that
we need alt.jsanders, get him to post only there, then don't carry
it.)  But say jsanders posts one offensive article a day (to err on the
high side), that's what, one article out of 20,000; maybe you pay,
what, $5/day for news (sounds high, would cover the cost of a uunet
feed) -- then jsanders cost you $.00025.  You undoubtedly lose more
money than that in work time lost worrying about it.

Some said "this isn't tolerable on a government supported network".  Well,
the government is MORE likely to support it under the freedom of speech
amendment than is a private network.  Government support doesn't mean
the government supports every opinion expressed -- no more than DU or I
support Nyx users' opinions.

Another tack was "posting is a privilege, not a right".  Agreed, but revoking
the privilege simply because it contains highly unpopular opinions isn't
fair.  Perhaps his opinions are "over the line" -- but who's to judge?
Me, or the whole net?  I never wanted to be the judge; that leaves the net.
Did he abuse the privilege in other ways?  Profanity?  Well, we all do it,
it's part of being human; again, the net can judge.  Apologizing then
not apologizing, etc.?  It still isn't clear who posted what, if any
forged articles were sent.  I can't hold that against Jim Sanders.
Posting for different accounts?  Well, he thought his account had been
hacked into and presumably wanted to prove he hadn't posted the next
allegedly forged message.  Besides, it's better that he uses his real name
(I presume it IS his real name, but no matter) than a lot of pseudonyms.

What about the issue of "his postings are WAAAAAY out of line"?  Well,
that's for you to decide and argue with him about.  YOU decide, not me.
I won't decide for you.

[Let me suggest this:  If everyone really hates his postings so much,
let's just NOBODY reply to them.  If he's ignored, he'll likely go away.
I argued with him once; he ignored my argument, so I quit arguing.  Now
I personally just ignore his postings.]

Complaints on this matter have really been swamping my mailbox.  First
it was "shut jsanders up"; then "don't shut jsanders up". I would say,
though I didn't count, that the anti-censorship letters were 5 to 10 times
as many as the pro-censorship letters.

Most people who said let him speak made one or more of the following points:

	- they disagreed with him entirely
	- they felt he had a right to his opinions
	- they would rather be the judge of his opinions than a censor
	- censorship was far worse than offensive opinions
	- he wrote nothing illegal -- no slander, no libel
	- they felt the net folks as a whole were pretty intelligent,
	  and nobody would be likely to buy his ideas anyway, or at
	  least he was unlikely to convert anyone to his ideas
	- private (legal) censorship whittles away our rights too, just
	  like government censorship
	- silencing him only makes him a martyr
	- silencing him only helps prove his point about group X controlling
	  the world

Plus:

	- a couple people said they thought his postings were "interesting"
	- one person even agreed wholeheartedly with him
	- some said they like to watch the fireworks

All critics of the censorship decision presented good arguments against
censorship, no matter how offensive the material was.  The critics of
jsanders in favor of censorship, presented weaker arguments, which I've
discussed above.

Conclusion:

On balance, the cost of freedom of speech is allowing the speech you
disagree with.

So to wrap this up, I personally disagree with jsanders writings.  But
I respect his right to say it.  I want to keep Nyx a place where people
can express their opinions freely.

If you disagree, fine, I respect that.  But please accept the judgement
of the net and DU, which is what I consider the outcome to be.  Please don't
try to subvert it, or Nyx, by, e.g., bitching to DU officials, filling
up jsanders mbox with megabytes of XXX's or whatever.  (Someone did
that.  It never got to jsanders because it filled up our disk and I had
to delete it; royally screwed things up, ticked me off bad.)  Try Nyx
before you condemn it; and regardless, don't take matters into your own
hands trying to shut jsanders down, that just hurts the hundreds of
other regular Nyx users, and makes you guilty of censorship.  If you
want to argue with him, please do.  Keep it to words, not actions
though.  Keep it a clean fight.  Remember that a lot of people want him
to be able to post whatever nonsense he wants to, even though they
nearly all disagree with him.

Any replies should be mailed to me, as I don't really read these groups.

Again, if you can let it rest now, please do.
-- 
Andrew Burt 				   			uunet!isis!aburt
								or aburt@du.edu

                            "Kwyjibo on the loose!"


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: <@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU:HILTON@UIUCVMC.BITNET>
Date: 12 April 1991 07:52:13 CDT
Sender: Harry H. Hilton   
Comment: Phone:(o) 217-333-2653 (h) 217-352-8372 FAX 217-244-7705
Comment:  Address: AAE Dept., U. of Illinois, MC-236
Comment: 104 S. Mathews, 18 Transp. Bldg.;Urbana, IL 61801-2997
Status: R

I would prefer to receive undigested material, but the option of
receiving digeted material for those who want it sounds attractive.


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Resent-Date:  Fri, 12 Apr 91 10:24:19 EST
Resent-From: "Thomas E. Kunselman" 
 
Date:         Fri, 12 Apr 91 09:29:35 EST
Sender: "Thomas E. Kunselman" 
Subject:      Computer Services Philosophy and Academic Decision-making
 
Status: R

I figure I might as well start off some discussion about the place of computer
services in academic decision-making.  I would like to point out where I think
the primary problem lies.  I am very interested in suggestions on how to
change the problem.

I have worked for the administration of several different kinds of Universities
>from small to large as a staff member engaged in providing various types of
management information.  Throughout all of my experiences, I have dealth with
many coputer services people and the one thing I find lacking in 90% of these
people is SERVICE.

I'm sure there are several reasons for this, job security, feelings of owner-
ship of equipment, software, data, information.  The desire to be needed,
wanted, respected.  I'm sure I could go on and on, but are any of these an
excuse for not answering a question from a user, or to accuse a user of asking
too many questions?  (One of the silliest things anyone has recently accused
me of.)

It is this Information Hoarding Culture that is the main problem in any
discussion of coputers and interference with academic freedom.  And I don't
mean to imply that Computing Organizations within an institution are the only
people guilty of this.  Quite often various administrative units of an
organization behave in precisly the same way for precisely the same reasons.

An example of this at the University of Kentucky, involves NSFNET interim
guidelines stating that the network is to be used for educational and research
purposes only.  This is all very good and agreable, in my mind.  But which
group decides what has educational and research value?  I suppose the Faculty
Senate or maybe even individual members of the Faculty might decide this.
However, in this case, the networking group took it upon themselves to decide
what was educational and research and proceeded to 'filter out' all network
activity that didn't use approved applications.  (They did this by restricting
port useage to those ports listed in /etc/services).  They discussed this with
no one in the academic community.  They didn't tell any of the systems people
at any of the academic computer sites.  Afterall, it was their network, they
could do whatever they wanted with it.

When we have technicians, be they programmers, network jockeys, system
administrators, or computing administration, telling us what we can or can
not do on their systems we have lost our academic freedom.  Well, when we
let them get away with it.  What do these technical people know about academic
freedom?  Do they have tenure or faculty status, belog to the faculty senate?
Why are people that we hire to support the needs of the academic community
making academic decisions for this community?

I think most of us on this list are probably lucky in that we are fairly
sophisticated when it comes to computer use.  In fact, many of us can probably
say that we'd like to get a copy of the program the programmer has written
so we can make our own minor modifications as reporting needs change without
putting in a program request change and waiting three weeks till our request
has time to be fulfilled.

How many times are you turned down for something like this?  How many times
will you ask for an explanation or for information about something and be
given the run around?  How many departmental computing centers have sprung
up at your campus?  All these are signs of lack of service on the part of
the central computing organization.

What do you all do to get the information and services you require?

The major thing we have done is to do everythin in-house.  This is much faster
in the long run, but in the short-term it takes a lot of work and means we end
up duplicating a lot of what was done before but there is no other choice due
to the information hoarding culture.

Not to paint such a bleak picture, like I said, we have that ten percent of
very service oriented and dedicated people who are very helpful.  And luckily,
here at UK, a lot of those ten percent are in the academic consulting group.

I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on how much in agreement you
are on my perceptions of computing service personnel.  I am also interested
in discussions about ways to effectively organize users to do planning and
policy decision-making with regard to academic needs, and not the whims of
empire-builders/maintainers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas E. Kunselman                   |
Information Specialist                |    INTERNET: VAATEK@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Office of the Assistant Chancellor    |      BITNET: VAATEK@UKCC
#7 Administration Building            |
University of Kentucky                | "Hacker? Not I.  Sometimes the
Lexington, KY 40506-0032              |  average feel threatened and
Phone:(606) 257-1633                  |  mislabel genius." -- A. Tugrik
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas E. Kunselman                   |
Information Specialist                |    INTERNET: VAATEK@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Office of the Assistant Chancellor    |      BITNET: VAATEK@UKCC
#7 Administration Building            |
University of Kentucky                | "Hacker? Not I.  Sometimes the
Lexington, KY 40506-0032              |  average feel threatened and
Phone:(606) 257-1633                  |  mislabel genius." -- A. Tugrik
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 20:06:36 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Return-Path: 
Date:         Fri, 12 Apr 91 08:36:12 EST
Sender: "Thomas E. Kunselman" 
Subject:      Re: Digest vs. direct
 
Status: R

Having recently created a listserv discussion list, my boss and I discussed
this very issue.  We did a survey of our readers and also sent real mail to a
list of people with potential interest in the electronic discussion list.

I would say that people who did not have direct experience with an electronic
listserv list preferred a digest/newsletter format.  From initially scanning
the returned electronic surveys, people with experience were divided pretty
much 50-50 in their preference for newsletter vs unmoderated.

After looking at newsletter format lists, I think it inhibits discussion
somewhat.  I think a person is more likely to respond to a query directly
than through the newsletter. Plus, I like the idea of being able to get almost
immediate responses to some questions that I ask.

My suggestion, and the idea we are going to implement for our list, is to have
both types of lists.  People can either subscribe to the discussion or the
monthly newletter type list.

The monthly newsletter will simply be a digest of the log file of the
unmoderated list, along with anything else sent to the editor of the monthly
list.  Actually we will probably try first to just have everything sent to
the monthly list autoforwarded to the unmoderated list.

I think the main complaint most people have about unmoderated lists is the
amount of individual pieces of mail received in their mailbox.  There is no
rhyme or reason to the order of this mail and it is an incessant flood.  To
subscribe to three our four active lists can mean between 50 and 100 pieces
of mail a day!  This is not the way to get people to use computers.  One
reason why I enjoy netnews.  I hope this list soon becomes a bit. group.

I recently picked up a NNTP based netnews server for VM/CMS that seems to
work rather nicely from MITRE Corp.  Even I was able to install it:-)  I'll
let you know how some of my colleagues feel about it after I have a chance
to show them how to use it.  My guess is that they will unsubscribe to all
of their current lists and read whatever they can via netnews since it at
least tries to add some sort of logical order to the postings.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas E. Kunselman                   |
Information Specialist                |    INTERNET: VAATEK@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Office of the Assistant Chancellor    |      BITNET: VAATEK@UKCC
#7 Administration Building            |
University of Kentucky                | "Hacker? Not I.  Sometimes the
Lexington, KY 40506-0032              |  average feel threatened and
Phone:(606) 257-1633                  |  mislabel genius." -- A. Tugrik
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 21:04:07 1991
Received: by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA29886; Fri, 12 Apr 91 20:34:02 EDT
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Received: from tsunami.Berkeley.EDU by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA29881; Fri, 12 Apr 91 20:33:53 EDT
Received: by tsunami.Berkeley.EDU (5.61/CHAOS)
	id AA01282; Fri, 12 Apr 91 17:32:46 -0700
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 17:32:46 -0700
Sender: George William Herbert 
Message-Id: <9104130032.AA01282@tsunami.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: RO

I can't imagine any admin refusing to carry an eff-affiliated newsgroup.
Direct mail may be more jam-proof, but some of us already have 30+msg/day
mail spools, and don't need _quite_ as much as we've been getting here...

-george william herbert
gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu


From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 22:15:43 1991
Received: by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA00409; Fri, 12 Apr 91 21:54:55 EDT
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Received: from DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA00404; Fri, 12 Apr 91 21:54:49 EDT
Date:    Sat, 13 Apr 1991 11:21:17 GMT
Sender: MCNAB_PD@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU (XCACORP)
Message-Id: <910413112117.20207d60@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU>
Subject: RE: DIGEST VS DIRECT
Status: RO

I'd just like to add my 2 cents worth - I'm hooked onto our university's
small system. I had only regained access to NEWS when I subscribed to this
talk group.

I have been told, however, that Computing Services is running out of storage
space, and that - if necessary - news/AARnet access will be the first to go.

As such, it is my own interests to request a digested format. Most of the 
mailing lists which I subscribe to are


From kadie Sun Apr 14 11:41:12 1991
To: caf-batch
Reply-to: caf-talk@eff.org
Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom (batch version)
BCC: kadie@eff.org
BCC: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Status: R

This is the first issue of the batch version of caf-talk.
By sure to e-mail your contributions to comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
(or caf-talk@eff.org).
  - Carl
=========================

>From kadie Fri Apr 12 22:08:28 1991
To: caf-talk
Subject: caf-talk: Interactive *and* Batch
Status: RO

Because people seem pretty much split between getting lots of little
notes immediately and getting one big note about once a day, you now
have a choice.

If you like getting lots of little notes immediately, do nothing (you
are already on the comp-academic-freedom-talk list).

If you would rather receive one big note about once a day, send email
to listserv@eff.org. The note should include these two lines:
  delete comp-academic-freedom-talk
  add comp-academic-freedom-batch

As before, to contribute to the list(s), send e-mail to
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org (or caf-talk@eff.org).

- Carl

p.s. I'm still interested in further improvements like a mailing list
to netnews gateway. But I will have to wait at least a week before I
can pursue it. If you can help me (setting up a newsgroup and/or a
gateway), please send email to kadie@eff.org.


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 12:32:16 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 22:08:29 EDT
Sender: kadie (Carl Kadie)
Subject: caf-talk: Interactive *and* Batch
Status: RO

Because people seem pretty much split between getting lots of little
notes immediately and getting one big note about once a day, you now
have a choice.

If you like getting lots of little notes immediately, do nothing (you
are already on the comp-academic-freedom-talk list).

If you would rather receive one big note about once a day, send email
to listserv@eff.org. The note should include these two lines:
  delete comp-academic-freedom-talk
  add comp-academic-freedom-batch

As before, to contribute to the list(s), send e-mail to
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org (or caf-talk@eff.org).

- Carl

p.s. I'm still interested in further improvements like a mailing list
to netnews gateway. But I will have to wait at least a week before I
can pursue it. If you can help me (setting up a newsgroup and/or a
gateway), please send email to kadie@eff.org.



>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 12:32:16 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date:    Sat, 13 Apr 1991 11:27:16 GMT
Sender: MCNAB_PD@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU (XCACORP)
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: RO

OOPs - sorry, I had to dump out from my mail message, as someone was phoning
me. The name didn't ring a bell, so I though I'd better check it out (could
have been someone in admin. wanting to find out why I was working on a Sat.)

Anyhow, I'd prefer to recieve a digested forat, if only to economise on
disk space!

Mark


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 12:32:17 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date:         Sat, 13 Apr 91 10:58:48 EST
Sender: "Thomas E. Kunselman" 
Subject:      RE: DIGEST VS DIRECT
 
 
Status: RO


        MCNAB_PD@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU (XCACORP) writes:
>...
>I have been told, however, that Computing Services is running out of storage
>space, and that - if necessary - news/AARnet access will be the first to go.
>
How was it determined that news/AARnet is the major disk hogs at  your
university?  I think one thing that would be interesting to audit is the
number of megabytes computing services personnel use on their PRIVATE disks.
This would not include 'work' disks where they keep systems type things.

Who exactly made this determination at your institution?  How was it decided
that news was the least useful service on the system?  Any other programs,
data that is outdated?  Were any of the users asked about what they would
prefer to keep, x, y or news has to go, which would you least like to have.

What other options did these decision-makers have?  Is it impossible to
upgrade disk storage?  Are there any compression or off-loading techniques
they could have used to relieve the space crunch?

I think the most important question would be, exactly how long will it be,
after removing news, before here is another space problem and something else
has to go?

Execercise your academic freedom:-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas E. Kunselman                   |
Information Specialist                |    INTERNET: VAATEK@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Office of the Assistant Chancellor    |      BITNET: VAATEK@UKCC
#7 Administration Building            |
University of Kentucky                | "If you aren't going to let us
Lexington, KY 40506-0032              |  play with your toys, we'll
Phone:(606) 257-1633                  |  just get our own."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 12:32:17 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 22:35:41 -0400
Sender: Dan Brown 
Subject: mail list
Status: RO


I think that the mail list format is good. It's direct. Having 
a Usenet group would also be a good idea. As it has been said, there are
methods of doing this.

For those of you who don't like getting all of the mail from the list
in your mail box, here is a shell script that I wrote to filter stuff
out. I call it from my .forward file. m2mbox is a program that writes
mail to a file, and takes care of file locking. 

-------
cut here, save to a shell file, call from .forward.
-------
#!/bin/sh

TMPFILE=tmp.$PID
TMP=`tee $TMPFILE | grep From |grep -v From: |awk '{print $2}'`


if [ $TMP = 'comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org' ] ; then

#if [ $TMP = 'brown@usenet' ] ; then

	cat $TMPFILE |/usr/local/bin/m2mbox /usr/homes/brown/mbox.caf	

else
	cat $TMPFILE |/usr/local/bin/m2mbox /usr/homes/brown/mbox

fi

rm $TMPFILE
-------
Stop cutting here.
-------


later.
Dan Brown
brown@usenet.ins.cwru.edu


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 13:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Sender: Bruce Howard 
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:54 EDT
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: RO

	From: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
	Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
	Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
	
	Bruce Howard (bhoward@citi.umich.edu) writes:
	
	[Digest vs. individual messages.]

	i don't have time to read netnews everyday.  for the groups too
	important to me to miss, i prefer reading via mail.
	
	
	While I _try_ to read news every day, sometimes I can't.  And
	this is where the handy features of a program like 'rn' let me
	read through a large group of messages fairly quickly, allowing
	me to weed out subjects I'm not interested in and follow the 
	thread of a discussion from message to message without interruption
	by other mail messages (from other lists or friends or just on
	different topics).
	
	TSD

my point was not to start a discussion over which is better.  clearly
some people may find one distribution mechanism more suited to their
needs and work patterns that the other available mechanisms and there
is no technical reason i can think of not to offer all options so as
to encourage and maximize participation.

do you feel only having options of either netnews or a continuing flurry
of individual messages is appropriate?  is there a non-technical reason
you think might make it inappropriate to offer the list in a digested
form?

			curiously,
			bruce



>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 13:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date: 12 Apr 91 15:46:00 EDT
Sender: "ANNETTE CARVER" 
Subject: DIGEST VS DIRECT
Status: RO

I receive enough digest-type material in the regular mail.  Direct E-Mail
is a refreshing change of pace.  I don't even mind the typos! (or are they?)
Please count me in for direct mail: freedom to read as is! 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
Anne Carver                            "I have a gallon of ice cream and
Computing Services                      I'm not afraid to use it!"
Alfred University
Alfred, New York

BITNET: CARVERA@CERAMICS
INTERNET: CARVERA@BIGVAX.ALFRED.EDU



>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 13:20:14 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Cc: bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org> 
             <9104121840.AA27561@eff.org> 
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:13:28 -0400
Sender: "Sam Hill Cabal, DS" 
Status: RO

Oops!  I just re-read the message I replied to, and I better clarify
what I originally said.

I think that this discussion should be carried on both in a 
mailing list _and_ in a Usenet newsgroup.  That way, people
will be able to choose the most convenient way to participate
in the discussion.

(These should be bidirectionally gated -- posts to the newsgroup
are mailed out to the mailing list, and messages mailed to the
list would appear as posts in the newsgroup.)

Whether the mail list aspect should be distributed as raw
messages or in a digest format is a separate subject.  I
think that if it were possible, it would be best if both
formats were offered, allowing people a choice The digest
form might also serve as a means to check on censorship at
one's institution.

TSD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Hill Cabal             "Them people'll do anything for money.  You'd be
bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet     suprised.  They ain't like us, Doc.  They're
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu  Christians."  -Seldom Seen Smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 13:20:15 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 91 12:31:22 EDT
Sender: kadie (Carl Kadie)
Cc: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Subject: "Not enough disk space for newsgroup " (was DIGEST VS DIRECT)
Status: RO

Suppose disk space really is scarce and users have quotas as to the
amount of disk they may use (say 3 Meg). Then, in my opinion, users
should be able to say: "I'd like to allocate 1/2 Meg to newsgroup ."

This lets the sysadmin off the hook. He or she no longer has to decide
what is good for the users.




>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Sat Apr 13 21:21:06 1991
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 91 18:53:21 CDT
Sender: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
Subject: caf-talk: Interactive *and* Batch
Status: RO


Don't forget that setting up a newsgroup needs a vote.

BTW--if it's possible, it would be a good idea to have to gateway
software not gate control messages into the newsgroup.  I've seen
several postings saying "please add/delete XXX"--annoying to readers,
and a waste of bandwidth.

/============================================================================\
| Francis Stracke	       | My opinions are my own.  I don't steal them.|
| Department of Mathematics    |=============================================|
| University of Chicago	       | What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9?     |
| francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu  |  --Ultimate Question			     |
\============================================================================/


>From kadie Sat Apr 13 12:31:20 1991
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
CC: comp-academic-freedom-talk
In-reply-to: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org's message of Sat, 13 Apr 91 10:58:48 EST <9104131515.AA06222@eff.org>
Subject: "Not enough disk space for newsgroup " (was DIGEST VS DIRECT)
Status: RO

Suppose disk space really is scarce and users have quotas as to the
amount of disk they may use (say 3 Meg). Then, in my opinion, users
should be able to say: "I'd like to allocate 1/2 Meg to newsgroup ."

This lets the sysadmin off the hook. He or she no longer has to decide
what is good for the users.



>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 21:04:07 1991
Received: by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA29886; Fri, 12 Apr 91 20:34:02 EDT
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Received: from tsunami.Berkeley.EDU by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA29881; Fri, 12 Apr 91 20:33:53 EDT
Received: by tsunami.Berkeley.EDU (5.61/CHAOS)
	id AA01282; Fri, 12 Apr 91 17:32:46 -0700
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 17:32:46 -0700
Sender: George William Herbert 
Message-Id: <9104130032.AA01282@tsunami.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Re: Digest vs. direct <9104120504.AA21995@eff.org>
Status: RO

I can't imagine any admin refusing to carry an eff-affiliated newsgroup.
Direct mail may be more jam-proof, but some of us already have 30+msg/day
mail spools, and don't need _quite_ as much as we've been getting here...

-george william herbert
gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu


>From comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org Fri Apr 12 22:15:43 1991
Received: by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA00409; Fri, 12 Apr 91 21:54:55 EDT
From: comp-academic-freedom-talk-request@eff.org
Reply-To: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org
Precedence: bulk
To: comp-academic-freedom-talk
Return-Path: 
Received: from DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU by eff.org (4.1/Spike-2.0)
	id AA00404; Fri, 12 Apr 91 21:54:49 EDT
Date:    Sat, 13 Apr 1991 11:21:17 GMT
Sender: MCNAB_PD@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU (XCACORP)
Message-Id: <910413112117.20207d60@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU>
Subject: RE: DIGEST VS DIRECT
Status: RO

I'd just like to add my 2 cents worth - I'm hooked onto our university's
small system. I had only regained access to NEWS when I subscribed to this
talk group.

I have been told, however, that Computing Services is running out of storage
space, and that - if necessary - news/AARnet access will be the first to go.

As such, it is my own interests to request a digested format. Most of the 
mailing lists which I subscribe to are