From: uctlxpd@ucl.ac.uk (Peter Bartlett)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics
Subject: Re: Royal Bank hypocrisy and the Telecommunications Sellout
Date: 5 Oct 92 10:00:49 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium

dbowman@gorgon (Don A. Bowman) writes:

>Innes Ferguson (iaf@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
>: dbowman@rainbow (Don A. Bowman) writes: [re re-printing articles on the Net]
>: 
>: >Is there no rules regarding theft of intellectual property and the Net?
>: >People who wish to read the Globe and Mail can buy it. Why not simply say,
>: >"There was an interesting article in Oct 2 G+M, here is what I like about
>: >it..." rather than typing in page after page without adding anything
>: >yourself?
>: 
>: Three things:
>: 
>: (i) [Irrelevent for my comments]
>: 
>: (ii) Not all of us have easy access to the Globe and Mail. The nearest
>: place I can get it is in London, over an hour away. I, as a result,
>: appreciate such postings and would encourage (and am thankful to) people
>: like Gerald for posting them.

>Are you comfortable with having Gerald think for you? Is his opinion
>of what is newsworthy in lockstep with yours? Are you aware that the
>Globe and Mail actually provides balanced reporting, and not just
>one-sided articles? Have you seen the balance to the articles that
>were posted? The corrections? They apologies? Letters to the editor
>condemning them? No? Why not? Gerald didn't post them? Why do you
>suppose that is?

I think we are all aware of all of these things, and the limitations
of getting things second hand through the Net.  Recall that for us,
the other option is not getting them at all.  Note that your comment
applies to ALL comment on the net-- you are my major source of
information about the Charlottown Accord.  A collection of more biased,
one-sided and extreme views it would be difficult to imagine.  Based
on your argument, it seems we should stop reading the net completely in 
this regard, lest our minds be "corrupted" by the fact that the
texts contain opinions.

And, by the way, if you seriously believe in unbiased, or "balanced" 
reporting as you call it, I think you need to read some textual crit.

>If you let other people think for you, censor what you see, you will
>end up thinking like them.

Do you really think I am in danger of thinking like Gerald?

>: (iii) Gerald's posting of articles add more to the ongoing discussion 
>: than your criticisms of his postings.

>Nobody is discussing any of these articles. We are discussing our own
>viewpoints, logic, and rhetoric. I submit that it would be better to
>say, "So and So said that [2-line summary]. I think that..." than to
>simply copy verbatim an entire article with nothing of your own added.

The articles obviously (according to your argument) represent Gerald's
viewpoint.  And they do actually seem to be related to topics which are
being discussed on the net.

A tip:  if an article really irritates you, all you need to do is touch
the n key on your keyboard, and the article will fade blissfully away.
This seems a small concession to those of us who otherwise don't have 
access to the articles at all.

peter.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.canada:6984 can.politics:7468