Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 00:40:58 MST
From:         Madge McBurney <ISPMOM@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Christia and Netnews

Hello everyone,

I've been reading the opinions related to NetNews participation,
and I want to comment on a number of different posts.  But first,
I wish to share my feelings of thankfulness and praise to God for
allowing such a wonderful medium to exist to His Glory.  I am very
mindful of our blessing with Christia, and I rejoice in the know-
ledge that so many people (and countries) are being touched by the
material posted to this list.  As an owner, I assume a degree of
responsibility to help insure that nothing interrupts, or spoils
this blessing.  As a evangelical Christian, I am thrilled at the
thought that we can possibly make a difference with those who are
searching for a deeper meaning in their lives.  The Netnews/Usenet
connection only adds to my appreciation for what we have here.

That being said, I must tell all of you that along with an increase
of Netnews participants, has come several problems which Steven and
I have tried to solve privately.  I will only list a few of them.

1. Cross-posting:

On Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:21:00 EST Dan Graham said:
>
>Personally, I'd be in favor of closing any automatic gateway between
>Christia and Netnews.  I have had posts I made here copied to other nets on
>Netnews without my permission.  Now, that's not illegal, but very
>unethical.    Most anyone on the uunet can get a gateway so they can
>subscribe to Christia or any listserved net.

There is only one way to insure a degree of privacy, and that is to
make Christia a private list.  Even at that, someone could request
to be added, and then scan the archives logs to obtain the desired
material.  To me, this solution is unreasonable, yet any effort less
than this would not really be that much of an answer.

2.  Disregard for Christia's Charter:

On Thu, 13 Aug 1992 20:30:23 GMT Mr. John T Jensen said:
>
>I would be sorry to see this happen as it is my only access to it.  However
>I agree that if posters won't respect reasonable limits and conditions, you
>may have to do something drastic.

This kind of disrespect of basic Net etiquette has been a problem in the
past.  I am in communication now with a previous member of Christia, who
at one time caused such problems, (I refer to tone and length of posts),
I finally had to delete his subscription.  This was an action I had never
really imagined myself taking, yet faced with so many members signing off,
I went ahead and made this decision.  Like I said, I am now in the middle
of a private conversation with this former member because he has resumed
his posting to bit.listserv.Christia.  We are receiving his posts again,
yet I perceive that little has changed in his behavior, or in his contempt
for members of Christia.  I am concerned that the past will repeat itself,
not in the problem of his sending posts of 3500 lines, (I've re-coded the
maximum limit on Christia's side), but I'm concerned that the tone of his
posts will eventually create another round of flames. If I were to respond
only to the problem of troublesome posters, then I would consider removing
Christia's linkage to our sister list.  It is true that the Usenet/Netnews
boards are renowned for their hostility and bad manners, and if our list
took on that kind of environment, I'd feel like I had somehow failed. I do
think we all should consider  paramount_ whatever *clearly* gives Glory to
God.  Christia is unimportant without this consideration, and if we have
to downsize to retain the qualities we desired, so be it.  And I might add,
bit.listserv.christia would continue without Listserv's Christia to whatever
extent that people would participate without us.  I guess you can all tell
that I've given this option some thought.

On Thu, 13 Aug 1992 14:07:44 CDT Anthony Glen Jeffries said:
>Hello everybody!
>
>I don't think that dropping the connection to USENET would be a good idea,
>because I discovered this mailing list through USENET, and I'm sure (but I
>could always be wrong) that many other people discovered it the same way.
>Also, as has been noted earlier, some people access this list only through
>USENET.
>
>Anthony Glen Jeffries

This kind of comment is what stops me from becoming too protective with
Christia.  I don't want to smother this list in order to help lessen the
growing (electronic) pains we go through every now and then.  I believe
our list should remain open, with just a rule of courtesy applied to each
participant.  I would hope that list leadership would not fall only to the
owners of Christia, but to all of you who wish to see our list succeed in
it's outreach to others. If we have trouble in the future, we all need to
make a commitment to be mature about how we respond.  If this were done,
I think most problems would be too small to worry about.

On Fri, 14 Aug 1992 02:56:00 GMT Robert Weiss said:
>
>Madge,
>First off, I'm glad to see that you are back to work. I hope
>that all is well.

Much better, working half-days only.  Thanks from your prayers!

>Next, on the Netnews thing. First, I use netnews to view
>Christia. I find it very easy this way. I can reply to the person
>sending the article a lot easier than when I was subbed to asuacad.
>However, I find that the many of the sniper type articles come from
>people who are using usenet.It seems that those who invest their
>account into Christia, that is, they are willing to receive the mail,
>actually are more committed than those that are just drive-by-shooters.
>
>Perhaps a happy medium would be to keep Christia on usenet,
>but limit postings to the list to those who are actual subscribers...
>
> en agape,
> Bob

But Bob, doesn't that mean we'd lose you?....never!   :-)

Christia co-owner   Bitnet:   ispmom@asuacad
Madge McBurney      Internet: ispmom@asuvm.inre.asu.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU