From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: Usenet Culture (Was: Re: CFV? What's a CFV??)
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 21:09:34 GMT

In article <1e7epcINNkev@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> randall-joshua@yale.edu  
(Joshua Randall) writes:
> The problem with UseNet is that it relies too much on Mankind's
> (assumed) good sense.  It seems that, sadly enough, such sense is
> lacking in most readers.
> 
What it relies on is that readers have a similar notion of "good sense" to  
those that have created the system as it exists. Not all people have the  
same values, interests, backgrounds, time and ability to learn. As the use  
of Usenet broadens (and this is happening rapidly) the overlap in culture  
between the creators and the new users will become smaller. This is a  
problem in that it will become increasingly difficult for new users to  
function within the system.

No one is to blame here, although there seems to be a strong tendency for  
one culture to want to blame the other. What will happen though (and is  
happening to some degree) is that if the culture that created the Usenet  
process doesn't allow for adaptation of the process for the new culture,  
the new culture will be excluded. Not a good thing, in my opinion.

The following change in demographics is most definately occuring in the  
'new user' community:

1. More single-user sites
2. More small sites run by new news admins
3. More sites that obtain their feed from a commercial source
4. Less users that are aware of Usenet history
5. Less users that are computer-oriented
6. Less users that are technically-oriented
7. More people that use the net for specialized interests

In parallel, the following things appear to be happening to the culture  
that has to date created the net and its processes:

1. Short-hand approach to accomplishing processes due to familiarity
2. Use of commonly known but undefined terms and acronyms
3. Reliance on historically-derived but undocumented aspects of processes
4. Increasingly more complicated votes and restructures as:
	a) The net gets bigger, requiring it
	b) The creators become more sophisticated in their abilities
5. Reliance on documentation and guidelines that don't address #4.

All items listed as behaviors for the established net culture (for lack of  
a better term) are very natural and no one is to blame. If the creators  
and seasoned net people were the only culture on the net these would be  
very desirable changes as it would expediate the processes.

If these two directions continue, however:

1. Less actual users of Usenet will be able to function well in it
2. There will be less understanding of one culture by the other
3. Disagreements regarding process will in general become more vocal
4. The 'will of the net' will come to mean 'the will of the creators'
5. Each group will likely feel intimidated, persecuted or simply annoyed  
by the other

This isn't just new users and their lack of "good sense". I maintain that  
there is a real demographics shift happening and that it will only get  
larger. Ignore it if you want to. But I think it's in everyone's best  
interest to accept it and do whatever we can to deal with it. 
-- 
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Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
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