From: news@wolves.Durham.NC.US (The Wolfe of the Den)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.usenet.culture
Subject: Net.Culture (was: CFV? What's a CFV??)
Date: 19 Nov 92 03:08:49 GMT
Organization: Wolves Den UNIX
X-Md4-Signature: d508c4dbea7909e2b2d06ea124c7a331

In <1992Nov16.234058.23208@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>news@wolves.uucp (The Wolfe of the Den) writes:
>>A further complication is that quite a few folks are not exposed to
>>enough different groups (due to selective reading or limitations in
>>their newsfeeds) to provide any clues to the more general culture of the
>>net (as opposed to the specific "sub-cultures" of the various newsgroup
>>polities.)
>
>Wait just a minute...you're making a very important point here. I submit
>to you that each newsgroup has it's own "culture"...and that net.culture
>is really not as existent as it might seem. It's lind of like Los Angeles,
>there's lots of little neighborhoods and areas of different culture, but
>there's not one overall cultural miilieu that you can characterize
>the typical "Los Angelean" with.

	Maybe not a specific Los Angeles culture, but there is a
perceived "southern california" culture, and a perceived "california"
culture, and a perceived "american" culture.  Your focus is too small
and too big at the same time. :-)

>I suspect part of the problem I'm seeing is that the news.groups 
>culture tends to come off quite cliquish and arrogant to the new user
>or unaware net.reader. 

	Well, yes.  The news.groups culture is where the cognoscenti of
the net gather to discuss the issues of the day.  It is most like the
coctail hour of a computer trade show.  Folks talking everywhere, moving
from discussion to discussion, opining loudly and arguing freely.
Anyone is free to wander in and join in the conversation, however, if
they can't talk the talk, and they can't walk the walk, they're going to
get hacked.

>>What is needed is some way to encourage the admins of the net to provide
>>a set of introductory documents to new users (all new users) and to have
>>some restriction on posting until the user shows some understanding of
>>the net.culture (or at least some basic nettiquette. :-)
>
>Again, my original question stands, albeit rephrased. Who is going to set 
>the standard for posting? 

	Note carefully: I didn't say anything about a standard, I said
that the user shows some understanding of the basic operation and theory
of netnews programs, and whatever the local admin feels else is
necessary before they feel comfortable letting the user loose into the
net.

	The only authority that exists in Usenet is what the local site
admins determine.  All else is co-operation, and smoke and mirrors.  I
let other systems use some of my resources so that I can use some of
theirs from time to time. :-)

>Also: How will that be enforced? Why won't users just gravitate towards
>those access points that do not require such restrictions? 

	They will, I didn't mention enforcement, I said encourage.
Again, given the baronial co-op that this whole fantasy is, there isn't
any way to enforce anything.  And right at the moment, I can't really
think of a better way to ensure that information flow remains
uncontrolled, but merely managed.
-- 
Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den  (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
news@wolves.durham.nc.us  news%wolves@cs.duke.edu  ...duke!wolves!news
"The flame war is a specific Usenet art form." --me
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