From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 13:55:24 GMT

system@netlink.cts.com (System Administrator) writes:

[...]
>However, Mr. Bowery's post was in violation of soc.motss charter and
>was also innapropriate for the other groups as well.  He has been 
>counseled about proper net etiquette, and had his posting access temporarily
>suspended.
[...]

CAF-News has had several articles about how much news admin should
enforce the charters of unmoderated newsgroup. I'm enclosing
references to those articles.

- Carl

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
news/cafv01n34: Message-Id: <1991Oct23.210725.19475@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.34

Notes 8-11 are about newsgroup policy.

8. "I see the unmoderated Usenet and Altnet newsgroups as free-speech
forums. Their charters state the intended focus of the forum, not the
legal boundaries. The penalty for moving too far from the focus,
should, in my opinion, be social disapproval, not official
punishment."

=================
news/cafv01n36: Message-Id: <1991Oct24.014633.28623@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.36

Notes 7-9 are about newsgroup policy.

9. Postings to the net, like other expressive actions, should only be
punished if they cause substantial interference with the rights of
others. A few off-topic posts do not constitute substantial
interference. Enclosed are the general rules my school has against
disruptive and coercive action.

=================
news/cafv01n36: Message-Id: <1991Oct29.150556.5266@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.36

Notes 7-9 are about newsgroup policy.

8.  University sys admins should enforce newsgroup charters even
charters that discriminate based on sex or viewpoint.

=================
news/cafv02n02: Message-Id: <1992Jan12.025341.4239@eng.umd.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 02.02

Note 11 is a reminder that "ALT" news groups are created and managed
differently.

11. Carl Kadie: You cannot create a news group and expect Usenet sites
to enforce your charter.  Matthew Russotto: "Most importantly, don't
create an ALT group and expect ANYTHING to be enforced."

=================
news/cafv01n34: Message-Id: <9110262137.AA21310@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.34

Notes 3-7 are about the "yehweh" posting, a violent and sexually
explicit story that was posted to the soc.women newsgroup apparently by
a student of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

6. (Student at another school:) My legal advisors say that private BBS
owners might be responsible for the notes their users post.  By
analogy, University sys admins might be responsible for their user's
postings. I would be willing sue. "It would be lovely if the
democratically determined newsgroup charters ..., finally had some
teeth."

=================
news/cafv01n34: Message-Id: <9110271907.AA24778@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.34

Notes 3-7 are about the "yehweh" posting, a violent and sexually
explicit story that was posted to the soc.women newsgroup apparently by
a student of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

7. (Addressed to the previous poster:) "There is a vast difference
between a *private* bbs that one may join or refuse to join because of
the rules, and a university that has a written policy of allowing the
free exchange of ideas." "You decided to read it and you should have
stopped when you'd read enuff to know what it is. And then flamed it,
and set your followups to alt.flame or /dev/null." A call for
newsgroup charters with teeth is a call for net.police.

=================
news/cafv01n36: Message-Id: <kadie.688925645@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.36

Notes 7-9 are about newsgroup policy.

7. "I think that unmoderated Netnews newsgroups facilities offered by
most universities are free-speech forums. ... I offer three
justifications for this opinion."

=================
=================

If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
   gopher gopher.eff.org

These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/news/cafv01n34
  pub/academic/news/cafv01n36
  pub/academic/news/cafv01n36
  pub/academic/news/cafv02n02
  pub/academic/news/cafv01n34
  pub/academic/news/cafv01n34
  pub/academic/news/cafv01n36

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/news cafv01n34
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n36
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n36
send acad-freedom/news cafv02n02
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n34
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n34
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n36
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: soc.men