[10] MsgGroup Part V Questioning What Should Be Discussed by Ronda Hauben ronda@panix.com [Editor's Note: The following is the last installment of this article. The whole article can be accessed at: http://www.ais/org/~ronda/new.papers/msghist.txt] Not surprisingly there were managers at Xerox who were not happy about the kind of frank discussion ongoing on the ARPANET mailing lists. A post by David Liddle, Vice President of the Office Products Division at Xerox explained his reluctance to have Xerox products discussed by Xerox employees on the ARPANET (63): Many of you in Xerox are aware of a newly created ARPANET distribution list named Apollo. It was established to promote discussion of personal workstation computers. As you might expect, much of the recent discussion has involved the Xerox 8010 Star information system. Because many of the messages ask for information about this product and its associated development software, you may feel tempted to reply to some of them. It is ARPA policy that the ARPANET be used only for government supported research and development. It is against Xerox policy to use the ARPANET to discuss products.... Xerox employees use the ARPANET for ARPA related research purposes only, not for answering questions or distributing information about our products. Questions from potential customers about the Xerox 8010 and other OPD products should be referred to Arnold Palmer, Field Sales Manager, Xerox Corporation, 1341 West Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, Texas 75247, phone (214) 689-6689. David E. Liddle Vice President Office Products Division A response to Liddle's post challenged the reasons he had given for limiting discussion. Lars Ericson at CMU wrote(64): The use of the ARPANET for informal discussion of computer science-related issues is a primary win. It is clear that such discussion is beneficial to ongoing government research projects DARCOM and Office Automation for example, are well represented on the Work Station. Ericson continued: Mr Liddle also seems to forget that the reason PARC efforts are so immensely saleable these days in precisely BECAUSE of their participation and openness (as opposed to IBM, say) in the ARPA/university research community, and not in spite of it. "Mr. Liddle's Xerox policy announcement," Ericson wrote, "represents the sort of irrelevant (to ARPANET interests) administrative miserlyness that we may come to expect from Xerox now that the 13-piece suits have brought PARC to market." Also responding to Little's post, Joe Newcomer emphasized ARPA's policy forbidding commercial use of the ARPANET(65). Joining the controversy, Crocker explained (66): It is my understanding that the purpose of this discussion is to consider the technical aspects of personal work-stations. Arpa and the rest of the military are investing quite a bit of money in this area, so that this discussion would seem to be extremely appropriate to the ARPANET mission. He added: I do not believe that conformance with the ARPANET proscriptions necessarily requires commercial participants to be prohibited from voicing opinions about the technology in general or from answering specific questions about their product. Touting their product is another matter. Crocker's proposal was that, "I suggest that each company assign one technical (not marketing) person to respond to queries. This will permit direct information, while making 'tone-control' easier." Part VI Limited Distribution? Not only was there reluctance on the part of representatives of some commercial entities to have open conversation of all issues on ARPANET mailing lists ported to Usenet, but also there was a sense among ARPANET participants that their contributions should be considered privileged private publications and their distribution strictly limited. A conversation describing this issue developed on FA.digest-p carried on the ARPANET and on Usenet. In January 1982 a post noted that Computer World magazine had gotten copies of the TCP digest from someone and published verbatim quotes from the digest(67). Though the source of the leak acknowledged what had been done and agreed to stop, "it gave everybody a real scare," the post noted. "My temporary solution to this issue," the poster proposed, "is to add the following notice to the Masthead: TCP/IP Digest Thursday, 8 Oct 1981 Volume 1: Issue 1 ------------------------------------------------------ LIMITED DISTRIBUTION For Research Use Only --- Not for Public Distribution ------------------------------------------------------ At least this ensures that anybody who gets fed a copy knows that it is not supposed to be shouted to the treetops. Comments?" Christopher C Stacy at MIT disagreed with such a publication identifier. He wrote (68): I think that the explicit banner on the masthead of the Digest is a bad idea, because this will cause many people to think that if such a banner is NOT present (i.e.., on any other Digests or on future TCP Digests) that it is alright to redistribute the material. In another post, Stacy described his understanding of why ARPANET mailing lists had to have limited distribution. (69) He pointed to an incident that had occurred when MIT had to fight for its continued existence on the ARPANET after an article in the journal Datamation about the WINE-TASTERS mailing list appeared. He also cautioned of the possible liability problems when evaluating and discussing various commercial products, as with the INFO-TERMS mailing list which evaluated terminals. "But laying down the law," he wrote, "is a fairly useless way of solving this sort of problem. The problem is one of awareness, cooperation and trust. Only if people understand and care, will they take steps to protect a fragile institution like the ARPANET," he wrote. Another post noted that the mailing list digests "do not exist as authorized publications." (70) He felt that they should be considered "internal communications between research project members authorized to use the net." A post asking about the implications of the Daniel Ellsberg case to this issue by Mike Muuss was answered by Paul Karger. Karger wrote (71): While putting a restricted distribution statement on a digest may be a psychological limitation on distribution, there are a couple of problems. First, since ARPA and DCA are part of the DoD, there are specific regulations on what may or may not be marked as FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. The regulations are in part designed to not let people invent other kinds of markings. This dates back to the Ellsberg case and the desire to limit the ability of government people to conceal information from the "public" (whoever that is). Though Karger said his familiarity with the regulations was a little stale, "I would be very careful about developing new ways to restrict distribution of government information," he cautioned. Through this discussion, concerns for limiting the ARPANET discussions were raised, and answered with the limitations that the current state of relevant law allowed U.S. government officials to impose on the ARPANET mailing list discussions. Thus the way was cleared for broader distribution of the posts on ARPANET mailing lists, making the transition from the limited circulation available on the ARPANET to the broader participation Usenet made possible. Part VII Usenet Welcomes All While access to the ARPANET was limited, Usenet welcomed all who were willing to connect in a public way (72). "Usenet is a public network," wrote Mark Horton, "and those on it should announce themselves." "It seems to be a common thing," he wrote, "for a new site to come upon Usenet without telling anyone they exist." What happens," he explained, "is that someone hears about Usenet from someone already on the net, who sends them their copy of whatever code they are running." He asked, "When you start getting network news, you should announce your existence to the net by filling out the enclosed form and posting it to the newsgroup net.general.... This form will be used as your entry in the Usenet directory. Note," he continued, that is the policy of Usenet that all sites receiving public newsgroups (such as net.all and fa.all) are public in the sense that the fact they are on Usenet is public. The name and phone number of a contact person, as well as the name and location of the site, is important. If you are doing some kind of secret work there is certainly no need to divulge the nature of your work. If you feel that you must keep your existence a secret, you should not be joining Usenet," Horton clarified. A form was provided for a new site to fill in. Horton asked that those joining Usenet post their announcement and basic configuration information in NET.general. NET.general was the one newsgroup that all were on Usenet during this period were encouraged to read (73). "net general," wrote Horton, "is for stuff that everybody is supposed to at least consider reading. "It's useful for INITIAL QUERIES and AN NOUNCEMENTS." However, he noted that "It is NOT there for discussions." He explained, "If you see something in net.general you want to comment on, you should almost always just REPLY to the author, not follow up to the world. If a continuing discussion is needed, start a new newsgroup." He also suggested replying to initial queries from NET.general in NET.misc. "NET.misc," he wrote, "is a good way to keep net.general free of trivia without starting new newsgroups for short lived topics." He urged those on Usenet to realize that not all might be interested in a particular topic but "feel obligated to read things in net.general because of their possible importance." Matt Glickman, who with Mark Horton wrote the code for B News, supported Horton's request for maintaining NET.general as a newsgroup that would concern all. He wrote (74): Just reminding everybody (It feel it is my duty...) that net.general is no run-of-the-mill newsgroup. No sir. It's not net.misc and it's not net.news. net.general should only contain GENERAL interest information of interest to the ENTIRE network. Especially, no dreaded newsgroup discussions whatsoever! Please behave yourselves. Therefore, while the posts on NET.general don't document the interesting discussion carried on on early Usenet, they do convey some of the general concerns and views of the pioneering Usenet participants. Many of those on early Usenet were programmers or system administrators. As such, they are particu larly sensitive to misspellings and other textual and writing errors. In a post on NET.general, one user gathered comments from all interested about concerns about what they considered poor writing that appeared on Usenet. In response, Rob Glaser from Yale wrote (75): It is true that many technical people use the English language sloppily. In an informal setting such as Usenet, however, content ought to be valued over form, time lines over lengthy deliberation. I'd rather see a timely article with a few grammatical mistakes (as long as it is basically coherent) than the same piece, impeccably written but appearing days later. He also observed that the software (inews) for posting sometimes was problematic and helped create the grammatical or other errors one saw online. He wrote: Another factor to keep in mind is that, judging from some of the submissions we receive over the net, the inews submission interface is not always conducive to perfection (not a slap at the news designers, just the incompetents, myself included, who make dumb mistakes.) He then went on to describe how he had had to redo even this post twice before getting it right. "For instance," he wrote, "I messed up two earlier versions of this flame (one of which may have been sent, my apologies if it was) before (*pray*) finally getting things right." Other posts on NET.general included requests for recommendations for buying something worthwhile or complaints about problems users were having with commercial entities to see if others had similar problems or could help. For example, a post by Larry Piovano (76) described how he was planning to buy a color tv with a 13" screen. He asked for recommendations and experiences of others to help him decide which brand to get. "I wish to buy one," he wrote, "that will not die in short order." Bill Shannon from Digital Equipment answered (77), "My 12 inch Sony has been going strong for 10 years with no repairs, no adjustments, no problems! And I'm sure they've gotten better (and more expensive)." A response on Usenet responded (78): Suggest SONY. I have two Trinitrons and they work wonderfully...." The post continued: I have had my SONY for a couple of years now and have had no problem. I suggest you get one with an electronic tuner (no moving parts to wear out). Try the wireless remote control. It's a great toy if your lazy." A similar question about recommendations regarding the Hayes Smart modem was posed by John L. McAlpine in Canada at the Saskatchewan Linear Accelerator. He wrote (79): Use of HAYES Smart Modem 1) I would appreciate receiving comments on the reliability of above modem. 2) If anyone has available the appropriate patches to use this modem with uucp for auto-dialing I would appreciate receiving same. A post by Ron Gordon at Bell Labs (Murray Hill) warned other Volkswagon Rabbit owners of a potential radiator tank leak. He wrote (80): Attention VW Rabbit owners, you may have a problem! The radiator overflow tank on my vehicle developed several cracks which permitted coolant to escape. Because the overflow tank is directly connected to the radiator system without a valve, a leak in the overflow tank is just as bad as a leak in the radiator! He went on to ask if other VW Rabbit owners were having a similar problem. "My tank failed after 16 months at 15,000 miles," he wrote, "Should enough evidence become available, a formal complaint may be filed with VW and the Consumer Protection Agency." Another Usenet poster asked if there could be a consumer forum newsgroup to monitor companies that ripoff consumers. In his post, Randy King wrote (81): What provisions, if any, have been made to provide a sharing of gripes about national "ripoff" companies and the like? I would like to hear some comment on this, as well as see the establishment of a newsgroup (as if any more were needed). It might be very interesting to see what goes [on-ed] out there and to provide readers with some insight to companies so that they may not be smitten by these "invisible stalkers! "What's the feeling out there," his post asked. Responding to an answer by Andy Tanenbaum from Bell Labs about the intent of his post, King wrote that he had had in mind an insurance company, but that the forum could discuss both problematic and beneficial companies. (82) Several of the posts on NET.general suggested creating new newsgroups, such as a post by Linda Seltzer at Bell Labs (83): I would like to start a newsgroup called net.music for communication among composers, news of concerts and conferences, news about computer music, news of good new records, etc. Anyone interested in subscribing to this group please send mail to research.lin or alice.seltzer Linda Seltzer Another post noted that her e-mail was inaccurate in her post, and that it should be alice!seltzer (84). Other posts concerned general questions or problems. For example, Andy Tanenbaum posted about a piece of junk mail he had received from a head hunter who seemed to have gotten his name from the list of conference attendees who attended the previous USENIX winter conference (85). "I DON'T want junk mail from employment agencies," he wrote. "If you want to put up a recruiting note at a USENIX, fine. But as long as I have a means here to express my dissatisfaction, I want it to be known that I look with bad feelings toward companies that badger me by abusing a valuable resource." His post ended, "I wouldn't want a future list of conferees to not have addresses just because some losers bother some of the good folks on the list with junk mail. Don't call us, we'll call you." A post by Jay Lepreau asked if there were any archive of bugs for software that had been posted on Usenet so he wouldn't have to do work others had already done. He wrote (86): Has anyone out there been archiving any of the "net.*bugs" newsgroups or just have old stuff still kicking around? We just joined Usenet around the beginning of November; if anyone has stuff from before that I'd appreciate hearing from you. I'm TIRED of fixing bugs I know have been found and fixed before. I can send you a shell script to pull stuff out of your .nindex if you've got A news; I don't know how B news works. A post from Scott Baden announced (87) that he was in the process of creating an annotated bibliography on two topics: "Functional Programming languages" and about "Applicative architectures." He asked those with any references or comments to e-mail them to him, promising, "I'll make a copy of the bibliography available to all interested parties. If you have already started a bibliography I'd be interested in collaborating with you." News items were posted as was one on the AT&T settlement with the U.S. government posted on January 8, 1982 by Steve Bellovin. The post explained (88): AT&T and the U.S. government have settled their seven-year-old anti-trust suit out of court. Under the terms of the settlement, AT&T will divest itself of the local operating companies; it will retain AT&T Long Lines (the long distance service), Western Electric, and Bell Labs. The reorganization will be completed within 18 months. Questions about Usenet were posted, as in a post by Randy King asking how long it took a post to get to the majority on Usenet. He wrote (89): This may have been answered long before my emergence onto netnews, but I will ask it anyway! Does anybody have a feel for how long it takes a posted article to reach the majority of the netnews community? I realize that there are N! variables here, but a general ordinary run-of-the mill answer would suffice. Two Days? Three Days? A month? Fifteen minutes? (HA). How 'bout it. A response from Horton described the process of distribution of Netnews during this period. He wrote (90): It depends on the newsgroup and where you are. If you are somewhere inside Bell Labs or on a key machine with a dialer (decvax, duke) it will probably get out to 70 - 80% of the net within a few hours. If not, you probably have to wait for an overnight poll, but it will get most places (>90%) overnight. There are some far reaches that won't get it for 2-3 days (more if something is down) and it may take another 2-3 days for a reply or follow-up to get back to you. Horton went on to describe how distribution of the Mailing Lists carried on Usenet occurred. He wrote: The fa newsgroups are different. They are fed in at Berkeley which then waits for ihnss [at Bell Labs-ed] and decvax [at Digital Equipment Corp-ed] to poll. ihnss only polls once a day (in the early morning). decvax calls often. So Bell Labs (which gets most stuff from ihnss) tends to have fa stuff each morning from the previous day. Those getting news from duke or decvax get it randomly, faster depending on when decvax happens to call ucbvax (at Berkeley-ed) usually several time a day. Horton also described other delays affecting how users got news from Usenet. He wrote: And of course there are the delays from the time the news shows up on a system to when any given person actually reads it - often once a day, but some people log in on neighboring machines to get news and don't get it that often. I have gotten replies to queries as much as 3 weeks later, not counting the famous unix-wizards drought where it took 2 months to reach the masses before it even got into Usenet! In summary, he wrote, "But a rough rule of thumb is that by overnight, most of the net will have at least had the chance to read your article." Along with the advantages of being on Netnews were the problems that users were confronted with. One such problem concerned discussion over what was appropriate discussion or in bad taste. Others claimed it was censorship to bar certain discussions. Describing this problem, Horton wrote: Also, PLEASE restrict your "questionable taste" stuff to net.jokes.q for the time being until this whole thing is settled. I am seeing stuff in net.general about dead babies that certainly offends me (and no, I'm neither dead nor a baby) and probably half the rest of the net. I'm still seeing poor taste jokes in net.jokes. There are people out there that are trying not to get this stuff, and they are being barraged with it anyway! This includes limericks - most of them belong in net.jokes.q. If you would be willing to get on your local TV station and recite what you're posting (with your mother and your boss in the audience) you shouldn't be broadcasting it to an equally wide audience of random people. Remember, also, that a record is kept on every machine of everything you say. He also asked for input from those who found such posts offensive toward trying to determine an appropriate policy with regard to such posts. He wrote (91): I haven't been hearing from many people who actually ARE OFFENDED by the net.jokes.q stuff. I'd like to get input from them (either privately by electronic mail or publicly in net.news) in regards to the policy that needs to be formed. How you feel about various proposed solutions is important. Anyone who further understands the Affirmative Action issues should speak up -- I don't claim to understand them very well. Another concern involved what were appropriate posts on Usenet. J. C. Winterton asked that users not post articles from the wire services but instead that people subscribe to newspapers for such information rather than trying to send it around on Usenet. He wrote (92): Notwithstanding the fact that some persons do work for Bell, it STILL costs a bundle to send this stuff around the continent on this network when it is being shipped by the wire services anyway. Why not just subscribe to a large daily newspaper or two. If you really are interested in the entertainment world you can subscribe to Variety. The New York Times and the Times of London probably carry everything else. And where these are unavailable, there are other major papers. I don't believe that Usenet should become an arm of AP, Reuters, etc. I am reasonably sure that they would be somewhat upset with the infringing of their copyright as well. That a thing can be done is not a reason to do it! Besides, by distributing wire service stuff this way (with or without authorization) is probably helping to un-employ some poor newspaper carrier, etc. etc." Commenting on the proliferation of new newsgroups and newsgroup names, Horton promised to issue a list of the newsgroups "officially blessed" to help resolve the problems of multiple names for similar groups. But he also encouraged those with various views on the issue to speak up. He wrote (93): I am coming to realized that people are waiting for me to say something. We are discussing what to do about the proliferation of newsgroups - if you want to be involved in this discussion please send me mail. (We might even, ahem, start a newsgroup.) I hope to have a list of active newsgroups, "officially blessed" (whatever that means), in a few days. Chain letters also posed a problem on early Usenet. Henry Spencer from the University of Toronto posted asking users to recognize the problem and keep it from harming the Net. He wrote (94): Some turkeys evidently have decided it's funny, funny, funny to start sending chain letters around Usenet. With all the mail headers on them, these messages are many Kbytes. For some strange reason, when we're paying phone bills for 300-baud long distance calls, this does not seem amusing. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that could lead to humorless administrators closing down people's network connections on the grounds that the money is being wasted. For heaven's sake people, STOP IT!!! Your thoughtless empty-headed practical joke is endangering the network that many people worked long and hard to set up! Noting the kinds of problems those on Usenet had to deal with, Horton observed the obligation to those on Usenet to consider its best interest. He urged that those with different views of the issues involved be active and participate in the discussions over what to do (95). "I propose that anyone with opinions on this issue discuss it on net.news. I want to hear from both sides. This is YOUR NETWORK, remember! Others on Usenet had hoped that it would make it possible to form a new form of media or to influence the political process in a way not formerly available. "Not to belittle any new newsgroup," George Otto wrote (96), "but it strikes me that we are developing a real electronic newspaper here." In a similar way, rdg at allegra wrote (97), "Wouldn't it be great to use this electronic medium to send notes to our government officials. I never seem to write postal letters or telegrams, but we all seem to find these electric notes enough to use often. Can you image net.reagan with a few authentic replies." Scott Baden added (98), "Or what if we could lobby our favorite senator? (net.lobby, net.senator?)" The dilemma of funding Usenet posed a problem to some sites as described in the post by Chris Kent at the University of Cincinnati. He wrote (99): We at the University of Cincinnati are on a budget crunch. Therefore, I have been told to cut down on outgoing calls or lose the ability to place them. I ask you all to cooperate, please; try to avoid routing program sources through us whenever possible. We will continue to transship news, so that won't be a problem, but will probably poll only every other day....I am sorry it has to come to this -- but some people higher up seem to see this as just wasted money. I will keep you all posted as to our situation. Chris Kent (cincy!chris) Others like Mel Haas at Bell Labs (houxm) reported that the funding of various sites could be jeopardized by an irresponsible activity on the net and that all users should be aware of the problems that might be caused. He wrote (100): This is a plea to clean up the net. Please! There are whole sections of the net that are being watched by the payers of the bills, and what shows now is not good. The flame and flash content of the past few weeks has far outweighed the useful. Don't revive the "db" stuff in net.cooks! Don't send everything to net.general! and, certainly, don't send anything to both net.general and another! Put net.news stuff in net.news, net.records stuff in net.records, etc. Show some consideration for others in the wording and content of your submittals. He pointed out that responsible use would help establish how the Net was a money saver for the sites participating and thus support continued use. He wrote: Try to make the net a useful exchange of useful information and ideas, that will pay for the service and help people. In other words, make the net a useful tool, not a place to expose yourself, your ego and your bad manners. Thank you. Mel Haas, houxm!mel Explaining his need for access to Usenet even though he was would no longer have Net access through the University of California Berkeley, Michael Shilol wrote (101): I recently graduated from Berkeley where I enjoyed this network very much, both for entertainment and for receiving the latest news on many subjects. I am now starting a job and will soon be losing my account on the Berkeley Vax. My question is: Is it possible for me to get access to this network in any way? Can my company get access to it? Is there a way to pay for this privilege? He noted that the useful technical information available on Usenet was so valuable that a company could benefit financially from being connected, "This network has been so useful to me for finding information that I think it is worth money and/or equipment to get it." And he concluded his post: "Any answers, comments, suggestions appreciated." He then had a form of signature giving both UUCP and ARPANET address forms. Michael Shiloh CSVAX.shiloh@berkekey UCBVAX!shiloh In another post, George Otto at Indian Hill Bell Labs noted the technical superiority of Usenet newsgroups to mailing lists. He described the problem of keeping mailing lists on different computers in sync. He wrote (102): Is anyone working on making mailing lists just as efficient as newsgroups? One problem with using mailing lists for maintaining communications among those in a small group of people is the difficulty of keeping the lists on many machines in sync. I tried looking into setting up a program under my ID that would allow others to mail to me for automatic redistribution to a list I maintained, but never found a good way to do it. He noted that Usenet solved the problem in a superior way by making it possible for people connected to different computers to participate in a common newsgroup. He wrote: The beauty of using Usenet it that members of affected groups can be on different machines and need do one or two simple things to be attached to the common group. Conclusion These posts on NET.general show how those using different computers at a wide variety of different academic and research sites, many of which were not officially sponsored by any funding agency, were able to participate in the kind of collaborative communication and some of the mailing lists formerly only available to those with access to the ARPANET. More importantly, Usenet made the process of posing a problem and collaborating with others to try to determine how to solve it more widely available. Such a process is needed to solve the difficult technical and social problems which computers and networking technology present for our times. Habermas writes that there is a need to understand such a scientific approach to technical issues and challenges. What he doesn't recognize is that the technology itself is needed to help in the process. The early ARPANET as demonstrated through posts on the MsgGroup mailing list and early Usenet provide beginning insight into how people using and directing technology can be part of the important scientific and regenerative process that contributing to the online community makes possible. ----- *Note: The notes corresponding to the numbers in the above article are available from the author or at: http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/msghist.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 10 No 2 Spring 2001. The whole issue or a subscription is available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------