[4]           The Cooperative Nature of Usenet
                                   by Gregory G. Woodbury
                                      ggw@cds.duke.edu
 
[Editor's Note: In a thread in the newsgroup news.future, a
poster in August 1993 wrote that he felt those on Usenet had a
commitment to the anarchy that he felt characterized Usenet. In
response Greg Woodbury, a Usenet pioneer who has been on Usenet
since its earliest days, disagreed that one should characterize
Usenet as an anarchy and wrote the following post describing his
view of the organizational structure of Usenet.]

     Postulating the concept of net.anarchy as being at the base
of a belief system (or "faith") is an interesting twist on the
topic. Part of the confusion arises, I think, from a misunder-
standing of what is meant when folks call netnews an "anarchy." 
     The governance structure of the net (and there *is* one)
does not (yet) have an "archy" word around to describe it. It is
not an hierarchy, it is not an oligarchy, it isn't an "aristocracy", 
nor do any of the other "archy" or "ocracy" words quite describe 
it. Since it cannot be put into a neat little category, it is 
lumped into the "not otherwise specified" category, which happens 
to be "anarchy." 
	As it stands, there is no good way to even describe the
structures that do exist. They are distributed (as opposed to
centralized), they are "consensual" (as opposed to majority
rule), they are both individual and collective, and they are
highly mutable/dynamic. 
     A few years ago there was some major discussion about the
use of the term "organized" in relation to netnews. (Actually, in
the application of the word organizations to Usenet/Netnews.)
Such discussions arise periodically on the net, and serve to
clarify the governance in the minds of those involved. 
     For other reasons, the use of the term "operational anarchy"
in relation to netnews serves to remind those involved that we
are involved in a co-operative situation, where the ultimate
responsibility of the contents rests squarely on the poster of an
article. Much of the arguments about netnews governance are
attempts to avoid this basic fact.  :-) 
     Another reason that "anarchy" continues to be applied is to
remind folks that the site owners and their agents (the admin.)
hold basic real property rights (in most places) to their
machines that are used in providing this cooperative service, and
that these rights are joined with concomitant real (i.e. legal)
responsibilities. 
     Additional complications arise when the existing "laws" are
applied to a situation that has far outpaced the ability of the
"system" to keep up with it. One example is the application of
"copyright" to the articles created by the posters. 
     Then comes the questions of how to "model" this dynamic
system in such a way that a human can comprehend it and deal with
it. Several different models may apply (simultaneously!) to it.
The inability to choose a single, simple model further adds to
the confusing (and thus anarchic) quality of netnews. 
     I can claim (with a bit of pride :-) ) to have watched
netnews/Usenet grow from its two-machine origin into three, then
four, and then up its growth curve. The very basic assumption
that people using the netnews software wanted to have interactive
communication is still essentially unchallenged as the purpose
for this "creature" we call netnews/Usenet to exist. 
     There *is* a quasi-religious quality about netnews in some
of the arguments that occur, and it is quite possible that some
folks are using a variety of faith postulates in their
conceptions of it. 
     I, however, do not think that being an "anarchy" is one of
those for most people. The term remains in use simply because
there isn't any other term that can be applied to netnews instead. 
     There are, IMnsHO(1), a few folks who have made faith
postulates out of the "advantages of democracy" and other
concepts.  :-) 

Wolfe
--------------

Note
(1) IMnsHO := "In My (not so) Humble Opinion", a common net
acronym.

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Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 8 No 1 Winter/Spring 1998. The whole
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