[5]        Creating Broadsides for Our Day (Part 2)
                               by Ronda Hauben
                                  au329@cleveland.freenet.edu

[Editor's Note: The following is the second part of this article.
The first part appeared in the Amateur Computerist Vol 7 No 2. A
footnoted version is available from the author]
                                                                        
V - Creating the Form for Usenet

     The earliest days of Usenet demonstrate both the principles
and practices in embryo of new and more democratic forms that
this new technology makes possible. The issues developed in
certain key newsgroups during this early period clarify the
problems that a new communications medium bring to the fore. The
model for Usenet that pioneers had early on was of an electronic
newsletter. "Not to belittle any new newsgroup, but it strikes me
that we are developing a real electronic newspaper here," wrote
George Otto in a post in January 1982. "We already have a science
section, an automotive section, a comic section, movie review
column, sports section, travel section, book reviews, even want
ads." Michael Shiloh noted that he enjoyed the network both "for
entertainment and for receiving the latest news on many subjects," 
Another user pointed out that he didn't feel the news wires 
belonged on Usenet, "Although the news wire is something I want 
to see in Worldnet," he explained, "I don't want it on Usenet, 
unless it belongs in one of the other newsgroups." J. C. Winterton 
explained that he didn't feel that Usenet "should become an arm of 
AP, Reuthers, etc." However, in considering what Usenet should 
make possible, one user at allegra at Bell Labs wrote, "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," he admitted, "but we all seem to find these electric 
notes convenient enough to use often. Can you imagine net.reagan 
with a few authentic replies?" Another user added "or what if we 
could lobby our favorite senator (net.lobby, net.senator?)" In 
articulating the importance of Usenet, Mel Haas wrote that the 
effort had to be to "Try to make the net a useful exchange of 
useful information and ideas that will pay for the service and 
help people." Another user explained his view that Usenet "was 
supposed to represent electronic mail and bulletins among a 
group of professionals with a common interest, thus representing 
fast communication about important technological topics." S. 
McGeady noted, a bit in dismay, "We are running a networked 
democracy here." Observing that, "computer networks, news and 
mail systems are much closer to the 'broadsides' of yesterday, 
Alan Watt asked, "are they therefore protected under the free 
speech amendment?" 
     To make such communication possible, it was important that
rapid replies be possible after the item was posted. "The problem
of disjointed communications is very real," wrote Jerry Schwartz
at harpo, "Frequently we receive the reply to an item before we
receive the item." To help alleviate the confusion that might
result from this situation, he recommended, "that people put a
line or two at the beginning of their submission (like the head
of this one) to indicate what they are replying to." 
     Such long delays in being able to respond to posts were
problematic, "If Netnews is to be used for an interactive medium
for discussion," wrote Mark Horton, "a reply could take over a
week to get back, with a two week turnaround. Clearly, this is
the worst case, and a delay of a few days is more likely than a
week. But there would be a significant lag, and conversations
would be way out of sync with each other." Horton noted that he
was replying to a message that had been posted two weeks before. 
      The newsgroup net.news was created to discuss Usenet
itself. In this newsgroup, users discussed changes that they felt
could be made in the software to improve Usenet. For example,
Chris (at cincy) noted that it was then necessary to save the
news item one wanted to respond to, exit netnews to write one's
reply, and then send it and return to Usenet. Instead, he
proposed that a means of automatically replying be built into the
netnews software. 
     Often proposals for how to improve Usenet were submitted
online with requests for comments and discussion. However, when
ARPANET digests were read by those on Usenet, it was difficult to
respond to the individual posts since the e-mail address of the
gateway to Usenet was given as the source of the digests, rather
than the poster's e-mail. Several on Usenet discussed how this
made it difficult to respond to the writer, and raised possible
ways to remedy the problem. In response, Horton explained that he
was beginning to think that a change should be made and the real
sender listed. He asked for "Comments" on his proposed change. 
     Steve Bellovin, one of Usenet's creators, noted that he was
one of the people who had created the old form. He welcomed
making a change, and proposed generating a "Reply-to" field for
the e-mail address of the original author so that they would
receive the response if one did "reply" with a lower case r but
if one used an upper case R, the reply would be sent to Usenet as
a follow up message. 
     In May 1981, Matt Glickman posting from the University of
California Berkeley, announced that he and Mark Horton were
working on a new version of the Netnews software used to
transport Usenet. By July 1981, the software was going into the
testing phase. Horton posted that "Comments on the conversion
process are welcome." 
     In a similar way, in Nov. 1981, Horton proposed a policy for
Usenet. He asked "If anyone objects to this policy, please let me
know." Also Horton posted that he observed that people seemed to
confuse Usenet with the UUCPnet that was used to transport
Usenet. Therefore, Horton proposed, "I am toying with the idea of
changing the names Usenet (the network itself) and Netnews (the
collection of software that implement Netnews) both to "newsnet". 
     But he commented, "Since this is a sweeping change, and
since I'm not God, I would like to see discussion on whether this
is a good thing to do. Please reply to net.news." His request
drew an immediate response. One such reply was from Bellovin.
Bellovin wrote, "Mark, we picked 'Usenet' in deliberate imitation
of 'USENIX', (one of) the UNIX User's Groups. At the time, we
hoped that it might become 'the official network' of USENIX." 
     Others suggested a variety of names, including WEB with the
comment "unfortunately, sounds too much like a TV station." 
     Names like "Arachnet", "Arachne", and "Compuco", "meaning a
computer conferencing" and "info-ex", i.e. short for information
exchange, were proposed. 
     Bill Jollitz supported a suggestion by Lauren Weinstein on
the need to be careful of names with existing trademarks. Both
agreed that it was important to raise the issue of "how this net
will grow." Though certain problems like those of a technical or
political nature were "well handled in the forum of the network
itself," they felt other problems should be discussed at USENIX,
as "it's the only large forum appropriate at the time."
     Other names suggested included "Thinknet" or "Idnet" as
names to represent the need for intelligent discussion that was
represented on the net. "And speaking of Web," another poster
responded, if there were discussion on the subject it could turn
into a "Dragnet." 
     Weinstein proposed that any renaming proposal be brought up
at the January 1982 USENIX meeting because it was important to
have a "reasoned consideration of any new name." 
     Another post indicated the user had searched through the
Webster's dictionary using the Unix tool grep and listed all the
words he found ending in "net." 
     In a post dated Nov. 22, Horton listed a set of possible
names and asked for a vote. He wrote, "Usenet is the current name
of the logical net of sites running the netnews programs. They
make up an electronic distributed bulletin board." Horton submitted 
several policy issues as a proposal to Usenet. There was online 
discussion about these proposals. Several, however, commented that 
they would be attending the USENIX meeting in Santa Monica, 
California in January 1982 and asked that any policy wait till 
that meeting.
     "I have gotten lots of pressure," Horton writes, "to let the
people at USENIX make the decision (and for the network name,
too) and I want to state for the record that while I fully hope
to postpone all such decisions until at least USENIX, the people
who can't make it to Santa Monica this January have just as much
right to be heard as those who can....I want to hear both groups,
but the real public that counts here is the USERS OF THE NET
(e.g. all you folks that are reading this.)" 
     Horton, however, proposed that votes wait till the USENIX
meeting and be carried out in person, "since carrying out a
discussion on this medium is very reasonable, but carrying out a
vote is not, I suggest that we all air our opinions here and that
after we talk ourselves out, those who can't make it to USENIX
should find somebody who can and have them cast your vote by
proxy. (Preferably someone you can talk with in person and hand a
piece of paper to with your signature on it.)"
     Agreeing that the policies should be discussed at USENIX,
Brian Redman wrote "It's unfortunate indeed that more people
can't be represented at our January meeting....My suggestion that
we wait 'till the meeting is in response to Mark's suggestion
that we set some policies. I can't imagine that an actual vote by
the readers could be carried out fairly," he cautioned, adding,
"I for one would vote on behalf of all the integers in a VAX." 
     Others objected to having decisions made at USENIX rather
than online. Among the objections were those raised by Greg Ordy
from Case Western University (cwruecmp) who wrote, "I submit that
if it takes an across the country meeting to settle the issues at
hand, we are in big trouble....It's the old loudest talker and
prettiest face that sways opinions. I would think that this
neutral medium would be an ideal place to judge only on content,
not on packaging." He also noted that "the amount of non-
technical news is starting to swamp the straight Unix stuff...."  
And he asked, "How much time does the average news reader/writer 
spend with news each day?" 
     Dave Curry also questioned relying on a USENIX meeting to
make decisions on Usenet policy. He wrote, "I must say that
putting the decisions on Usenet policy into the hands of those
people attending the USENIX conference (certainly a minority of
those who read news, etc.) is grossly unfair. I myself cannot
afford to attend the conference (I don't know if I would, even if
I could), and am certain numerous others aren't for numerous
reasons. He proposed that, "the decisions should be made over the
net." And he outlined a procedure to have those on the net
involved in determining the decisions. 
     Horton's policy proposal had included a procedure to set up
new newsgroups. Horton suggested a committee of those who knew
how Usenet functioned to make decisions on the names of new
newsgroups. Others on Usenet commented on the proposed procedure.
Jerry Schwartz at harpo disagreed, "Rather than a committee to
determine the names of groups," he wrote, "I propose a group
'net.names'. The official procedure to create a new group would
be to announce a proposed new group in 'net.general.' People
interested in the group would reply via mail to the originator,
and any objections to the name would be posted to 'net.names'. 
After a few days the originator can make a decision on the name
and announce the creation of the group in 'net.general'. Any
discussion of the changes to the names of existing groups could
also go in 'net.news'." 
     Another response added, "I find it hard to believe that Mark
is proposing a committee to approve of new newsgroups. Up to that
point, his proposal sounds fine. How about just establishing
rules for new groups." He detailed some proposed rules: 

"1 - Send a request for interested parties to net.general

2 - Interested parties reply to the sender. 

3 - If there is enough interest, replies are collected and sent
out as the first transmission of the new group." 

     "This system," he commented, "seems simple and self
policing. If there is enough interest for a group to be started,
then it is no committee's business to say it shouldn't exist."
And he added, "I even get the feeling that if there was a
committee, it would really end up being a rubber stamp since who
has the time to do the work necessary to come to a rational
decision about a group? Or if the committee does turn a group
down, the metadiscussion generated would probably be worse than
any group I can think of. If someone violates the rules, I'm sure
that they could be jumped on and their (illegal) newsgroup
disallowed by the local administrator." 
     Alan Watt outlined the principles he felt were governing the
creation and development of Usenet: 
     
     "1) Usenet is a strictly volunteer organization: nobody HAS
        to join, and guidelines cannot be enforced. 
     2) Any local news administrator has the de facto power to
        impose any kind of censorship technically feasible. 
     3) Systems will only participate in Usenet if the perceived
        benefits exceed the visible costs. Any guidelines
        proposed ought to be guided by the principle of 'what is
        obviously for the common good that everyone will accept
        it once stated'." 

     He believed that "the character of Usenet will be the
consensus of the individuals who maintain it at each local site,
in spite of what any central committee requires or forbids."
     From the discussion, he added, it appeared that in many
cases "management isn't even aware that Usenet exists. The real
danger," he continued, "is that if management doesn't know about
Usenet, it follows that for most installations no one has an
official responsibility to maintain it. This is certainly true
for us." He continued, "Maintaining the news system on our single
machine takes some measurable portion of my not-too-empty
schedule each day. I squeeze out the necessary time because of
perception (3)" 
     A post by Mel Haas added, "My personal hope is that the net
will add to our capability to communicate, and do away with the
horrible decisions that are made by committee meetings 'in
secret' at some conference or other. I hope that all discussion
of this (of censorship etc) or any other topic relating to the
net is relayed to the net." 
     Jolitz said that he would report to those on the Net who
couldn't attend the USENIX meeting about what went on. And Brian
Redman responded that USENIX is "NOT a secret organization. BTW,
Usenet was introduced at a USENIX meeting." 
     Another poster acknowledged that "most of the sites here at
Bell Labs Indian Hill are running Netnews without benefit of
super-user collaboration or even approval..." 

VI - The Online Public Forum and Creating a New Form of Town Hall
Democracy

     Those online found themselves creating a new communication
medium and a new communication environment. The discussion on
early Usenet over policy proposals demonstrated an open process
where people were encouraged to contribute. Issues and proposals
were debated to determine the principles to guide the decisions
made and the procedures adopted. In addition, this discussion
raised the question of what parts of the democratic process can
be carried out online versus what areas need face to face
meetings or other means of implementation. And how can these
different forms interrelate? During the discussion of policy
issues in the 1981-82 period, several people commented that they
didn't trust votes carried out online, pointing out the ease with
which votes could be tampered with in an online voting process.
They also pointed to the discrepancy between the tentative vote
carried out online about choosing a new name for Usenet and the
vote held at the USENIX meeting where the vote for a new name for
Usenet yielded very different results. 
     In a similar way, through online discussion and
consideration, the new newsgroup naming and creation process was
examined and a means found to create a working procedure, as
opposed to depending on a proposed appointed committee to carry
out the procedure. 
     In "The Rights of Man," Tom Paine describes the importance
of the discussion among people to determine the underlying
principles upon which new forms can be fashioned. "Forms grow out
of principles and operate to continue the principles they grow
from," Paine observed. "It is impossible to practice a bad form
on anything but a bad principle," he continued. Paine also
proposed that the beginning of a new form is the most important
and most difficult step, "as the probability is always greater
against a thing beginning than of proceeding after it has begun." 
     The discussion made possible in net.news during this early
period on Usenet demonstrates how problems can be examined to
determine the crucial principles so as to set the foundation for
a community or social compact. Before there are agreed upon
principles and policies, the interests and desires of those who
are joining together need to be explored and debated. The
principles of any social compact need to be determined before the
forms, so the forms that will serve these needs can be created. 
     The insistence of various participants on Usenet during this
early period for input into the decisions about Usenet, echoed
and articulated in Mark Horton's statement that "I'm not God,"
demonstrated the commitment that such decisions had to be 
determined by Net users. This was a statement of the fact that
sovereignty resided in the users, not in any individual or
organization. 
     This open process created a foundation upon which Usenet
could expand and develop. Much that was only dreamt about or
proposed as wishful thinking in 1981 on Usenet is now assumed
procedure. Thomas Paine explains that if the principles
determining a new form are good principles, the form will reflect
and spread the good principles, and vice versa. The democratic
process developed by those who formed Usenet, established the
foundation for it to grow and flourish. In "The Rights of Man",
Paine describes his observations when he left Great Britain and
came to the U.S. He found a new form had been created in the new
world of America to guide how governments could function. In a
similar way, the discussion on Usenet during its early days shows
how a new form was created to guide the development of the
online community. Studying these early efforts of the Usenet
pioneers shows how they gave the world a new communication media
and a new form of online town hall democracy. 

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Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 8 No 1 Winter/Spring 1998. The whole
issue or a subscription are available for free via email. Send a request to
                           jrh@ais.org
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