The Tragedy of Usenet Commons
Paul W. Schleck
Digest). I believe much of what is discussed below is apropos to this
newsgroup. It has been clear from as far back as 1998 that there is a
need to have a moderated discussion newsgroup for amateur radio (to
supplement the existing moderated, bulletin-only newsgroup
rec.radio.info). What has always bogged down such a plan in the past is
the availability of a half-dozen or so committed people to work through
the Request For Discussion and Call For Votes (RFD/CFV) process, as well
as set up and run the necessary moderation policies and software. I can
certainly volunteer, but I don't want to do it all myself.
Several moderation models are available, including traditional (manually
review all posts), self-moderated (first-time posts are filtered out,
and responded with a group FAQ and instructions how to register), or a
hybrid of the two (automatically approve most material, but reserve the
right to filter out inappropriate threads and users). The third option
would appear to be best, and most tractable for this forum and potential
moderators. Making a rec.radio.amateur.moderated newsgroup avoids the
problem of having to convert every existing rec.radio.amateur.*
newsgroup to moderated (as just as soon as rec.radio.amateur.misc is
moderated, the cockroaches will descend on the other 9
rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroups, just as they descended on
rec.radio.amateur.misc when Riley Hollingsworth ran them off the bands).
Some will insist, and justifiably so, that some of the special-topic
newsgroups that started out as unmoderated, and haven't had as many
problems, should continue to be unmoderated.
If there is any interest in undertaking such a project, please contact
me at my E-mail address below. Only those with a sincere interest in
volunteering as a moderator should contact me at this time.
--
73, Paul W. Schleck, K3FU
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger psch...@novia.net for PGP Public Key
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>Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 22:59:47 EDT
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>Subject: The Tragedy of Usenet Commons
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This piece of interest was lynxed
over to the Digest by myself tonight. I thought it made good reading
and hope you enjoy it also. I've left some of the lynx printing
intact so you can keep it all in the context where it was originally
published. PAT]
[Metroactive CyberScape]
[ CyberScape | Metro | Metroactive Central | Archives ]
Common Tragedy
[whitespace] Ilustration
Ilustration by Kevin Banks
Will privatization of the Net spell the end of its gritty common
ground?
By Thor Iverson
'ENOUGH," I said to myself. "This is a huge waste of time." I had
just spent 15 fruitless minutes on the Usenet newsgroup
alt.food.wine and had found absolutely nothing of value. The
newsgroup's 150 new messages were a collection of off-topic spam,
posts from a psychologically imbalanced individual pretending to
represent a winery, and flame wars over that individual. It had been
that way for several weeks, and there was no end in sight. Worse,
the newsgroup's most informative posters had apparently gone into
hiding. I wondered where they had gone and queried one by email.
"We're all on the WLDG--the Wine Lovers' Discussion Group," he said.
"Spam-free, 100-percent intelligent wine discussion. Why not join
us? The URL is ..."
I checked it out and was instantly hooked. Sure, it was a web-based
bulletin board, but I soon found out that among the wine lovers
populating the group were several programmers who kept the board
running smoothly, avoiding such forums' usual speed problems. And
the discussion was superior to anything I'd found on Usenet. The
obvious cause seemed to be the board's semi-moderated quality
(obnoxious behavior was punishable by banishment at the site owner's
discretion), but that proved to be a misread on my part. Faced with
the prospect of going back to the free-for-all on alt.food.wine,
members policed themselves; potential flame wars were quashed by
public and private messages asking the participants to cool it. A
self-imposed atmosphere of civility prevailed, and there was
constant, high-quality discussion. I had found my Net oasis.
There's a concept in the physical world known as the "tragedy of the
commons." Build a useful public space, and people will come. But the
more people use it, the more the value of the space is degraded,
until it ultimately fails to fulfill the purpose for which it was
created. Thus, success leads inevitably to failure.
The Net is proof that this concept is fully translatable to the
digital sphere. A victim of its own incredible success, the Net has
seen its once manageable common space glutted with information both
relevant and nonsensical. Content fights a losing battle with spam.
Flame wars rage unabated on every mailing list, newsgroup, bulletin
board and chat room. And each new user unwittingly adds to the
problem.
In response, longtime netizens have battled to preserve their
"public spaces." Guidelines and rules of conduct--"netiquette"--are
a standard part of every access provider's and online service's
terms of use. Anti-spam measures, both open and covert, are
constantly in use on Usenet newsgroups. And the owners of
proprietary chat rooms and websites featuring discussion areas have
grown increasingly intolerant of off-topic content and abusive
users.
But the Net's decentralized nature, an essential part of its design
and one of its most positive features, has--ironically--made this
sort of control nearly impossible. The Net is designed to work
around information filters, but the design is "dumb"; it doesn't
distinguish between useful and useless information. Faced with the
degradation of the Net's commons, users have retreated to private
spaces--moderated newsgroups, private (sometimes invitation-only)
mailing lists and highly moderated web discussion groups. The future
of discourse on the Net seems destined to be anything but the
freewheeling, open exchange of public ideas it was envisioned to be.
'ENOUGH," J. Michael Straczynski said. "I can't participate in this
anymore." The newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 had long served a
dual purpose as a discussion area for fans and a forum for those
fans to talk with Babylon 5 creator/producer/writer Straczynski
about the show, television production and anything else that engaged
their common interest.
But something had gone wrong. A few malcontents had, justifiably or
not, chosen to voice their disagreements with Straczynski frequently
and publicly. The newsgroup became a battleground, pitting
Straczynski and his supporters against the anti-Straczynski crowd
and their supporters. So Straczynski bowed out, saying that he
didn't have time to respond to all the flame wars and still produce
his show.
The newsgroup held a virtual huddle and came up with a plan. The
newsgroup as it existed would continue, but two new newsgroups would
be created. The first, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.info, would serve
only one purpose: the dissemination of essential, official
information about the show--air times, production news, merchandise
announcements and posts from Straczynski. It would be closed to all
posts except those from the few people who had volunteered to repost
such information.
The second, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, was slightly
different. It looked a lot like the old newsgroup in terms of
content and traffic. But there was an important change: all posts
were subject to moderation by a committee. The committee didn't
manually approve all posts prior to their appearance on the
newsgroup, but since all traffic went through a central point that
only the moderators could access, problem posts could be removed and
problem users could be identified and filtered. This solved
Straczynski's problem, and he returned to the newsgroup.
It didn't solve all the problems, however. The moderation committee
was subject to a fairly hazy set of guidelines, which had been set
out in the proposal for the creation of the newsgroup (a long and
public procedure that most newsgroups must undergo before their
appearance on Usenet). And it soon became fairly apparent that they
were not filtering by a set of ironclad rules. Worse, posts
questioning the moderation policy were themselves rejected as
"off-topic." There seemed to be little recourse for the new set of
malcontents. But, as the newsgroup functioned smoothly, there was
also little protest.
'ENOUGH," said several people at once. "This is ridiculous." The
rec.arts.startrek.* hierarchy was the outgrowth of one of the
longest-running discussions on the Net, one that had started
virtually simultaneously with the birth of the Internet itself. It
had reached five newsgroups and was still growing, with as many as
100 posts per group per hour; there was no way any human being could
keep up with it all and still hold a job or attend classes. Nor was
the level of discussion particularly illuminating. "Voyager sucks"
vs. "Voyager rules" was a not uncommon exchange.
A few newsgroup veterans bemoaned the problem and took action. From
that action was born an invitation-only mailing list for a few
select Trek fans, those with a proven ability to post intelligent
and on-topic material. The number of participants was small at
first, growing slowly until it reached about 20. The tenor of the
discussion was polite and the level of insight high, and the needs
of the participants to discuss Trek were met for a long while.
But the discussion slowly and inexorably waned. One culprit was the
declining quality of the product under discussion; few of the
participants were able to tolerate the inanity of Voyager, so they
focused their interest on other, non-Trek pursuits. But there was
also another, more insidious problem. For a time, the members of the
private mailing list kept up a low-key participation in the various
Trek newsgroups, which led to new contacts and new members. But that
eventually ended as well, and the mailing list stagnated. Everyone
on the list knew everyone else's opinion on everything, and since
there were no new members, there was nothing to fire new discussion.
Meanwhile, low-quality discussion continued unabated on the
newsgroups; those few who might have qualified for and enjoyed
membership in the private list didn't hear about it because the
members of that list weren't paying any attention.
[line]
RemarQ exec Bill Lee brings order to the chaos of the Usenet. And
someday, he'd even like to build a nice community there
[line]
'ENOUGH," the post thundered. "Who gave you the right to stifle
dissent? By what moral authority do you claim absolute power over
the content of this mailing list?" It was the latest in a long
series of public attacks against the list "owner" (the person
charged with administering a mailing list) of Digital Graffiti, the
longest-running and largest Led Zeppelin mailing list on the Net.
The list had gone through times both good and bad, but its latest
administrator had developed a distressing Napoleonic complex. A mild
disagreement--hardly the first, or the most virulent, in the list's
history--had escalated into a full-fledged flame war, and the list
owner had taken sides, threatening to silence those who disagreed
with him.
In response to this final attack, the discussion came to an abrupt
end with an announcement from the administrator: "By the power
vested in me as list owner. Come back when you've learned your
lesson." The offending party was booted off the list. Anyone who
protested the move was also expelled from the list. Soon, there was
no discussion of Zeppelin at all; most of the vocal posters had been
banished, and those who remained were too stunned to say anything.
Arrogantly asserting that he had to "shepherd the flock," the list
administrator unilaterally made the list a moderated one, rejecting
and editing posts at his whim.
Of course, the abrupt change from an open list to a moderated one
couldn't last long. The expelled members began plotting among
themselves, including discontented but not-yet-expelled members of
Digital Graffiti in their discussions. Choices were considered, and
finally a new mailing list was created as an alternative to the old
one. This mailing list, however, had a mission: There was a written
and voted-upon charter, a rotating committee entrusted with
enforcing that charter and many safeguards against a possible power
play by one of those committee members. The list was not moderated,
nor was much prohibited by the charter, but membership required a
voluntary agreement to abide by the fairly simple rules of the list.
Drawn by the promise of an unmoderated forum that nevertheless had
the teeth to deal with severe problems, people migrated in droves to
the new list. Eventually, Digital Graffiti ceased to exist, with the
administrator still claiming that his "recalcitrant children" were
merely misguided.
THE RETREAT of the digerati to mailing lists is ironic, since email
is one of the Internet's oldest and most primitive technologies. The
promise of Usenet (and ever-more-sophisticated news-filtering
technologies to make it manageable)--and, later, of the web and
proprietary services' chat technology--made it seem as though simple
mail reflectors and text-based communication were headed the way of
UHF and the telegraph.
Yet the situation also makes sense. The Net's "tragedy of the
commons" is certainly a result of exploding growth, but it is also
partially the fault of a technology that enabled before it could
control, that allowed before it could limit. Control and limitations
are not always required (or desired), but their technologically
enforced absence is not always desirable either. People will
eventually make their way back to the World Wide Web and Usenet (and
whatever is yet to come), but it will not be until technology allows
more control over those media.
Of course, control is a two-edged sword. Personal control over
content--Usenet's kill files, email filters--is the Holy Grail of
moderation technology. Computers are not yet smart enough to allow
complete self-moderation, which is where so-called censorware comes
in. Programs like NetNanny and systems like AdultCheck are useful
for those attempting to exercise some control over the wide-open
content of the Net, but they rely on others' decisions about what
content is and is not appropriate. And there's still no reliable way
to filter information that is simply stupid or uninteresting without
resorting to moderation (which carries its own risks, as the
previous examples demonstrate).
The most chilling danger is that the flight to private mailing
lists, moderated newsgroups and closed websites will exclude those
not lucky enough to get in on the ground floor. The Net's public
spaces are powerful because they are public, allowing anyone a
chance to step up on a soapbox and contribute. But when a forum's
best and brightest take their act elsewhere, the original forum's
usefulness is greatly diminished. Worse yet, private or moderated
forums have a way of becoming closed systems, invisible to anyone
not present at their creation and impossible to get into once the
creators have left the public forum behind. A new user searching for
intelligent discussion of Star Trek on the Net might never find it,
simply because he or she doesn't know where to look or whom to ask.
So what's the solution? Taking it as a given that the influx of
people to the Net will not level off anytime soon, the answer must
be found somewhere other than the subdivision of the Net into
partitioned, private, proprietary fortresses of users and content.
Somehow, a way must be found to reverse the tragedy of the commons,
to make the Net's public spaces more useful despite the number of
people who use them. The answer, then, lies in technology and its
applications.
There have been tentative steps in this direction already. Some
privately owned forums have given up control to democratically
chosen administrators following written guidelines, proving that
mailing lists and web discussion groups don't have to succumb to
their subscribers. Moderated and limited-content newsgroups (usually
those with .moderated or .info at the end of their names) are
successful under the same conditions, especially when paired with
unmoderated forums that allow completely free discourse to continue.
And ever-more-sophisticated filtering technologies, especially those
based on software agents, can help separate the digital wheat from
the virtual chaff in everything from email to the web.
Community-based content selection, in which people rely on one
another to sort out the vagaries of the Net (also known as
collaborative filtering), is also a promising technology being tried
on Usenet and the web.
In the end, the Net's survival as a public medium--rather than a
privately held, privately controlled one--depends on the success of
these technologies. Net users were able to rise up and help defeat
the Communications Decency Act in the same way they collectively
were able to create and organize Usenet many years earlier: they
worked together for a common cause. With all those people off in
their own private domains, the misbegotten offspring of the CDA (or
something worse) might arrive and cripple the Net without anyone's
even noticing. And that would be a tragedy.
[ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]
_______________________________________________________________
From the January 14-20, 1999 issue of Metro.
Copyright ← Metro Publishing Inc. Maintained by Boulevards New
Media.
_______________________________________________________________
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to Tad Cook for telling me
about this link, and my thanks to *Metro* for publising such a very
thought provoking and timely article. PAT]
xganon
>The following was just posted to comp.dcom.telecom (aka
---
This post was anonymized at http://www.xganon.com
---
Tick Tock
wrote:
>The following was just posted to comp.dcom.telecom (aka "Telecom
>Digest). I believe much of what is discussed below is apropos to this
>newsgroup. It has been clear from as far back as 1998 that there is a
>need to have a moderated discussion newsgroup for amateur radio
For the short-bus crew (w0ger), he is talking about the implementation
of a "Wiseman filter".
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
xganon
Dave Heil are not going to take anything over even thouhg they are fucking
control freaks. Maybe they should get engaged.
how does it feel to be ignored? BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!
Tick Tock
>Paul Schleck didnt get any answers to his message because he and bass odor
>Dave Heil are not going to take anything over even thouhg they are fucking
>control freaks. Maybe they should get engaged.
>
>how does it feel to be ignored? BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!
Poor baby.
Poor, poor baby.
Poor poor poor baby w0ger.
Always the simpleton, aren't you, w0ger? Ever heard of email?
W0ger. Forever affirming his idiocy!
Nothing more, nothing less. It is written. :)