comp.dcom.telecom abandoned.
Ben Burch
Do not expect the c.d.t newsfeed to resume. You might as well rmgroup it.
The digest will continue as a mailing list only.
I would do the same in his position. Seems all that this new media is
good for is insults and cheap shots.
"I don't speak for Motorola; They don't speak for me."
-Ben Burch | Motorola Wireless Data Group:
Ben_...@msmail.wes.mot.com | Good PDAs go EVERYWHERE.
Richard H. Miller
|> I just exchanged mail with Pat Townsend.
|>
|> Do not expect the c.d.t newsfeed to resume. You might as well rmgroup it.
|>
|> The digest will continue as a mailing list only.
|>
|> I would do the same in his position. Seems all that this new media is
|> good for is insults and cheap shots.
We know, Pat is quite good at cheap shots, insults, and considering his
actions have all the earmarks of a playground bully, this final action is
exactly what I would think he would do.
--
Richard H. Miller Email: ri...@bcm.tmc.edu
Asst. Dir. for Technical Support Voice: (713)798-3532
Baylor College of Medicine US Mail: One Baylor Plaza, 302H
Houston, Texas 77030
Joe Kelsey
>I just exchanged mail with Pat Townsend.
>Do not expect the c.d.t newsfeed to resume. You might as well rmgroup it.
>The digest will continue as a mailing list only.
The most recent editions of ``the digest'' carry a quite verbose (and
unenforceable) compilation copyright, stating, among other things, that
Patrick Townson Associates refuses to grant any permission for
redistribution of ``the digest'' over Usenet.
So, PAT, Inc. has abandoned c.d.t. I say that we need to call for a
re-organization of the telecom newsgroups immediately.
For starters, the ``cabal's'' argument that c.d.t.t has to reside under
c.d.t due to the existence of ``the digest'' on Usenet vanishes
completely. I say we come up with a *real* place to put telecom
discussions that *does not* involve comp.dcom, since data communications
makes up only a part of the entire telecommunications and telephony
subject area.
I suggest ``misc.telecom,'' starting with two groups:
misc.telecom.misc Non-technical discussions
misc.telecom.tech Technical discussions
/Joe
Joe Kelsey
Usenet, I attach a copy of the latest boiler-plate attached to each
issue of ``the digest.'' Note that the invalid restriction on
redistribution over Usenet and only redistribution in whole violates the
fair use principle of Copyright Law, and thus he cannot enforce it.
Also note that PTA does not own the original copyright for any articles
published in ``the digest'' *except* for those attributed to ``the
moderator,'' and thus the original authors can freely redistribut their
own works however they choose, including cross-posting and re-mailing to
any newsgroup in existence.
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere
there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of
public service systems and networks. Subscriptions are available at
no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and
tell us how you qualify: telecom...@eecs.nwu.edu.
The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates and
redistribution/cross-posting of articles herein to news groups such as
those distributed via 'Usenet' is prohibited unless permission is ob-
tained in writing. This does not apply to *authorized* redistribution
lists and sites who have agreed to distribute the Digest. All cross-
postings or other redistributions must include the full Digest intact
and unedited.
Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using
anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email
information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to
use the information service, just ask. You can reach us by snail mail
at Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or Fax at 1-708-329-0572.
So how soon can we get a new RFD?
/Joe
Patrick A. Townson
(Joe Kelsey) writes:
> Just for reference for those of you who only read ``the digest'' via
> Usenet, I attach a copy of the latest boiler-plate attached to each
> issue of ``the digest.'' Note that the invalid restriction on
> redistribution over Usenet and only redistribution in whole violates the
> fair use principle of Copyright Law, and thus he cannot enforce it.
> Also note that PTA does not own the original copyright for any articles
> published in ``the digest'' *except* for those attributed to ``the
> moderator,'' and thus the original authors can freely redistribut their
> own works however they choose, including cross-posting and re-mailing to
> any newsgroup in existence.
Here is how it really works:
Person X writes an article. They are free to post/crosspost/multipost
their article however they like, to newsgroups A, B, C, D, etc. I
cannot stop that and don't want to stop that. In the process of their
crossposting, they also send the article to TELECOM Digest. I may as
a matter of fact note it has been crossposted different places and
decide not to use it as a result, or maybe I do use it. People are
free to post where they like, and I am free to pick and choose what
I print.
Now in the process of publishing it in the Digest however, certain
things happen to the article:
It gets spell and grammar checked. It gets formatted to my preferred
column size. It is subject to my layout, which readers of the Digest
note is pretty standard from one article to the next no matter how
it actually arrived. The header info is truncated down to from,
subject, date, organization and reply-to. There then follow a couple
of blank lines. Maybe I create a couple paragraphs out of one for
better readability. I use certain other conventions on a regular,
standard basis. There then come a couple blank lines and a greatly
truncated .signature often times laid out on one line or two where
the author may have had a dozen lines.
I put the articles in a certain order of appearance. If a given thread
has a lot of replies, then all the replies in the thread will be in
a single cluster of articles. Maybe an entire issue will be devoted to
the replies depending on how many there are.
In other words, I *compile* what has been sent to me and present it
in a manner I believe is pleasing to the readers of the Digest. I
organize the material for ease in reading and later location. I might
modify the subject title of the article so it matches the title of
the original in the thread for ease in indexing and locating it later
on.
Once this has been done, I claim a compilation copyright on my work.
Take for example a dictionary. The compilers of the dictionary do not
claim ownership of the words they present and define in the dictionary;
they do not say the words are forbidden to appear in other dictionaries
or in articles that use those words. They also state however that you
may not simply copy their dictionary over and use it elsewhere to your
own benefit. Their presentation of the words in some order and their
definitions of the words and other commentaries are what they are
copyrighting.
And so it goes with TELECOM Digest. People are free to post where they
like but if they ask me to process their article for inclusion in my
Digest then I claim copyright on the processing including the layout
and final presentation.
Even after the fact, if I have published something in the Digest and
the original author invites the net to reprint the article elsewhere,
as long as they use *his original writing and layout* the net is free
to use it. He can send it to me and keep a copy. The way I use it may
look different from the way he wrote it. He is free to send his copy
to wherever he likes, *but not my copy*.
What I am saying is I refuse to donate *my work* (which believe it or
not as you wish) includes some research into the authenticity of the
writer's statements as time and resources permit, editing and layout
to Usenet. Usenet does not own my work and efforts. I own them. I've
decided that I am not going to work at preparing an e-journal I think
is a nice quality product only to then flush a bunch of copies down
a toilet or toss them in a garbage can. Would you treat your work
that way?
Usenet is a cesspool, a dungheap. Do you spend time preparing a paper
or a document, editing it, etc then when you walk past a garbage
container toss all your work inside it and walk away?
So as long as the original author(s) choose to send what they write to
a Usenet group at the same time they send it to me or even after the
fact if they choose to send what they have written -- instead of the
way I present their writing -- please help yourself to it and use as
you will. But do not copy my writings and presentations in Usenet
without my explicit permission and according to the rules I have
established for same. Take it from the original author's files (with
the author's permission of course) and use it. Don't take my copies
and use them.
*That* is what a compilation copyright does; it protects the work of
people who compile, edit and layout the work of others.
Usenet was given a gift of the TELECOM Digest for many years. There
was a Digest long before there was a gateway to Usenet for it. There
will be a Digest long after the gateway has been discontinued. The
misunderstanding seems to have come about because the Digest was sent
to Usenet automatically for so many years that a lot of Usenet people
are under the mistaken assumption the *net* owns the Digest. Not true!
Now regards 'fair use' and copyright, there is a very gray area here.
You certainly cannot claim that repeatedly reprinting/distributing
every single issue in its entirety without my permission is fair use.
You cannot claim that reprinting entire articles is fair use. Excerpts
from articles perhaps is allowed. Even under fair use, you are
required to mention the source (TELECOM Digest) *if you use my version
of the article*.
So as to what is 'enforceable' and not 'enforceable' where my
compilation copyright on the TELECOM Digest is concerned, try me out.
Obviously, I expect a great deal of abuse where this is concerned,
that is the nature of Usenet. After all, it is not uncommon here to
see articles all the time (in the poster's words) copied without
permission from the original source. I see no reason TELECOM Digest
won't be ripped off in the same way. Its the way things are done in
a cesspool, a dungheap.
Patrick Townson
Bob Goudreau
>
>Usenet is a cesspool, a dungheap. Do you spend time preparing a paper
>or a document, editing it, etc then when you walk past a garbage
>container toss all your work inside it and walk away?
Judging by the large amount of verbiage you keep posting to Usenet, it
would seem that the anwer to that question is "yes" even for you.
I can't understand why someone who despises Usenet so much nevertheless
spends so much of his valuable time preparing and editing missives for
news.groups. (BTW, which is it -- a garbage container, a cesspool, or
a dungheap? It can't be all three.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Arthur Rubin
I'm sorry, Pat, I have been on your side through most of this, but you're
wrong here. The original author has copyright in his message. You may,
but probably do not, also have copyright in the copy of message you submit
in Telecom Digest. You DO have a compilation copyright in Telecom Digest,
and in comp.dcom.telecom, when you were moderating to it. (The archiving
of Usenet to CD-ROM may or may not infringe your comilation copyright,
BTW.)
--
Arthur L. Rubin: a_r...@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea
216-...@mcimail.com 7070...@compuserve.com art...@pnet01.cts.com (personal)
My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
Dave Hayes
>or a document, editing it, etc then when you walk past a garbage
>container toss all your work inside it and walk away?
I can't agree with you there. There are _places_ that USENET smells
like a dungheap (e.g. news.*), but it's only because some of the people
there are shortsighted arrogant control freaks who bully people about with
words and the fact that they are news admins.
These people have nothing better to do than use perceptions generated
from an incomplete and inaccurate model of who posters really are, to
denounce other people's viewpoints and worldviews...in a vain attempt
to reclaim whatever self-worth they lost by comparing themselves to other
people who they can deem "lesser" than they are.
Someday, these people may realize that self-worth comes from within, not
without, and they may come to understand how fruitless it is to really
judge another by standards which are almost always quite arbitrary.
Someday they may even figure out why I post what I do...
However, there are other people out there (most of whom don't bother posting)
who may not fit this description. I try not to judge a medium by those who
choose to monopolize the messages. USENET is no different than a large
meeting hall with thousands of conversations going on at once.
>Usenet was given a gift of the TELECOM Digest for many years.
And I, for one, am sorry that people here refuse to see it as that. If they
don't want it, or they think you are some unethical moderator...that's their
problem. Since they don't seem to want it...you are (unfortunately for the
rest of us) perfectly justified in your refusual to continue to provide it.
--
Dave Hayes - Institutional Network & Communications - JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
Honest (adj.) - Someone who is secretly regarded by everyone as an enemy.
anta...@news.delphi.com
info on the digest. He has every right to copyright the digest,
but not the individual nibbly bits. If I was more interested in
this debate, I might even quote valid portions of the copyright
law to back this up, and precedent-setting cases as well.
But I fear that Mr. Townson's copyright clain is ultimately
unenforceable. USEnet is far too much of an anarchy.
My two cents,
- net.spy (Official card-carrying member of the USEnet Cabal, since 1991)
Patrick A. Townson
dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes:
> In article <CI71p...@eecs.nwu.edu> ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick
> A. Townson) writes:
>> Usenet is a cesspool, a dungheap. Do you spend time preparing a paper
>> or a document, editing it, etc then when you walk past a garbage
>> container toss all your work inside it and walk away?
> Judging by the large amount of verbiage you keep posting to Usenet, it
> would seem that the anwer to that question is "yes" even for you.
> I can't understand why someone who despises Usenet so much nevertheless
> spends so much of his valuable time preparing and editing missives for
> news.groups. (BTW, which is it -- a garbage container, a cesspool, or
> a dungheap? It can't be all three.)
I guess the answer to your question is that inside me somewhere is a
little hope that somehow, someway, someday, somewhere, somebody here will
understand what I am talking about. I guess I keep thinking that maybe
the good outweighs the bad here if one looks long enough and hard
enough to find it, although I have yet to see any factual evidence to
support this.
In other words, I haven't given up entirely on Usenet as a medium for
good in the community -- the larger, worldwide community. I keep on
responding here because perhaps it is the courteous thing to do even
when I feel that I am just spinning my wheels and accomplishing
nothing.
So for those who have expressed an interest in knowing about it, I'll
still be around. I'll write messages when it appeals to me to do so
and read what others write as I wish ....
.... but never again will you see the TELECOM Digest on
Usenet. I'm through giving away free labor to 50,000 college
freshmen who are argumentative and obnoxious and who are
laboring under the mistaken impression that *they* somehow
own the Digest and its contents. It isn't fair to Compuserve
and the other services which use me as an Information Provider
nor is it fair to the list members who affirmatively asked me
to send them the Digest. And it certainly isn't fair to the
high school kid in Tennessee who runs a little BBS in his
community who sent me email asking 'how much would I charge
him to feed the Digest to his BBS so he could put it out
for his users ...' and could I give him any kind of discount
since he doesn't have much money.
No one has ever been asked to pay anything for the Digest or
the Archives. I admit when Compuserve asked me for the Digest
I looked a little askance at the idea of getting nothing for
it in their case; they gave me an IP account with full use
of CIS at no charge at any time in exchange for the use of
the Digest as part of their telecommunications forum or SIG;
I find the trade more than generous on their part as CIS is
a wonderful system to use and be part of. Otherwise though,
if you run a BBS or public access site or are just an indi-
vidual reader and you want to receive TELECOM Digest and
benefit from it or be educated by it, just write and ask me.
But never again on Usenet. This net had five year's worth of the
Digest out of the twelve years it has been published and although
abusive from the very beginning has become increasingly worse over the
years. Amazing, isn't it ... some people offer to pay me money if I
will send them the Digest while Usenet demands it for free and acts
like they own it, and threatens to take it anyway by raiding the
archives each day and then sending it out via anon servers all over
the world. So typical ... so Usenettish ...
Regards John Higdon, the last I heard he was having an anxiety attack
wondering how I would make a living if I did not have the net any
longer as a place to do my begging. He misses the point. I still have
the net, the same as all of you. I'll probably start posting my Orange
Card promotions and international calling plan announcements on
c.d.t.t. -- after all, its Usenet's unmoderated telecom newsgroup.
I'll probably even beg for my rent money and cat food there as well.
So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
Exactly *who* is the loser?
PAT
Patrick A. Townson
(Arthur Rubin) writes:
> I'm sorry, Pat, I have been on your side through most of this, but you're
> wrong here. The original author has copyright in his message.
Certainly he does. He can take *his copy* of *his original message*
and do what he pleases with it at any time. For that matter, I'd go
so far as to say he probably can take *my version* of his message and
do what he wants with it.
But *other, third parties* have no rights in the matter at all except
those given to them by the original author of the message and/or the
holder of the compilation copyright. In other words John Q. Writer can
say, 'yeah, you can take my message and cross post it to comp.flame
if you want ...' or he can post it there himself. I'd caution him
against taking *my version* of his message for that purpose (as
opposed to his own, original version of it), but yeah, he can do that.
John Q. Newsreader however has no right to lift what I have forbidden
to be lifted or to re-post/crosspost what John Q. Writer did lacking
Mr. Writer's permission and/or my permission.
> You may, but probably do not, also have copyright in the copy of
> message you submit in Telecom Digest.
Do you mean messages I myself write, or messages I present? Actually
I do have copyright for the simple reason that what is output is a
*different product* than what was input. What you send me is totally
reshaped and laid out. It goes through a spell and grammar check; it
gets sized up to the number of columns I want, etc. My version of
your message -- the version I present to the readers -- is my product.
But you know, you've given me a good idea: I think for additional
coverage on this I need to do two things ... one, change my autoreply
so it reads 'all messages sent for publication become my property for
use as I see fit; if you disagree with this policy please write me
IMMEDIATLY saying so and I will return your message unused' ...
and two, I need to emphasize this same thing in the Digest masthead
that 'all submissions to the Digest become the property of the
Digest'.
This is pretty standard where you see things like newspaper recipe
contests or radio station 'send us a postcard with your comments'
promotions are concerned. They all say whatever you send becomes their
property. Having that in the Digest makes good sense I think, and
it should resolve the issue. I have not done this, and I sort of
resent having to do it. I don't really want to be an asshole but
self-defense is important. Remember 'way back when' a few years ago
I used to say nothing in the Digest was copyrighted? Come one, come
all, take it .. remember when I used to say that? <grin> ... as
Archie Bunker would say, 'those were the days'.
> You DO have a compilation copyright in Telecom Digest,
> and in comp.dcom.telecom, when you were moderating to it. (The archiving
> of Usenet to CD-ROM may or may not infringe your comilation copyright,
> BTW.)
Yeah, well that CD-ROM thing is just another good reason for dumping
Usenet; its just another example of 'your work belongs to us to do as
we please with, unaccountable to you ...' . That's the way Dungheap Net
operates: your work is our property.
Believe it or not, I've thought in the past long and hard about ditching
Usenet in favor of more productive and positive places to distribute
the Digest. The uglieness surrounding c.d.t.t. did hasten my decision
I admit, but truthfully, it was just coincidental. Had it not been for
some of the really god-awful stuff in news.groups, I probably would
have left the Digest on Usenet; I was ambivilent about it at best. Once
c.d.t.t. got started however I figured Usenet now has its own place for
telecom flaming; they won't need the Digest. It was something I had
thought about for several months, but I wanted to see the mailing list
reach a certain size (it is in excess of 2000 subscribers now; that
is in addition to Compuserve, GEnie and the Net Exchange/PC Pursuit
reader-participants and a few independent BBSs and Fido BBSs, etc)
before making a final decision.
I guess at least one other Moderator of a mailing list/newsgroup combo
on Usenet is thinking the same way as myself now. I talked to him on
the phone today. He's followed this fiasco since the beginning and
said his experience has been a lot the same as mine: a great bunch
of people on the mailing list; Compuserve flirting with him and on
the Usenet side of the equation a bunch of quarrelsome, aggravating
readers. I think if/when he reaches some agreement with Compuserve
and/or GEnie (they have Roundtables on all the topics Usenet has
newsgroups for) he will probably split also, it will be bye-bye Dungheap.
Time will tell. I wouldn't mind hearing from other Moderators with
their opinions and experiences if they'd like to write me.
Patrick A. Townson
(ANTA...@DELPHI.COM) writes:
> But I fear that Mr. Townson's copyright clain is ultimately
> unenforceable. USEnet is far too much of an anarchy.
You are probably correct. I'm sure some Usenetters will rip it off
and post it as they wish. How many times have you seen articles
posted which were copied out of the papers and magazines where
the 'author' (on Usenet) openly says 'posted without permission'.
Most of them couldn't give a shit -- or even an iota of one --
regards copyright laws, etc.
The catch is though, now they have to rip it off. I'm sure they
will; there will always be someone like John DeArmond with his
little list of 'ten most off-topic threads' and such ... what
else have they to feed on except controversy in Usenet? Sadly,
people like him offset a couple dozen good participants.
So when they get it now, it will be a pirated copy. I'm not
going to let it worry me too much.
PAT
John Stanley
Patrick A. Townson <ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu> wrote:
>I keep on
>responding here because perhaps it is the courteous thing to do even
>when I feel that I am just spinning my wheels and accomplishing
>nothing.
Flaming is courteous.
>Digest out of the twelve years it has been published and although
>abusive from the very beginning has become increasingly worse over the
>years.
Hardly one-sided.
> Amazing, isn't it ... some people offer to pay me money if I
>will send them the Digest
Amazing how some people think they need to send you money in order to
get it. Why is that, I wonder?
>while Usenet demands it for free and acts
I have yet to see anyone demand it.
>I'll probably start posting my Orange
>Card promotions and international calling plan announcements on
>c.d.t.t.
As someone who complained loud and long that any unmoderated telecom
group would degenerate into noise, I find your threats to increase the
noise incredibly hypocritical. I suppose that you will start posting
your advertising, then come back to news.groups and say "I told you
so".
>-- after all, its Usenet's unmoderated telecom newsgroup.
For technical discussions.
>I'll probably even beg for my rent money and cat food there as well.
No, the proper group for that would be rec.humor.pathetic.
>So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
Really?
Albert Cheng
share knowledge. What happened?
Joe George
>I suggest ``misc.telecom,'' starting with two groups:
>misc.telecom.misc Non-technical discussions
>misc.telecom.tech Technical discussions
No, no, no, no! Not again!
I don't think that comp.dcom.telecom* is the best place to but telecom
groups either, but *please* let's not try to rehash this whole thing and
start over! I would much rather put up with the 'dcom' misnomer than go
through all this muckraking again.
PLEASE reconsider!
--
Joe George (jge...@crl.com, jge...@nbi.com)
Life sucks. What more needs to be said?
The NBI Press: Typesetting, Graphic Artwork, Fine Italian Cuisine
Bill Watts
>coverage on this I need to do two things ... one, change my autoreply
>so it reads 'all messages sent for publication become my property for
>use as I see fit; if you disagree with this policy please write me
>IMMEDIATLY saying so and I will return your message unused' ...
>
>and two, I need to emphasize this same thing in the Digest masthead
>that 'all submissions to the Digest become the property of the
>Digest'.
>
This is a reasonable policy for an electronic publisher. . .
But don't be surprised when your more valuable contributors begin to ask
for $ome $ort of quid pro quo in exchange for your ownership of their
work.
--
Bill Watts
po...@access.digex.net
Joel Furr
Patrick A. Townson
(Bill Watts) writes:
> This is a reasonable policy for an electronic publisher. . .
Thank you counsel; I'm so glad you agree with me counsel.
> But don't be surprised when your more valuable contributors begin to ask
> for $ome $ort of quid pro quo in exchange for your ownership of their
> work.
I haven't anything to pay them with; I guess that means they will just
quit sending me things. Too bad for me.
How much is your fee for the above advice rendered to me counsel?
PAT
Jeff Sicherman
>good in the community -- the larger, worldwide community. I keep on
>responding here because perhaps it is the courteous thing to do even
>when I feel that I am just spinning my wheels and accomplishing
>nothing.
Sorry PAT, you're hardly the one to preach about corteousness. Of
course, neither am I, but at least I'm not hypocritical about it as
you are.
I'm not even talking about your foul fingers, corteous usenetters
or just plain corteous people don't try to sabotage other peoples
lawful activities. Note I didn't say you didn't have a right to a
contrary - even if self-serving - viewpoint; it was the manner in
which you exercised that view to the exclusion of others that was
the act of discourtesy.
>So for those who have expressed an interest in knowing about it, I'll
>still be around. I'll write messages when it appeals to me to do so
>and read what others write as I wish ....
We'll be waiting anxiously for your pearls of pissdom.
> .... but never again will you see the TELECOM Digest on
> Usenet. I'm through giving away free labor to 50,000 college
> freshmen who are argumentative and obnoxious and who are
> laboring under the mistaken impression that *they* somehow
> own the Digest and its contents. It isn't fair to Compuserve
> and the other services which use me as an Information Provider
> nor is it fair to the list members who affirmatively asked me
> to send them the Digest. And it certainly isn't fair to the
> high school kid in Tennessee who runs a little BBS in his
> community who sent me email asking 'how much would I charge
> him to feed the Digest to his BBS so he could put it out
> for his users ...' and could I give him any kind of discount
> since he doesn't have much money.
Please, please, the tears are dripping on my keyboard.
>But never again on Usenet. This net had five year's worth of the
>Digest out of the twelve years it has been published and although
>abusive from the very beginning has become increasingly worse over the
>years. Amazing, isn't it ... some people offer to pay me money if I
>will send them the Digest while Usenet demands it for free and acts
>like they own it, and threatens to take it anyway by raiding the
>archives each day and then sending it out via anon servers all over
>the world. So typical ... so Usenettish ...
The distribution for which you paid nothing and got whatever ego
gratification you were seeking and access to a larger audience and
pool of contributors. SOund's like a trade to me. I, and you, have
absolutely no way of determining the equity of that trade, of course.
>
>Regards John Higdon, the last I heard he was having an anxiety attack
>wondering how I would make a living if I did not have the net any
>longer as a place to do my begging. He misses the point. I still have
>the net, the same as all of you. I'll probably start posting my Orange
>Card promotions and international calling plan announcements on
>c.d.t.t. -- after all, its Usenet's unmoderated telecom newsgroup.
>I'll probably even beg for my rent money and cat food there as well.
Try not to eat too much of it. The cats need their share.
>So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
>Exactly *who* is the loser?
Strange, I don't *feel* like a loser. I won't bother to enumerate all
the fairly worthless things we are supposed to be suffering the loss of
but it's not quite true that you haven't lost anything: you've lost part
of your audience. How much that's worth to you, monetarily or otherwise
is for you to determine.
--
Jeff Sicherman
up the net without a .sig
Dave Hayes
>USENET is supposed to be a peers group where people make friends and
>share knowledge. What happened?
People just can't have opinions or worldviews that are too far out
of their own experience. It seems to threaten their survival. Don't
ask me why.
This is the root cause of why we have wars and crime and lawsuits.
--
Dave Hayes - Institutional Network & Communications - JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
Man does not have a capacity of instant comphrehension. So rare is the
knowledge of how to train this, that most people and institutions have
compromised by playing upon man's proneness to conditioning and
indoctrination instead.
The end of *that* road is the ant-heap. Or, at best, the beehive.
Graham Toal
:I'm sorry, Pat, I have been on your side through most of this, but you're
:but probably do not, also have copyright in the copy of message you submit
:and in comp.dcom.telecom, when you were moderating to it. (The archiving
:of Usenet to CD-ROM may or may not infringe your comilation copyright,
:BTW.)
His compilation copyright prohibits people from reposting the whole
compilation. It has no effect on people following up articles posted
in the digest to other newsgroups. Quoting sufficient of an article
to respond to it is well within the fair use guidelines.
However, its fairly moot. I haven't missed c.d.t at all since its
demise. In fact I was skipping 90% of it in the two or three months
before anyway.
G
Joe George
> .... but never again will you see the TELECOM Digest on
> Usenet. I'm through giving away free labor to 50,000 college
> freshmen who are argumentative and obnoxious and who are
> laboring under the mistaken impression that *they* somehow
> own the Digest and its contents. It isn't fair to Compuserve
> and the other services which use me as an Information Provider
> nor is it fair to the list members who affirmatively asked me
> to send them the Digest. And it certainly isn't fair to the
> high school kid in Tennessee who runs a little BBS in his
> community who sent me email asking 'how much would I charge
> him to feed the Digest to his BBS so he could put it out
> for his users ...' and could I give him any kind of discount
> since he doesn't have much money.
Well, that about sums it up. I'd like to open discussion to make c.d.t.
unmoderated so we have a place for non-technical discussion of telecom
issues to go hand in hand with the newly created comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
Announcements of long distance calling plans or calling card advertisements
are not particularly applicable to a technically oriented newsgroup.
'comp.dcom.telecom' or 'comp.dcom.telecom.misc ' seem like logical names to
me.
Suggestions? Comments?
--
Joe George (jge...@crl.com, jge...@nbi.com)
The NBI Press: Typesetting, Graphic Artwork, Fine Italian Cuisine
"Usenet is a cesspool, a dungheap." -Patrick Townson
Bengt Larsson
Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>ach...@shalom.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Albert Cheng) writes:
>>USENET is supposed to be a peers group where people make friends and
>>share knowledge. What happened?
>
>People just can't have opinions or worldviews that are too far out
>of their own experience. It seems to threaten their survival. Don't
>ask me why.
The removal of rec.music.synth and substituting it with another group
of a similar name seems to have threated some other people's survival.
Now who could that be?
>This is the root cause of why we have wars and crime and lawsuits.
Try conflict of interest.
--
Bengt Larsson - ben...@maths.lth.se
Joe George
And you will quite probably be told not to post non-technical discussion in
c.d.t.t. I suggest you wait on your advertisements until comp.dcom.telecom
goes unmoderated, or c.d.t.misc gets created. Now that c.d.t. is officially
dead we can work on unmoderating it and getting on with managing to cope
with our meager useless humble lives now that we don't have the Telecom
Digest to push around.
>So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
>Exactly *who* is the loser?
I'm no loser. You may take this post, if you wish, as a public subscription
request: I request that you never, ever, under any circumstances put me
on the Telecom Digest mailing list. Thank you.
You have taken your ball and gone home, I say it's time that the rest of us
in this 'dungheap' go out and get another ball. There's nothing about your
ball that makes it so special.
I hope you prosper with the Telecom Digest.
Somewhere else.
--
Joe George (jge...@crl.com, jge...@nbi.com)
The NBI Press: Typesetting, Graphic Artwork, Fine Italian Cuisine
It's only Usenet, it's not like it's anything _important_!
Dave Hayes
>Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>>ach...@shalom.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Albert Cheng) writes:
>>>USENET is supposed to be a peers group where people make friends and
>>>share knowledge. What happened?
>>People just can't have opinions or worldviews that are too far out
>>of their own experience. It seems to threaten their survival. Don't
>>ask me why.
>The removal of rec.music.synth and substituting it with another group
>of a similar name seems to have threated some other people's survival.
>Now who could that be?
It's true, there were people who were threatened on both sides. As you
are trying to imply, it wasn't merely one person...or there wouldn't
have been such a flamewar.
Those who were threatened on my side of the issue chose not to speak
here in news.* (and that was probably wise in hindsight, since people
here seem unreasonable for the most part).
The evidence does not need a particular flamewar name to be evident...
you can take any big flamewar and say the same thing about some of
the participants.
>>This is the root cause of why we have wars and crime and lawsuits.
>Try conflict of interest.
Try "inability to understand another's viewpoint".
--
Dave Hayes - Institutional Network & Communications - JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
The word 'choice' is a fraud
while people choose only what they have been taught about to choose.
John Boteler
>ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>> .... but never again will you see the TELECOM Digest on
>> Usenet. I'm through giving away free labor to 50,000 college
>Well, that about sums it up. I'd like to open discussion to make c.d.t.
>unmoderated so we have a place for non-technical discussion of telecom
>issues to go hand in hand with the newly created comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
What are you waiting for?
I think the impetus already exists.
--
finger bo...@access.digex.net
Exiting Kill Mailboxes
Bengt Larsson
Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>ben...@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson) writes:
>>The removal of rec.music.synth and substituting it with another group
>>of a similar name seems to have threated some other people's survival.
>>Now who could that be?
>
>It's true, there were people who were threatened on both sides. As you
>are trying to imply, it wasn't merely one person...or there wouldn't
>have been such a flamewar.
There _was_ such a flamewar because you were the only one
(well, nearly) with that stated opinion. You proceeded to post
massively.
>Those who were threatened on my side of the issue chose not to speak
>here in news.* (and that was probably wise in hindsight, since people
>here seem unreasonable for the most part).
Unreasonable, _you_ say?
>The evidence does not need a particular flamewar name to be evident...
>you can take any big flamewar and say the same thing about some of
>the participants.
You mean that some of the participants weren't participating, or that
some of the participants quite frankly said they thought it was fun to
generate noise?
>>>This is the root cause of why we have wars and crime and lawsuits.
>>Try conflict of interest.
>
>Try "inability to understand another's viewpoint".
Try land, money, bodily injury and miscommunications as in "inability
to express ones viewpoint". The whole onus shouldn't lie on the
receiver.
Steven Schwartz
I am in favor of this. As I said under a different thread, I'd like to
de-datacomm the newsgroup name to "misc.telecom" or "comp.telecom". I
prefer the "misc" version, since we discuss voice as well as "comp"
transmissions.
--
Steven H. Schwartz Expert Systems Laboratory
schw...@nynexst.com NYNEX Science and Technology Center
PROFS: SCHWARTZ@UNIX 500 Westchester Avenue
914-644-2960 White Plains NY 10604
Dave Ratcliffe
- USENET is supposed to be a peers group where people make friends and
- share knowledge. What happened?
The s.c.t. discussion for one thing. You remember that, don't you
Albert?
--
vogon1!frackit!da...@psuvax1.psu.edu | "Why would I want to be taken
- Dave Ratcliffe - Data Factory Svcs. | seriously? "
- Harrisburg, Pa - | Dave Hayes
david.g.lewis
>In article <a_rubin.756169867@dn66> a_r...@dsg4.dse.beckman.com
>(Arthur Rubin) writes:
>> You DO have a compilation copyright in Telecom Digest,
>> and in comp.dcom.telecom, when you were moderating to it. (The archiving
>> of Usenet to CD-ROM may or may not infringe your comilation copyright,
>> BTW.)
>
>Yeah, well that CD-ROM thing is just another good reason for dumping
>Usenet; its just another example of 'your work belongs to us to do as
>we please with, unaccountable to you ...' . That's the way Dungheap Net
>operates: your work is our property.
There's a certain irony here, considering that several months ago Mr.
Townson was discussing making the Telecom Archives available on CD-ROM, to
be published and distributed, for a fee, by Patrick A. Townson Associates (I
believe that's the name of the entity Mr. Townson uses for his business
ventures; I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong).
Some would say that this shows a belief on the part of Mr. Townson that the
work of all the many contributors of the varied items in the Telecom
Archives belongs to Patrick A. Townson Associates to do as they please with,
unaccountable to the contributors.
Further exposition on this theme is left as an exercise to the reader.
David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories
david....@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation
Copyright (c) 1993 David G Lewis/AT&T; all rights reserved
Gary Heston
>So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
Sort of like going from a septic system to a public sewer.
>Exactly *who* is the loser?
Apparetly you, you're the one wailing the most.
--
Gary Heston SCI Systems, Inc. ga...@sci34hub.sci.com site admin
The Chairman of the Board and the CFO speak for SCI. I'm neither.
"Quit while you're ahead. All the best gamblers do." Baltasar Gracian
Tom Streeter
Sounds like a win for us.
"We" being the fans of public displays of surreal behavior, of course.
I always thought the discussions got in the way of the Moderator Comments
myself.
--Tom "waiting for that string to snap" Streeter
--
Tom Streeter | stre...@cs.unca.edu
Dept. of Mass Communication | 704-251-6731
University of North Carolina at Asheville | Opinions expressed here are
Asheville, NC 28804 | mine alone.
David Lesher
>So I still have the net; its just that you no longer have the Digest.
I hear an echo from the past:
"You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore..."
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close............(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead..............vr virus-proof........20915-1433
Bruce C. Wright
> In article <CI7wt...@eecs.nwu.edu> ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>>In article <a_rubin.756169867@dn66> a_r...@dsg4.dse.beckman.com
>>(Arthur Rubin) writes:
>>> You DO have a compilation copyright in Telecom Digest,
>>> and in comp.dcom.telecom, when you were moderating to it. (The archiving
>>> of Usenet to CD-ROM may or may not infringe your comilation copyright,
>>> BTW.)
>>
>>Yeah, well that CD-ROM thing is just another good reason for dumping
>>Usenet; its just another example of 'your work belongs to us to do as
>>we please with, unaccountable to you ...' . That's the way Dungheap Net
>>operates: your work is our property.
>
> There's a certain irony here, considering that several months ago Mr.
> Townson was discussing making the Telecom Archives available on CD-ROM, to
> be published and distributed, for a fee, by Patrick A. Townson Associates (I
> believe that's the name of the entity Mr. Townson uses for his business
> ventures; I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong).
>
> Some would say that this shows a belief on the part of Mr. Townson that the
> work of all the many contributors of the varied items in the Telecom
> Archives belongs to Patrick A. Townson Associates to do as they please with,
> unaccountable to the contributors.
There is a difference, however: the items sent to the Telecom Digest
were sent to the list compiler with the full knowledge (even the hope)
that they might be compiled into the list. Consider the analogy of
letters to the editor of a newspaper: the newspaper certainly holds
a compilation copyright on the letters it publishes, although it can't
claim a copyright on any individual letter.
The case of, in effect, making the Telecom Digest part of a super-
compilation is another question entirely. Copyright law in digital
electronic media is still rather murky - the technology and sociological
usage are changing faster than the legislative and judicial bodies can
keep up with. You could probably make a case either way, but my guess
is that the decision would be that PAT does hold a valid compilation
copyright on the Digest and that incorporating the Digest into a super-
compilation like the above-mentioned CD-ROM would not be a fair use
without his permission.
This, of course, makes no judgement on the _value_ of the compilation
contained in the Digest; that's clearly a subjective evaluation that
every reader has to make for themselves.
Bruce C. Wright
John Payson
Bruce C. Wright <br...@ais.com> wrote:
>There is a difference, however: the items sent to the Telecom Digest
>were sent to the list compiler with the full knowledge (even the hope)
>that they might be compiled into the list. Consider the analogy of
>letters to the editor of a newspaper: the newspaper certainly holds
>a compilation copyright on the letters it publishes, although it can't
>claim a copyright on any individual letter.
>
>The case of, in effect, making the Telecom Digest part of a super-
>compilation is another question entirely. Copyright law in digital
>electronic media is still rather murky - the technology and sociological
>usage are changing faster than the legislative and judicial bodies can
>keep up with. You could probably make a case either way, but my guess
>is that the decision would be that PAT does hold a valid compilation
>copyright on the Digest and that incorporating the Digest into a super-
>compilation like the above-mentioned CD-ROM would not be a fair use
>without his permission.
I think it would be reasonable to say that when one posts to Usenet, one
is giving license to any and all persons to distribute the post as part
of that big amorphous blob known as "Usenet". Collecting all of the posts
which have appeared could probably be considered as an extension of the
range of Usenet provided that all posts appeared with original headers,
etc. Note that applying filters other than the "normal" ones [Newsgroups:
in most cases, and in a few groups, Keywords: or Subject:] could probably
be considered an improper use.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supe...@mcs.com | "Je crois que je ne vais jamais voir... | J\_/L
John Payson | Un animal si beau qu'un chat." | ( o o )
Andrew Klossner
"Actually I do have copyright for the simple reason that what
is output is a *different product* than what was input. What
you send me is totally reshaped and laid out. It goes through a
spell and grammar check; it gets sized up to the number of
columns I want, etc. My version of your message -- the version
I present to the readers -- is my product."
Actually, it's not. U.S. copyright law is quite clear on this. The
result of your editing is a "derived work," and is owned by the same
person who holds the original copyright. Unless that original
copyright is conveyed to you, or you enter into a contract with that
holder, you have no rights at all to your work.
Counter-intuitive thought it seems, if you create a work by beginning
with somebody else's copyrighted work and make arbitrarily many
changes, you have no rights under U.S. copyright law to the result. As
a degenerate case, if you create a new novel by taking another novel,
deleting all but the first word, and adding 70,000 of your own, the
other novel's owner technically owns your work.
U.S. law is concerned with the process (starting with another's work
versus originating your own), not the result (how "different" is it
from another work).
[I had to research all this once.]
-=- Andrew Klossner (and...@frip.wv.tek.com)
Jay Maynard
David Lesher <wb8...@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu> wrote:
>"You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore..."
No, no, no. It must be a Nazi reference - from Germany in the WWII era - to
count as a discussion terminator. Whatever you think about Nixon, he was no
Nazi.
...even if we _can_ hypothesize a parallel between recent events and
Watergate...
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmay...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"A good flame is fuel to warm the soul." -- Karl Denninger
Don Wegeng
I would much prefer a moderated newsgroup. Perhaps I'm in the minority,
but in my experience I've found the S/N ratio of moderated groups to be
much higher than unmoderated groups. The RISKS Digest is an excellent
example of a high quality moderated list. I see no reason why this coul
not be the case for many other topics.
Of course, after the c.d.t.t fiasco it's unclear why anyone would
volunteer to moderate this group.
David J. Greenberger
>'comp.dcom.telecom' or 'comp.dcom.telecom.misc ' seem like logical names to
>me.
Except the proposed group has nothing to do with computers (comp) or data
communications (dcom), per se. I will vote against it as long as it is in the
comp.* hierarchy, for the same reason I voted against comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
--
David J. Greenberger (607) 256-2171 d.gree...@cornell.edu
John Higdon
>There's a certain irony here, considering that several months ago Mr.
>Townson was discussing making the Telecom Archives available on CD-ROM, to
>be published and distributed, for a fee, by Patrick A. Townson Associates (I
>believe that's the name of the entity Mr. Townson uses for his business
>ventures; I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong).
A number of people cannot grasp the simple concept that what people
will readily take for free is not something that they will necessarily
pay money for. As someone who's livelihood is directly involved with
the telecommunications industry, I find that the vast majority of
information concerning the business is free for the taking. From
business plans to technical details--periodicals, journals, and trade
publications spell it all out. While it is fun to blabber about telecom
on the net, it hardly qualifies as a primary source of information or
even entertainment.
There are plenty of big companies drueling over the potential killing to
be made merchandising the Internet. It is coming--just around the
corner. But this sort of penny-ante stuff is not where the big bucks
will be made.
>Some would say that this shows a belief on the part of Mr. Townson that the
>work of all the many contributors of the varied items in the Telecom
>Archives belongs to Patrick A. Townson Associates to do as they please with,
>unaccountable to the contributors.
A correspondent described this as "sweat equity". Take the work of
others, push it around, "clean it up" a little, change the column
width, spellcheck it, etc. (stuff that can be done by any computer
running appropriate software), and then because you put "all that work"
into the final product, it has magically become your own. We are not
talking about any creative additions or value added here, just some
cosmetic, "make work" changes. Putting in all this "sweat" gives you
"equity" in the item.
The "value" in any digest comes from the contributors. The moderator is
simply a bureaucrat who performs custodial functions. LISTSERV software
can manage a mailing list. Spell and grammar checkers can "clean up"
the language. And digesting software can generate a finished digest
document. All of this could easily and automatically be performed by
machine.
Moderators perform a necessary function, but let us not lose
perspective. If some dollar and cents value is going to be assigned to
the product, remember where the real product creation occurred. In the
age of computers, about the only real job left for a moderator is to
decide what does NOT go into the publication. All the rest is busy work.
>Further exposition on this theme is left as an exercise to the reader.
So herewith was some help with that exercise, free of charge.
--
John Higdon | P.O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX:
jo...@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407
Bill Watts
>is that the decision would be that PAT does hold a valid compilation
>copyright on the Digest and that incorporating the Digest into a super-
>compilation like the above-mentioned CD-ROM would not be a fair use
>without his permission.
>
The other side of the argument is that when PAT dumped his digest
into Dungheap Net, it became, like every other article posted there,
subject to further distribution by wire, satellite, and yes, CD-ROM.
--
Bill Watts
po...@access.digex.net
Albert Cheng
>Well, that about sums it up. I'd like to open discussion to make c.d.t.
>unmoderated so we have a place for non-technical discussion of telecom
>issues to go hand in hand with the newly created comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
Hm... we just had these long drawn telecom War I and War II. How about
a cease fire for 6 months, please?
Bruce C. Wright
> In article <1993Dec20....@ais.com>,
> Bruce C. Wright <br...@ais.com> wrote:
>>The case of, in effect, making the Telecom Digest part of a super-
>>compilation is another question entirely. Copyright law in digital
>>electronic media is still rather murky - the technology and sociological
>>usage are changing faster than the legislative and judicial bodies can
>>keep up with. You could probably make a case either way, but my guess
>>is that the decision would be that PAT does hold a valid compilation
>>copyright on the Digest and that incorporating the Digest into a super-
>>compilation like the above-mentioned CD-ROM would not be a fair use
>>without his permission.
>
> I think it would be reasonable to say that when one posts to Usenet, one
> is giving license to any and all persons to distribute the post as part
> of that big amorphous blob known as "Usenet". Collecting all of the posts
> which have appeared could probably be considered as an extension of the
> range of Usenet provided that all posts appeared with original headers,
> etc. Note that applying filters other than the "normal" ones [Newsgroups:
> in most cases, and in a few groups, Keywords: or Subject:] could probably
> be considered an improper use.
This, of course, is the argument that the Digest _could_ be incorporated
into a super-compilation like the CD-ROM. As I said before, the issue
is somewhat murky at this point because there is not much legislative
or case law on what constitutes "publishing" or "distributing" in that
`amorphous blob', nor on what implicit rights are granted to the
recipients of articles on the Usenet.
My reasoning, which I admit may be flawed, is that in general the
copyright on a written work is independent of the medium in which it
is written. You can't just type up today's issue of the New York Times
and post it to the Usenet and claim that since the original medium was
the printed page and the new medium is electronic that the copyright
does not apply. In general, the holder of a copyright has the right
to grant various types of use (in addition to `fair use'); it seems
likely that this would include the right to allow a broadcast-like
type of distribution (== Usenet) but disallow an archive-like type
of distribution (== the CD-ROM). I am aware that in practice this
might become a somewhat fine distinction since Usenet itself has aspects
that are both broadcast-like and archive-like in nature. It's certainly
true that the copyright holder's rights would include the right to
prohibit or control distribution for profit, which might also be used
to prohibit the compilation of such a CD-ROM.
Or take the case of songs played on the radio or movies shown on
television: it's unquestionably a violation of copyright to record
those broadcasts and sell them. (Recording for strictly personal use
would of course be permitted as a fair use). The question is whether
the Usenet is sufficiently like this type of medium for the same
considerations to apply. (One complication is that Usenet is not a
simple broadcast medium but a store-and-forward medium that functions
in practice in a manner vaguely similar to a broadcast medium. Another
complication is that the various Usenet sites are not, in general,
part of any kind of any super-organization or association, but are
just a collection of equals who have agreed to exchange data).
As I said, there are some murky areas about exactly what rights are
implicitly granted or waived in a decentralized electronic distribution
medium; I wouldn't care to stake my life on any particular interpretation
of the law being the one that would be accepted by the courts.
Bruce C. Wright
Sameer Manek:SysOp
> jge...@nbi.com (Joe George) writes:
>
> >'comp.dcom.telecom' or 'comp.dcom.telecom.misc ' seem like logical names to
> >me.
>
> Except the proposed group has nothing to do with computers (comp) or data
> communications (dcom), per se. I will vote against it as long as it is in th
> comp.* hierarchy, for the same reason I voted against comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
I don't think that creating a whole new branch for telecom is worth
the effort, who cares if the dcom is there? Why reinvent the wheel?
If the newsgroup already exists then leave it there and build from
there. Moving a whole branch to another location doesn't really follow
the logic thats behind the tree structure, atleast IMHO.
-----
*********************************************************************
Sameer Manek Sea...@yesanext.thetech.com
-=SysOp of the Big Brother BBS=-
********************************************************************
John Marvin
I don't think there is the same controversy here anymore. Pat took his
marbles and went home. I believe almost everyone agrees that there should
be a miscellaneous telecom group to fill the gap. The only decisions to be
made are what to name it, and whether or not it should be moderated. Perhaps
we should see if there are any volunteers to moderate it, if it was to be
moderated. If there are no volunteers, we wouldn't have to decide that issue.
HOPEFULLY we will be able to reach consensus on the name issue.
How about this proposal:
1) We vote as soon as possible to unmoderate comp.dcom.telecom, since
the group already exists, and currently has no moderator.
2) We wait a few months to let people form opinions on whether or
not the group needs moderation. We can then vote on whether or not
to moderate the group and whether the whole comp.dcom.telecom*
heirarchy should change. Hopefully the people who feel the name
of the group should change would be willing to approve #1, conditioned
on the fact that it is a stopgap measure, pending further discussion.
John Marvin
j...@fc.hp.com
John Marvin
: I don't think there is the same controversy here anymore. Pat took his
: marbles and went home. I believe almost everyone agrees that there should
: be a miscellaneous telecom group to fill the gap. The only decisions to be
: made are what to name it, and whether or not it should be moderated. Perhaps
: we should see if there are any volunteers to moderate it, if it was to be
: moderated. If there are no volunteers, we wouldn't have to decide that issue.
: HOPEFULLY we will be able to reach consensus on the name issue.
: How about this proposal:
: 1) We vote as soon as possible to unmoderate comp.dcom.telecom, since
: the group already exists, and currently has no moderator.
: 2) We wait a few months to let people form opinions on whether or
: not the group needs moderation. We can then vote on whether or not
: to moderate the group and whether the whole comp.dcom.telecom*
: heirarchy should change. Hopefully the people who feel the name
: of the group should change would be willing to approve #1, conditioned
: on the fact that it is a stopgap measure, pending further discussion.
NEVER MIND!
Reading further, I have discovered:
1) Pat has restored the feed of the telecom digest to comp.dcom.telecom.
2) Joel Furr volunteered to moderate the group.
This obviously muddies what I thought was a fairly clear situation. I
currently do not have a strong opinion of what the future should be, so I
will sit back and watch for a while.
John Marvin
j...@fc.hp.com
Joe George
>I am in favor of this. As I said under a different thread, I'd like to
>de-datacomm the newsgroup name to "misc.telecom" or "comp.telecom". I
>prefer the "misc" version, since we discuss voice as well as "comp"
>transmissions.
I have given up on changing the 'comp.dcom' hierarchy. This was discussed in
the first RFD for c.d.t.t. and 'The Cabal' (tm) mentioned their disapproval
at moving telecom groups from comp.dcom, and I can see their point. With all
the stress involved in just CREATING a new telecom group, can you imagine
the flamewars if we opened up WHERE the group should go?
IMO, I don't think that re-naming the group is a worthwhile pursuit.
--
Joe George (jge...@crl.com, jge...@nbi.com)
The NBI Press: Typesetting, Graphic Artwork, Fine Italian Cuisine
"Usenet is a cesspool, a dungheap." -Patrick Townson
Andrew B. Sherman
>Regards John Higdon, the last I heard he was having an anxiety attack
>wondering how I would make a living if I did not have the net any
>longer as a place to do my begging. He misses the point.
Perhaps this could be substantiated. I've not seen this in JH's
postings to either c.d.t.t or news.groups.
--
Andy Sherman - Salomon Inc - Unix Systems Support (and Rutgers Univ)
201-896-7018 | an...@sbi.com | an...@andromeda.rutgers.edu
"Salomon Inc and Rutgers U each made a deal with me. I don't
speak for them and they don't speak for me."
Chip Salzenberg
correctly-formatted, spell-checked, grammar-checked digest any more.
I'm not crying on my keyboard. Consider:
According to ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson):
>How many times have you seen articles posted which were copied out of
>the papers and magazines where the 'author' (on Usenet) openly says
>'posted without permission'.
Question without a question mark. Check.
Dangling modifier. Check.
>Most of them couldn't give a shit -- or even an iota of one --
>regards copyright laws, etc.
Use of "regards" where "about" would have been correct. Check.
Gratuitous "etc." Check.
>The catch is though, now they have to rip it off.
Mangled parenthetical clause. (A comma might save it.) Check.
>I'm sure they will; there will always be someone like John DeArmond
>with his little list of 'ten most off-topic threads' and such ... what
>else have they to feed on except controversy in Usenet?
Missing capital letter on new sentence; or, perhaps, a simple run-on
sentence. Check.
>Sadly, people like him offset a couple dozen good participants.
Mismatch of number. Taken literally, the quoted sentence means that
all "people like him" offset a couple dozen good participants, whereas
PAT likely meant that _each_ "person like him" does so. Check.
>So when they get it now, it will be a pirated copy.
Mixed tenses. Check.
>I'm not going to let it worry me too much.
Nor does grammar worry you, apparently.
--
Chip Salzenberg <chip%fin....@dg-rtp.dg.com> or <dg-rtp!fin!chip>
Robb Topolski KJ6YT
enjoy the digest in usenet form, and did not like it in its compilation
newsletter form.
Look, as far as I know, it's been at comp.dcom.telecom for a long time.
And it is back now. And I am satisfied with that.
As for this big talk about unmoderating the group, changing its name, or
replacing the moderator -- my vote will be no. It's fixed, and messing
with it is no promise of anything better and will only cause hard
feelings. And I'd like to remind others to try and think -- when you get
up from your keyboard in a few minutes, are you going to feel as strongly
about this issue as you do right now? Naawww.
--
Robert M. Topolski <topo...@kaiwan.com>
Robert M. Hamer
>According to ptow...@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson):
>>How many times have you seen articles posted which were copied out of
>>the papers and magazines where the 'author' (on Usenet) openly says
>>'posted without permission'.
>Question without a question mark. Check.
>Dangling modifier. Check.
Period following quoted material rather than inside quoted material.
Bill Pfeiffer
>I don't think there is the same controversy here anymore. Pat took his
>marbles and went home.
Well he has brought his marbles back, folks.
CDT is open again and full of articles.
Like it or hate it, the Dungheap feed has been reinstated. :-).
Merry Christmas
Charles Reichley
technical telecom information can actually get on with its existance.
Lots of good stuff in here, if you can just wade through the "Pat's a
Weanie" posts.
>
> Merry Christmas
>
Charles W. Reichley, Loral/FSC???, Manassas, Va.
Reminder : This post has nothing to do with IBM or its subsidiaries
David DeLaney
bzzzzzt. Period only goes inside quoted material if it is part of
said quoted material. In the above case, it is instead part of the
framing sentence. Pat (gasp) used it correctly. Followup set.
Dave "we now return you to news.groups" DeLaney
--
David DeLaney: dbd@(utkux.utcc | panacea.phys | enigma.phys).utk.edu - collect
them all! Disclaimer: AFAIK, *nobody* speaks for U.T.Knoxville (consistently);
Thinking about this disclaimer (or about high energy theoretical particle __
physics) may cause headaches. .sig virus: Vicki Robinson v2.24; Kibo #: -0 \/
Roger Theriault
>How about this proposal:
> 1) We vote as soon as possible to unmoderate comp.dcom.telecom, since
> the group already exists, and currently has no moderator.
I support this as the best option for RIGHT NOW, since the fact that there
is no way of contributing to c.d.t (thanks to the Moderator`s abdication)
or reading it (except via e-mail), and nobody willing to step in seriously,
makes this the only choice for keeping the non-technical group alive.
After a few months, perhaps we can consider moving the group or creating
a batch of groups...
(BTW, it seems PAT has brought his digest back. Let's ignore this for now...
who knows, he might stomp off again soon, and who wants to give PAT their
"Copyright" exclusively?)
Roger
--
Roger Theriault Internet: ther...@mdd.comm.mot.com
/\/\otorola -=--==-==--=- UUCP: {uw-beaver,uunet}!van-bc!mdivax1!theriaul
/ \ Wireless Data Group CompuServe: 71332,730 (not too often)
"I believe we could do better if we talked to one another more
and shouted at one another less." -- Bill Clinton
I am not a spokesman for Motorola or anyone else besides myself.
Robert Bonomi
Roger Theriault <ther...@yendi.mdd.comm.mot.com> wrote:
>John Marvin (j...@fc.hp.com) wrote:
>
>>How about this proposal:
>
>> 1) We vote as soon as possible to unmoderate comp.dcom.telecom, since
>> the group already exists, and currently has no moderator.
>
>I support this as the best option for RIGHT NOW, since the fact that there
>is no way of contributing to c.d.t (thanks to the Moderator`s abdication)
>or reading it (except via e-mail), and nobody willing to step in seriously,
>makes this the only choice for keeping the non-technical group alive.
>
>After a few months, perhaps we can consider moving the group or creating
>a batch of groups...
>
>(BTW, it seems PAT has brought his digest back. Let's ignore this for now...
>who knows, he might stomp off again soon, and who wants to give PAT their
>"Copyright" exclusively?)
>
Interestingly, it is -not- back at this site -- which happens to be where PAT
originates the service from!
Gregory M. Paris
>Nor does grammar worry you, apparently.
I thought this discussion was supposed to end with the first
mention of Hitler. It didn't, but surely now that it has sunk
to grammar critiques the discussion must be finished.
--
Greg Paris <pa...@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com>
Motorola Codex, 20 Cabot Blvd C1-30, Mansfield, MA 02048-1193
"Your Plastic Pal who's fun to be with." TM Sirius Cybernetics
These posts are self-disclamatory.
Dave Ratcliffe
- d.gree...@cornell.edu (David J. Greenberger) writes:
-
- > jge...@nbi.com (Joe George) writes:
- >
- > >'comp.dcom.telecom' or 'comp.dcom.telecom.misc ' seem like logical names to
- > >me.
- >
- > Except the proposed group has nothing to do with computers (comp) or data
- > communications (dcom), per se. I will vote against it as long as it is in th
- > comp.* hierarchy, for the same reason I voted against comp.dcom.telecom.tech.
-
- I don't think that creating a whole new branch for telecom is worth
- the effort, who cares if the dcom is there?
To maintain the integrity of the namespace, YOU should care. The dcom
means data communications. The majority of the traffic in
comp.dcom.telecom had little to do with data communications and
everything to do with voice telephone operations, switches, LD service
operators and similar topics.
- Why reinvent the wheel?
Because it was improperly invented the first time?
- If the newsgroup already exists then leave it there and build from
- there.
Maintaining an improperly named group when there is an opportunity to
fix a long standing problem is silly.
- Moving a whole branch to another location doesn't really follow
- the logic thats behind the tree structure, atleast IMHO.
But moving it to it's PROPER location in that tree structure makes more
sense than leaving it in the wrong place. The logic in the structure
makes sense. The problem is that there are a few groups improperly
placed according to the accepted naming conventions.
THIS one can now be repaired.
--
vogon1!frackit!da...@psuvax1.psu.edu | "Why would I want to be taken
- Dave Ratcliffe - Data Factory Svcs. | seriously? "
- Harrisburg, Pa - | Dave Hayes
Chip Salzenberg
>ch...@fin.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>Nor does grammar worry you, apparently.
>
>I thought this discussion was supposed to end with the first
>mention of Hitler. It didn't, but surely now that it has sunk
>to grammar critiques the discussion must be finished.
I usually don't criticize grammar. But PAT made such a point of his
spell- and grammar-checking his digest that his lack of skill with
English became relevant to the discussion.
Matthias Neeracher
Or until the recount of the soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya is done. Whatever
is later.
Matthias
-----
Matthias Neeracher ne...@iis.ethz.ch
"I'm set free to find a new illusion" -- Velvet Underground
Dave Hayes
>Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>>ben...@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson) writes:
>>>The removal of rec.music.synth and substituting it with another group
>>>of a similar name seems to have threated some other people's survival.
>>>Now who could that be?
>>It's true, there were people who were threatened on both sides. As you
>>are trying to imply, it wasn't merely one person...or there wouldn't
>>have been such a flamewar.
>There _was_ such a flamewar because you were the only one
>(well, nearly) with that stated opinion. You proceeded to post
>massively.
Now, if the respondants were so "sane" (an implication I think you've
implied on many occations), why'd they _respond_ to me in the first
place?
>>Those who were threatened on my side of the issue chose not to speak
>>here in news.* (and that was probably wise in hindsight, since people
>>here seem unreasonable for the most part).
>Unreasonable, _you_ say?
Yep.
>>>>This is the root cause of why we have wars and crime and lawsuits.
>>>Try conflict of interest.
>>Try "inability to understand another's viewpoint".
>Try land, money, bodily injury and miscommunications as in "inability
>to express ones viewpoint". The whole onus shouldn't lie on the
>receiver.
And nor the sender.
--
Dave Hayes - Institutional Network & Communications - JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating
people to approach printed matter with distrust.