response 1 of 92:

Feb 18 21:00 UTC 1995

   The first thing we get to decide is what toplevel heirarchies we
want.  There has been an incredible explosion of groups since we
last had news running here.  With certain exceptions, I'd think we
want: alt, news, comp, sci, soc, talk, mi, rec since they are the
'traditional' toplevel dirs for us.  What other things we want to
carry is a function of a) what our feeding site has, b) what we think
would benefit the most people here.
   As far as the individual groups go, things that carry large amounts
of copyright violations are things that we shouldn't carry, as far as
I'm concerned.  If the scientology group is serious about this, then
we should give that group a close look and decide on a case by case
basis.
   As far as the other groups go, if they don't carry things that
are obviously illegal, I'd want to be able to carry them provided
we have the technical capacity to handle them.  This means do we
have the bandwidth to carry them.  We'll be stuck with a 28.8Kbos
link for this, so that will turn out to be a problem.
  For things like alt.sex.story, I'd say carry them, unless/until
it becomes obvious that the legal system starts going after them.
This is something like a cat-and-mouse game, and we'll have to watch
it.
   As far as minors go reading news, we can't stop it without making
draconian systems to stop it, which still won't work.  I favor the
public-library style approach to it, which basically says that the
library is open to all.  If parents don't want their children reading
something, it is up to them to stop that.  We aren't parents (I say
that as a parent of two kids myself, both of who have ids on Grex).

   Lastly, if the legal system does something with regard to usenet
on systems like ours, we need to be able to react to it.  It might
come to pass that we'll have to shut things down and come up with
some disgusting system of verification for usenet.  If that happens,
we'll have to deal with it then.  But I'd like to see us be as open
as we can be, until we're forced to shut things down.

response 3 of 92:

Feb 19 20:01 UTC 1995

I would first want to hear a real legal opinion that screening out
those groups that we believe are legally questionable actually decreases
potential liability rather than increasing it.

response 5 of 92:

Feb 20 06:49 UTC 1995

I believe the decision to ban the sex pictures was based on our bylaws
which state that we cannot permit or support illegal activities on Grex.
That newsgroup was selected because it claimed to be made up
primarily of copyright violations. While it is true that other
newsgroups occasionally have copyright violations or other illegal
postings in them, this is not their primary purpose. The decision to
carry must be made on a group basis, not an individual item basis.

response 7 of 92:

Feb 20 17:41 UTC 1995

   Aaron, if you were to advise the Grex (or M-Net, or ?) board on the
legal fitfalls of having usenet open, at this time what would you
recomend?  It isn't time to shut things down yet, just because someone
can stumble across a certain newgroups that the stumblers parents find
objectionable?

response 9 of 92:

Feb 20 19:45 UTC 1995

Libraries typically do not carry much "hard-core porn" because of their
stated purposes, not because they have some fundamental objection to it.
Here at Indiana University, where the Kinsey Institute has one of the
largest collections of porn in the world in its library, I see things a
little differently.

My knowledge of this is mostly limited to University libraries, which have
some advantages such as usually being exempted from obscinity laws and
often from harm to minors laws.

It still is not clear to me on what basis groups are being suggested as
candidates for exclusion.  Copyright violations?  Obscenity?  Sexual
content?  Large volume?  Lack of interested readers?  There needs to be
a clear notion of which of these are valid reasons for exclusion, how
the decision is made, whether the same criteria would apply to other
aspects of Grex like conferences, etc.

response 11 of 92:

Feb 21 06:03 UTC 1995

        I'm all for not having USENet here at all. Why go through this
headache, when we do just fine without it? You've never had it running,
since I joined, and now that I've seen what it is on nether.net, I'm
totally uninterested, and think it's a huge waste of time, resources,
and policy-making.

response 13 of 92:

Feb 21 10:40 UTC 1995

And I think IRC is a waste of time.  Doesn't mean I don't
think it should be available.  I don't make judgments for
what other people should be doing on line, sidhe, and I'm
annoyed that you are.

response 15 of 92:

Feb 21 15:40 UTC 1995

        Well, I'm frankly annoyed at your being annoyed with me! How do you
like them apples?
        Listen, if when I propose to make an experimental cf, and I get much
nastier reviews than what I gave USENet, I think that I am entitled to
voicing my opinion about other features that perhaps *I* don't like.
        If you don't like people telling others what they can't have here,
where the hell were you when we were talking Sympathy over?
        I don't mind the occasional dissagreement, but let's remember that
as open an environment as grex cuts BOTH ways, like it or not.

response 17 of 92:

Feb 21 17:42 UTC 1995

(sidhe, robh tends to get annoyed at many things, just like you or I.
It doesn't mean that it's personal...)

response 19 of 92:

Feb 22 06:56 UTC 1995

Usenet will come, robh vs. sidhe notwithstanding.  I think it is wise, 
reasonable, and necessary to come up with standards for includding or
NOT including any given group or hierarchy.

response 21 of 92:

Feb 22 17:19 UTC 1995

  Well then, back to another question in #0 - any ideas on how we should
decide what to ban?  Here's one suggestion: aside from the alt.sex groups
already banned, allow any newsgroup until a user complains about it.  Then
have a board-appointed usenet admin make a temporary decision to ban/not
ban (hopefully based on general guidelines we could define).  At the next
board meeting, take a vote on the newsgroup, majority rules.  Of course,
that would be addition to the inevitable discussion in co-op!
 
  I think a single appointee is a good idea so that at least something is
decided quickly, while discussion ensues.  It would avoid the problem of
different people giving different opinions being mistaken as policy
flip-flops; only one person's opinion would matter during the discussion.

response 23 of 92:

Feb 23 02:11 UTC 1995

I would suggest in the strongest possible terms that those criteria be
quite explicitly and permanently limited to "will carrying this material
pose a credible resource threat" (i.e. it's too big relative to how many
people might want it) and "will carrying this material pose a credible
legal threat."