A New Usenet...

Clark Reynard clark at metal.psu.edu
Thu Mar 25 23:22:36 PST 1993


a possible idea is simply a modification of what ringuette suggested;
while i am all for anonymous posting, i believe that they should be
marked as such (or at least marked with some sort of alias so that
one knows which anonymous poster is which--for example, my actual name
is Robert Clark, but my user name on this system is Clark Reynard--
not because I am here illegally, but because the sysadmin of this
site (a personal friend) is unable to give me an account here for
political reasons).

irt the idea of a new usenet, i doubt that a 'new' USEnet is possible;
it is so firmly entrenched, by 'tradition' et cetera, that it is very
likely that what will exist is merely an improvement and expansion of
the existing usenet; however, i believe that alternative means of reading
usenet should exist; i have found, since rejoining usenet after
a three-year absence, that the signal-to-noise ratio has increased
greatly (and who hasn't noticed that?).  what is necessary, given the
constant increase in broadcast, is a correspondingly great increase
in 'broadcatch,' that is, the ability to find the information that you
actually wish to have (one man's signal is another man's--or person's--
noise).  thus, rather than have kill files, having scanning programs
capable of filtering out particular TYPES of data, rather than the poster
him- or her-self, will be of far more use than excluding a usenet poster
who may very well post a greatly useful file amidst a welter of
useless files.  thus, some sort of syntax/subject/type of data file
scanner (which requires asi--my acronym for artificial semi-intelligence)
is necessary to make the usenet actually new, and not merely IMPROVED--
usenet improves constantly.  if anyone wishes to comment regarding this,
rather than clutter the list with more articles like this, send them
to me, either here, or to rclark at nyx.cs.du.edu, and i will summarize
and post.

fc






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