Word: usenet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This question recently arose on the world's newest intellectual battleground, the Internet. Many who are familiar with the Internet use a service known as Usenet news. Usenet is a collection of "newsgroups", which are essentially inaccurately-named on-line discussion groups. Like most aspects of the Internet, Usenet has no central administration. Every institution that maintains a site on the 'Net (colleges, businesses, etc.) decides for itself which, if any, newsgroups it will carry...
Several months ago, a man named Milton Kleim posted a Call For Votes (CFV) to several newsgroups in the Usenet hierarchy. An individual wishing to start a new newsgroup writes a CFV describing the proposed group and the rationale for its creation and then sends it to existing newsgroups whose readers might be interested in discussing the proposed topic. Individuals read the proposal and then send votes to a volunteer vote-collector who tallies them. The vote results are completely non-binding; as mentioned, every institution can decide for itself which newsgroups it wishes to maintain. This voting process...
...nature, and he also failed to provide any evidence that there was enough interest in whitepower music to justify the creation of the group. Thus, the CFV became seen as a political attempt to railroad whitepower sentiment into the mainstream and was rightfully dismissed by many in the Usenet community as lacking the relevance which is necessary to garner a "yes" vote...
...white-power music hadbeen the hot topic of the moment? Would individuals who believe in the marketplace of ideas and freedom of speech have had the responsibility to vote for the creation of the group, despite the repugnance of its topic? The majority opinion seemed to be that Usenet was a public forum and therefore it would be censorship to vote against the white power group if it could prove sufficient relevance...
Suponcic, being a public official, knew his way around the local police department, and soon a detective started pounding the Net. By tracing the header information on the Usenet postings, the detective determined--O.K., this part is murky, we admit--that the messages had originated in Ohio, passed through Florida Online, an Internet provider in the Sunshine State, and then through anon.penet.fi a free E-mail remailer service based in Finland that allows Internet users to post messages anonymously...