[Air-l] re:Response to Thomas Koenig - Part I

[ET]

Charles, you wrote...
"2. The central question then becomes - what counts as a recording or
registration of publicly observable behavior?
Part of the difficulty here is making an analogy between offline recordings
(via cameras, video and audio tape recorders, etc.) and what is now a
publicly available archive of USENET postings.
It seems to me that there is a strong analogy. Recordings/registrations give
us an enduring and publicly accessible source of information for subsequent
analysis - and certainly the publicly accessible archive of USENET postings
does the same thing."

Now I am confused.

I see the publicly available archive of USENET and the information available on websites
as a library.
One doesnt ask permission from every source of information used in a library when conducting 
a study, does one?


just a few snippets...

Gregory Woodward, early USENET pioneer quoted in 
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=research+usenet&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=telecom17.91.3%40telecom-digest.org&rnum=1
"For other reasons, the use of the term "operational anarchy"
in relation to netnews serves to remind those involved that
we are involved in a co-operative situation, where the 
ultimate responsibility for the contents rests squarely on
the poster of an article. Much of the arguments about 
netnews goverance are attempts to avoid this basic fact. :-)"

Also , from USENET RULES OF CONDUCT
http://www.uea.ac.uk/menu/acad_depts/cpc/services/comms/newsrule.shtml

" Posting of information on Usenet is to be viewed as similar to
to publication."

The responses to this post by Alex Black in news.admin.policy were interesting as again it supports
the view that usenet postings are researchable by the academic

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1993Dec7.202319.16208%40dgbt.doc.ca&rnum=2&prev=
/groups%3Fq%3Dresearch%2Busenet%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D1993Dec7.202319.16208%2540dgbt.doc.ca%26rnum%3D2

and finally, this newsgroup item is most interesting because it takes the problem into another area.
Its ok for academics to sit around and decide what is ethical or not, yet the participants in the 
actual newsgroup may see an off topic post in their group as spam - and they have a point.

http://groups.google.com.au/groups?q=research+usenet&start=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=krEz9.9210%24IE2.4667%40
news.bellsouth.net&rnum=25

and if these people have a perception that an off topic post is spam, should academics be engaging in this
intrusive practice that some might construe as being against USENET rules?


regards,

Eero Tarik
Adelaide