Re: NATHAN and the FAQ Dilemna

[pfg@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Paul Francis Gilbert)]

At last Nathan posts a reasonably good informative article. If we can keep 
to a good factual base like this, then it should hopefully cut down some of
the extraneous 'me too' / 'you bad turlette' / 'damn you all' type posts,
which don't really contribute much.


nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates) writes:

>In article <61h2ui$5jt$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
>Paul Francis Gilbert <pfg@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> wrote:
>>Are you seriously saying that you obtained FAQ maintainership without
>>the CSA2 community's knowledge? Did God come to you in a vision and say
>>"Nathan Mates, thou shall maintaineth the CSA2 FAQ."? Did you do a secret
>>deal with the previous maintainer to take over without the knowledge of
>>the CSA2 community? 

>   Cut this "community" garbage. FAQs never were community property;
>they were started by individual folks who were collecting answers to
>Frequently Asked Questions. Then they decided to share that with
>others. There are no votes on FAQ maintainers, no obligations to any
>mythical "community" (which only seems to be dragged up as some excuse
>to take away from the works of the one), no nothing. As the previous
>FAQ maintainer had not updated or posted the csa2 FAQ in 2+ years,
>I requested permission to take over it from him and him alone, as he
>was in control. He agreed, and cthe copyright was transferred to me.

This is an interesting statement. It's obvious we have differing views of
the nature of a FAQ and it's role in a newsgroup. Nathan is obviously taking
the line that a FAQ is a service to a newsgroup, not a right, and that as
such, he has every right to copyright it and without access it.

I, with some regret, will have to agree with him. Technically, this is so.
And if he got permission from the previous maintainer of the FAQ, then he
indeed has the right to do what he wishes with it.

The only minor point in which I feel Nathan is missing the point: Whilst he
has the right to copyright his FAQ, what he does not have the right to do
is call it THE comp.sys.apple2 FAQ without a majority agreement of the
newsgroup. I expect that with the renewed interest in FAQs/documents, a
great many readers will be contributing to a new FAQ. When it's done, we
the group can name it THE comp.sys.apple2 FAQ, which will be posted to the
newsgroup and news.answers. Nathan can continue maintaining his FAQ if he
so wishes, but he will not be able to claim that it is THE comp.sys.apple2
FAQ [not the official one at least].

That's the major difference. We the group have the right to the name, since
it is [after all] the name of the group. Nathan has the right to his FAQ.
 


>>And as I said: you should post some examples to support your claim. Don't
>>expect everyone to go searching through his site for dirt. If you claim
>>there's dirt on certain pages, then quote examples, or specific page and/or
>>locations. And also show that this dirt (if it in any way relates to you)
>>was present before you started slinging him.

This is also interesting. Unfortunately, as Nathan says, not much bad stuff
can be found on Tom's site. The 

>   Well, since Turkey deleted a lot of previous gunk trashing me when
>I last reminded him he was no saint on his web site, no guarantees how
>long this'll remain up, but take a look at this web page dump from 
>http://www.grin.net/cturley/A2.2000/OCT.PREVIEW/COMIC.STRIPS/

That should be http://www.grin.net/~cturley/A2.2000/OCT.PREVIEW/COMIC.STRIPS/
[you forgot the '~']


>---snip
>              Index of /~cturley/A2.2000/OCT.PREVIEW/COMIC.STRIPS
>                                       
>        Name                   Last modified     Size  Description
>  __________________________________________________________________________

> [DIR]  Parent Directory       03-Oct-97 21:42     0k
> [DIR]  FARLEY/                23-Sep-97 15:49     0k
> [DIR]  SM.vs.HIS.BAD.SELF/    23-Sep-97 23:55     0k
> [DIR]  ZIPPY/                 23-Sep-97 15:25     0k
>---- snip

>   Follow the link to the 'SM.vs.HIS.BAD.SELF' page. Quite slanderous
>(and wrong in a whole bunch of places), and clearly dated, as you see
>above, before Turley was banned from my web pages. Other comments of
>his posted to public archive sites have also been censored for being
>inflamatory and before this;

I don't really see anything all that bad about it. It's a Comic after all
[well, sort of a comic, since it has a lot of text], but it's meant to be
amusing, not factual. If we wanted to know true facts, we could all be
reading the encyclopedia... but it doesn't mean we'll enjoy it.

I agree that it's somewhat unflattering on you, but it's a send-off of what's
happening in the newsgroup... you and Tom fighting, from Tom's perspective.
If you wanted to start an A2 comic strip about the viscious pirate TomBeard,
scourge of the seven seas, being caught by the dashing Captain Nathan, and
hung from the mainmast, as long as it was funny, I wouldn't see any harm
in it. And I don't think Tom would either, as long as it was funny enough to
be worth reading.


>http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/apple2/upload/SEP.97 had one such file.
>[Date on file is when the archive admin edited it]

>--- snip
>                        Index of /apple2/upload/Sep97/
>                                       
>        Name                   Last modified     Size  Description
>  __________________________________________________________________________

> [DIR]  Parent Directory       09-Oct-97 10:10      -
><snip>
> [TXT]  A2.HAC1.SHK.txt        01-Oct-97 16:50     1K
><snip>
>--- End cut & paste

Not quite sure what that file is. Is it about hacking around with SHK files?

>>PS: You mentioned a while ago about blocking a site which had put up some
>>pirate programs. How about some details? Was it Apple software? And who
>>was responsible for doing it?

>   Bill Misek put up a pirate site with emulators, pirated software,
>etc on montipora.athenet.net. It was quickly removed when the site
>admins were notified of it, but there has been no public apology for
>hurting developers, etc. 

Ah. I was wondering about it. Although, emulators aren't actually pirate 
software, unless perhaps they include the ROMs with them. But I'm not sure
about that... ROMs can be an iffy issue, although most emulator writers
tend to not include them just to make sure they're not violating any
copyrights.

>Nathan Mates
>--
><*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
># This posting is copyright Nathan Mates, and may not be reprinted
># in full, partial, or quoted form on any archive site associated with
># Charles Turley. 

In conclusion, I applaud Nathan for this informative article. If Nathan
can stick to the facts for once without adding adding any snippetes about
'Turlettes' or insults on Dr. Tom [although he did insert one 'Turkey',
which I presume to a feeble insult attempt, than than a consistant honest
misspelling], then surely the rest of us can stick to rational thoughts and
ideas without degrading into 'Nathan is scum' or 'You Turlette!' type
flamewars.

--
Paul Gilbert           | pfg@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au
Bach App Sci, Bach Eng | The opinions expressed are my own, all my own, and
Year 4, RMIT Melbourne | as such will contain no references to small furry
Australia	       | creatures from Alpha Centauri.