[9496] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Advisory Committee E-mail Addresses
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The future Ross Stapleton-Gray)
Thu Jan 6 23:21:41 1994
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 21:21:11 -0700 (MST)
From: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Harry Saal <harrys@smtplink.NGC.COM> asks:
> I don't get it. These hypothetical students and teachers surely can all sit
> down and compose a letter or postcard and mail it if they wish. Why would
> the advisory committee (of ***all*** people) wish to expect a higher level
> of inaccessibility for email addresses?
Your answer's in your reply, so to speak. Here we two are, never having
met or for that matter known of each other's existence, and yet my inbox
just got stuffed with yet another note to read...
E-mail is not paper mail, clearly. The "barrier to entry" for those
who've got access to the Internet is far lower than for the laborious
process of crafting an actual letter and waiting the several days for it to
arrive at its destination. That said, there's no reason why the Advisory
Committee members ought not to solicit myriad views electronically. I
don't see any reason, however, why participation in this advisory committee
(despite its very special nature with regard to networking and E-mail)
should require that they surrender their electronic foyer to the mob
attempting to camp on their virtual doorstep... :-)
What the Advisory Committee might consider asking as a terms of their
participation that the IITF fund the necessary equipment to set up the
means to collect citizen views and to disseminate opinions and
issues under debate, e.g., a gopher at site "niiac.org" plus a couple of
listservs or newsgroups on topics as required.
Ross
