Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 10:59:21 -0500 (CDT)
From: tpg
To: AMS Demo Part 18
Content-Type: X-BE2; 12
If-Type-Unsupported: send
Subject: Social Experiments in the AMS

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The Andrew Message System is, above all else, an attempt to improve the 
quality of electronic communication.  Although there has been a large 
emphasis, in the project's development, on technical enhancements to 
electronic communication, there has also been some attention paid to policy 
decisions that may affect the quality of discourse on public bulletin boards 
and in electronic mail.  As a result, in the AMS as it is deployed at CMU, 
there are several policies in place that, we believe, have helped to improve 
the general quality of communication within our community.


\description{\bold{No pseudonyms}:  When a user sends a mail or bboard 
message, his real name is always associated with it as clearly as possible. 
 We believe that his has helped to decrease the amount of abusive or "flaming" 
posts on our system.


\bold{No Blind Copies}:  It is not possible to "invisibly" send a copy of a 
message to anyone but yourself.  This helps to allay concerns about privacy 
and "backstabbing".


\bold{No General Bboards}:  It is our observation that general bboards, in a 
large community, become overrun with random assortments of messages.  By 
eliminating a general bboard, we force our users to think more carefully about 
where they post messages, with the result that it is easier to selectively 
subscribe to only those messages that are of genuine interest.


\bold{Required policy statements}:  By keeping external systems such as 
netnews under a designated "external" tree, we can tell the difference between 
local and external bboard postings.  By default, new users are forbidden to 
post on the external systems, but are referred instead to a specified help 
file.  That help file contains a clear explanation of proper "etiquette" for 
postings that may go worldwide, and help our novice users to learn the 
established conventions of such external distributions without offending 
anyone.  At the end of the help file, the users find a simple command which, 
if typed by the user, will give himself permission to post on the external 
bboards.  Thus, the access restriction is simply a mechanism for forcing users 
to read the policy statement.


\bold{Designated useless bboards}:  We have structured our bboards to 
encourage people to post "garbage" in desginated locations.  For example, we 
have trees of bboards entitled "opinion" for those who wish to argue, and 
"graffiti" for those who want to post frivolous nonsense.  By creating an 
approved location for such messages, instead of attempting to ban them 
altogether, we have drastically reduced the incidence of such messages on the 
more "important" bboards on the system, to the delight of our more 
serious-minded and busy users.


}Although we have done no controlled studies, we believe that these policies 
have done a great deal to improve the general quality of the bulletin board 
system at CMU.


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