I was glad to see the following posting from Peter Weiss:
 
>Is your problem-poster following the guidelines set forth in
>your welcome file?  Is (s)he following the rules of your
>list host's institution and network i.e., AUPs?
>
>If not, then FILTER= is appropriate.
 
The other posters spoke in broad terms about list ownership as an
absolute right, but different lists serve different purposes and have
different guidelines.  Most use facilities belonging to institutions
that are not private property of the list owners and which may have
applicable guidelines.
 
>It is not clear to me that your computer and networking facilities MUST
>be allowed to be used by others (who have no legal right to your
>resources).  You are under no contractual agreement (?) and I presume
>that the user has no affiliation with the hosting institution.
 
These are relevant points.  Even in the absence of contractual
agreements there may be implicit obligations not to exclude subscribers
without clear justification.  For example, if you run a public service
list you may run into legal problems if you exclude people on the basis
of race, creed, colour, age, sex, etc.  There are a number of such cases
that have actually come before the courts.
 
By contrast, I feel that Anita Cohen-Williams goes overboard in writing:
 
>Go ahead and filter him! The use of Internet is a privilege, not a right.
>If he is offending some of your subscribers, then it is time to turn him
>channel off. Also, I would not notify him of the filter. As someone who was
>forced to serve a node off as a flamer would not cease and desist, I have been
>through this once.
 
She seems to feel that she has rights and her subscribers don't.  And
the idea of filtering someone without notification really clashes with
the concept of due process.  If we kick people off lists we should then
look at whether there is ever any right of appeal, and I think that many
publicly supported institutions would be in an awkward position if lists
that used their facilities did not offer any appeal mechanism.
 
--
Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2
Personal InterNet Address: [log in to unmask]
HED runs a WWW server at URL=http://biome.bio.dfo.ca