David Gerard said:
slimvirgin(a)gmail.com (slimvirgin(a)gmail.com) [050507
09:33]:
The anonymous posters on Usenet are not published
authors just because
they post to Usenet. So yes, any editor who wanted to delete material
sourced to Usenet would be well within their rights - except where
it's being used as a primary source about itself.
Although in practice, this would be disruption to make a point. Why are
you hardly being agreed with?
I happen to find slimvirgin's argument impossible to answer. As a
secondary source, Usenet will never, ever be even remotely citable on the
subject of the world outside Usenet. I would not regard deletion of
Usenet-sourced material as disruption to make a point. Where we can trust
what Usenet says, it is because, like Wikipedia, its information about the
universe outside Usenet is independently verifiable. I would probably
oppose any suggestion that Usenet posts were intrinsically interesting,
and certainly oppose any suggestion that individual Usenet posts can be
authoritative about anything outside themselves.