ml> in the case of the MYSTIC echo it was because someone saw a few of those
 ml> gated spams from the newsgroup side...

There are ~200 messages posted in the past 4 months in Mystic (which is almost
zero traffic compared to when development cycles are going), and not a single
one of them is usenet spam.

There are no occurances of this and no history of newsgroup spam being a
problem in MYSTIC to justify this move.  Especially not only 2 months ago.  It
was a malicious act backed by insane reasoning, and nothing else IMO. :(

 ml> it isn't "the network"... it is a few individuals with
their heads in
 ml> their nether regions...

You're right and I should have worded it differently.  As providers they
represent the backbone, and in doing so they are accepting obligations.  If
they are preventing flow of data without real justification, and nothing is
done to prevent them from having that ability to do it, then its a problem with
the integrity of the network.

MYSTIC is actively moderated, active with traffic, and it supports one of the
few softwares that facilitates FidoNet itself.  Anyone pushing to prevent that
from growing, especially when FidoNet is fluttering, is just flat out being
idiotic.

Anyway I've said my rant if anyone wants to continue this discussion please
move it over to MYSTIC echo so its more on topic. :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.11 A3 (Windows)