usefor-article-04 April 2001

8.1.  General principles to be followed

   There are two important principles that news implementors (and
   administrators) need to keep in mind. The first is the well-known
   Internet Robustness Principle:

        Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you
        send.

   However, in the case of news there is an even more important
   principle, derived from a much older code of practice, the
   Hippocratic Oath (we will thus call this the Hippocratic Principle):

        First, do no harm.

   It is VITAL to realize that decisions which might be merely
   suboptimal in a smaller context can become devastating mistakes when
   amplified by the actions of thousands of hosts within a few minutes.

   In the case of gateways, the primary corollary to this is:

        Cause no loops.

--- ../usefor-article-03/General_principles_to_be_followed.out          February 2000
+++ ../usefor-article-04/General_principles_to_be_followed.out          April 2001
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
    However, in the case of news there is an even more important
    principle, derived from a much older code of practice, the
    Hippocratic Oath (we will thus call this the Hippocratic Principle):
+
         First, do no harm.
 
    It is VITAL to realize that decisions which might be merely