If you post something on a physical bulletin board, you expect people will come by and read it
If a bunch of "scrapers" come by and form a massive mob so that nobody else can read it, and then cover the board with slightly different copies attributed to themselves, that isn't exactly the "public square" you imagined
> If you post something on a physical bulletin board, you expect people will come by and read it
Or birds, or public cameras, or people who take photos next to it, or people archiving bulletin boards, or...
If I put stuff in public spaces, I expect anyone and anything to be able to read, access and store it. Basically how I treat this very comment, and everything else I put on the public internet.
Eh, the internet is a weirdly semi-public space. Think of it more like a mall parking lot than a public common. If you put something up for notice there it will probably be fine. For example a number of grocery stores around me have boards for things just like that. But the moment it becomes a public nuisance for them they will trespass your ass outta there faster than a starved dog would eat a dropped hotdog.
As you say, it's not public as in public road (and even that has police to enforce proper behavior), but more like publicly accessible but on private properties.
When it's my server and I'm paying for it, then banning resources wasters is the right move.
If you post something on a physical bulletin board, you expect people will come by and read it
If a bunch of "scrapers" come by and form a massive mob so that nobody else can read it, and then cover the board with slightly different copies attributed to themselves, that isn't exactly the "public square" you imagined