elb@hou5e.UUCP (05/07/84)
If I had been thinking at all clearly last week I would have realized that this was the only possible outcome of my recent posting... I would like to publicly apologize to Mr. Martillo and ask his forgiveness. As Andy T. pointed out in a letter to me, I was in effect denying Mr. Martillos right to his own opinion. That is not a position that I condone -- nor do I condone personal attacks via the net which I was also guilty of. If I disagree with an article on the net, that is not the way to deal with it. I hope Mr. Martillo will forgive me, and if I ever feel the inclination toward a vitupretive attack, I will try to remember the Unix "mail" command. Ellen Bart p.s. additional flames will not be welcome but will be accepted in silence.
trb@masscomp.UUCP (05/08/84)
I hereby apologize to Ellen Bart and the rest of you for lashing out at her in this space. I (still) don't like to see people zeroing in on others, but there had to be a more graceful and painless way to publicly express my opinion about what Ellen posted than the way I did it. Netnews is a special medium in that we are really dealing with ideas rather than people. If an idea irritates me, I sometimes stomp on it, without really stopping to consider that there's a person associated with the idea. That's a sensitive area, since ideally we would like to be able to respect a person and stomp on her ideas, but usually, until we meet face to face, this doesn't happen, and we are shocked when someone attacks our ideas from a distance and in public. I know that I get pretty defensive when someone posts netnews attacks my ideas, even when I know damn well that my ideas are ill conceived. (I don't want the world to know how wrong I am.) I've been very pleased at the high quality of the messages in net.religion.jewish, and I don't want to be thought of as a boor, and I don't want to chase anyone away, and I don't want this group to degenerate into a shouting match about who's wrong and who's an idiot. I certainly don't want Martillo to go away. Face it, we don't have anyone else around here who's holding up his end of the discussion. Your fellow net.religion.jew, Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Westford MA (617) 692-6200 x274
zsb@maxvax.UUCP (05/11/84)
it seems that martillo has had more readers mad at him and his manner than any other topic in this newsgroup. he also has had more apologies. i am not so sure ellen and other readers should be so quick to apologize. i do thank G-D for the 'n' key! zev s. berman maxvax!zsb char!zsb houti!abm