norman (10/10/82)
I am in the unfortunate position of feeling it necessary to draw your attention to a disgraceful and irresponsible comment on net.news in order that I might state strongly my public disappro- val of it. I am referring to a submission to net.general from "rusty," alas, someone at my own University (but not on my machine, thank goodness). Rusty decided to broadcast a comment about Joseph Weizenabum that I consider to be without taste, pos- sibly libelous. I wish to make the strong statement that it is improper and inap- propriate to use public nets (or any other communication medium) to make snide and irresponsible comments about individual people. The fact that I know (and like) Joe Weizenbaum is not relevant. I happen to disagree rather strongly with some of his opinions. That is not relevant either. Nonethess, given that the irresponsible message has been broadcast, I think it important to state that whether or not you agree with his position, he is a very fine person, with high moral standards, who has had the courage to state his moral concern about the social implications of our work and of developments in computer technology. We need more discussion on these issues, not less. The important point is that regardless of whether or not we know the person, the spreading of malicious gossip and name calling has no place on a public network. Donald A. Norman (ucbvax!sdcsvax!norman or norman@nprdc) Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 (714) 452-6770