karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (04/09/88)
Before you hit the `f' key to complain about my choice of newsgroups, please read the article, and then followup if you have thoughts about news software bugs. In <1647@ut-emx.UUCP> [in alt.flame], legare@ut-emx.UUCP writes: +| Karl, +| you gotta understand something, Karl. No, I don't. You see, that wasn't me posting. That was one Kerr Gibson, a local OSU CIS department operator. Please note the quotation provided: +| gibson@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: Note the conflict between username and full name. What you are looking at is an elusive news bug which we have actually noticed 2 or 3 times and which has in all probability happened many more times than that. For some reason which I don't care to guess just yet, my real name was attached to Kerr's posting. We don't know what causes this, and I'm not entirely sure I care. The only reason I care this time is that my name got dragged into the slime of alt.flame; previously, its occurrence has been limited to osu.* and cis.* newsgroups, local stuff not worth worrying about. Note carefully that I am not claiming forgery, as seems to have become fashionable in recent months. On the contrary, the article is genuine, completely genuine - but the wrong name was attached to it somewhere along the line as inews chewed on it. And if you're wondering, yes, Kerr checked that his .login doesn't inadvertently set $NAME to my name; we have people borrowing one another's dot-files with some frequency around here and that has been a cause of similar troubles more than twice; but that was not the case here. For concurrence, please note the following exchange of articles in cis.staff, resident here within the CIS department of OSU. [Article 2491 of cis.staff:] +|Path: tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely +|From: jgreely@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) +|Newsgroups: cis.staff +|Subject: Re: Drooling trekkies (was: Star Drek punk rubbish) +|Keywords: Mescaline-flavored Jell-O +|Message-ID: <9888@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> +|Date: 6 Apr 88 19:54:31 GMT +|References: <Lots> <of> <drooling> <trekkies> <but> <BoB teCh> <also> <.1988.3653@topaz.rutgers.edu> > <38117COK@PSUVMA> <9864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> +|Distribution: cis +|Organization: THE Ohio State University +|Lines: 14 +| +|Read what follows very carefully, and you will see that someone else has +|caught the dreaded "Karl KleinPost" disease. This one went out to +|alt.flame, so nobody will notice. +| +|In article <9864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> gibson@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu +| (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: +|>[stuff deleted] +|>--Kerr Gibson +|-- +|J Greely | The Ohio State University, +|(jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu) | Department of Computer and Information Sciences +|"Name of the target, Batman! | "Those who do not read rec.humor, +| It's Crufty Software!" | are condemned to repeat it." So much for it going to alt.flame where "nobody will notice." Sigh. The reference to the "Karl KleinPost disease" relates to the fact that it has been my name which was afflicted by this mis-identification before; an attribution I could well do without. One of the suspicions about the bug's cause relates to the fact that my userid owns a number of the news-related programs (though not inews itself, significantly), and that may somehow be a cause of the bug. Mr Greely (another one of our operator staff) has personally been afflicted, which is probably why he noticed it. I took a look at what Kerr posted, blew the article away (but not soon enough; see below), and followed-up to Greely thusly: [Article 2492 of cis.staff:] +|Path: tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl +|From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) +|Newsgroups: cis.staff +|Subject: disease +|Message-ID: <9889@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> +|Date: 6 Apr 88 20:11:12 GMT +|Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu +|Distribution: cis +|Lines: 23 +|In-reply-to: jgreely@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu's message of 6 Apr 88 19:54:31 GMT +| +|jgreely@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu writes: +| Read what follows very carefully, and you will see that someone else has +| caught the dreaded "Karl KleinPost" disease. This one went out to +| alt.flame, so nobody will notice. +| +| In article <9864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> gibson@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu +| (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: +| > +| >--Kerr Gibson +| +|You're right, no one will notice, because I just deleted the article +|itself right out of /usr/spool/news. +| +|Sorry, Kerr, but there's no way I'm going to let my name get out to +|the world in an article such as I just read. Flame away at me if you +|don't like it, but this is what you call autocratic whim. +| +|(Cf. Brian Reid on the nature of autocratic whim.) +| +|Now I just have to wonder how many places got the article before I +|squashed it. My name may get dragged through the mud anyhow. +| +|--Karl Unfortunately, I didn't commit the autocratic whim soon enough; the posting managed to escape via one of our NNTP feeds too soon. Not being a reader of alt.flame under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have noticed at all if Mr Greely hadn't informed me of the problem. Kerr, regretting what we all knew was about to happen, posted this a short time later... [Article 2506 of cis.staff:] +|Path: tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gibson +|From: gibson@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (William Kerr Gibson) +|Newsgroups: cis.staff +|Subject: Re: disease +|Keywords: YOW! +|Message-ID: <9930@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> +|Date: 7 Apr 88 13:19:02 GMT +|References: <9889@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> +|Distribution: cis +|Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science +|Lines: 11 +| +|Boy am I ever sorry about that one. I had no Idea I had the Karl Kleinpaste +|disease. Well it was just a joke anyway, and I'm sure if people reply to +|the article it will come right to me. +| +|--Kerr Bear Lastly, let me just say again that I am not a reader/participant of alt.flame under normal circumstances, and I honestly have no idea at all what you're flaming about. The closest I come to having a viable context is the knowledge that the previous title was "drooling trekkies" or somesuch similar kark. I didn't even read the article to which I'm following up (with Subject: changed, of course); I just grep'd the .../alt/flame directory for "Karl," found the article, jiggered my .newsrc appropriately, and followed up immediately. So please, go on and have your fun, but realize that I, being the only Karl Kleinpaste (and intending to check the full name which gets tacked onto *this* article), was not responsible for the article in question, nor am I hanging around to watch that discussion. Followups to news.software.b if you care to discuss the bug; otherwise please don't - it's just not worth it. I certainly won't see any of them. Note that the bug may possibly be in the NNTP software; but I can't be sure of that, so followups are directed merely to ...b. Cheers, --Karl