[news.misc] Portal flames back!

greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) (09/19/88)

In article <9150@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes:

>We're 
>our  own  people, and we're fast becoming the dominant  force  in 
>this  net! 

It seems like Portal users have a somewhat skewed idea of the purpose
and ecology of Usenet.

In article <9152@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes:

>Portal will soon be THE top contributor on  Usenet!   It's 
>going to be OUR show soon, so get lost.

Besides the obvious implicit threat, does this strike anyone else as
evidence of a "competitive" conception of Usenet? 

>     Criticism?   This  entire newsgroup is a fucking  LYNCH  MOB 
>when Portal is involved!  You wan't war, buddy, YOU CAN HAVE  IT!  
>How  about a nice posting in our internal events section,  asking 
>EVERYBODY ON PORTAL to flame you!  Ready for 15,000 flames?  

And here the threat is made explicit. Something clearly needs to be
done aobut Portal. My own opinion is that Portal is packaging Usenet
as a commercial product, and in some sense violating the
anti-commercialism rule, but that's just one opinion.

>you  gods of Usenet?  Where the fuck is Admin if there's a  rules
>violation?  Where the hell are the rules posted?  Oleg said  that 
>a  .sig should be five lines, you say four.  SHOW ME  THE  RULES!  

At the very least, Portal management could supply its users with an
introduction to the net which points them to news.announce.newusers,
which should help with such queries. It might also clear up some
Portal users' confusion about the nature of Usenet rules/"customs",
since they seem to think that only the "rules" need to be obeyed, but
the "customs" can be safely ignored.


-- 

rutgers!phoenix.princeton.edu!greg	Gregory A Nowak/Phoenix Gang/Princeton NJ 
    "Take 2*3*5*7*11*13.  It's divisible by 59." --Matt Crawford

Infinite@cup.portal.com (09/20/88)

Portal-ites and Non-Portal-ites,

I would just like to say that this John F. Tamburo fink speaks for nobody
but himself and has absolutely no right to act as if his voice speaks for
all of Portal.  I have notified the Sysop of Portal of this outburst (not
unwarranted but unjustified).

However, it is true (I'm told) that there are now about 15,000 users of
Portal.  Most of which never use Usenet.  But since Portal is continually
growing, the number of Usenet users from Portal will continue to grow.
I hope that Portal management and the users will be able to discount such
problems users and keep things under control.

On behalf of myself (not Portal, but I'm sure many users will agree with
me), I would like to offer an apology for fools such as John F. Tamburo.

-Infinite
 (Merril Weiner)

2000 Burton Drive #109      Operations Research
Austin, TX  78741           Mechanical Engineering Department
(512) 462-9950              UTAustin
(512) 462-9962              Austin, TX  78712
Infinite@cup.portal.com     (512) 471-5726

larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (09/20/88)

In article <3686@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) writes:
> 
> In article <9152@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes:
> >     Criticism?   This  entire newsgroup is a fucking  LYNCH  MOB 
> >when Portal is involved!  You wan't war, buddy, YOU CAN HAVE  IT!  
> >How  about a nice posting in our internal events section,  asking 
> >EVERYBODY ON PORTAL to flame you!  Ready for 15,000 flames?  
> 
> And here the threat is made explicit. Something clearly needs to be
> done aobut Portal. My own opinion is that Portal is packaging Usenet
> as a commercial product, and in some sense violating the
> anti-commercialism rule, but that's just one opinion.

	It is also my opinion.  If it were within my power, I would simply
deny the Portal site a Usenet feed. If one believes Portal's advertising
hype, their "internal" bulletin boards far exceed Usenet in size; if this
is true, then Portal users would miss little if denied Usenet access.

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<>  UUCP:  {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
<>  VOICE: 716/688-1231          {att|hplabs|mtune|utzoo|uunet}!/
<>  FAX:   716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes}   "Have you hugged your cat today?" 

sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) (09/21/88)

In article <2700@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>In article <3686@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) writes:

>	It is also my opinion.  If it were within my power, I would simply
>deny the Portal site a Usenet feed. If one believes Portal's advertising
>hype, their "internal" bulletin boards far exceed Usenet in size; if this
>is true, then Portal users would miss little if denied Usenet access.

Portal seems to connect to the net via uunet, and pay for that access. I'm
not entirely sure, but I think it would be *extremely* hard for uunet to
limit their service. And I'm sure that Usenix would not want to risk a
lawsuit to find out. So I guess we'll just have to boycott uunet. . .

Seriously the best way to reduce traffic is to simply ignore these types of
postings. If you really are upset about it hit "r" not "f". Thats what mail
is for. After you have used "r", use "K". Then you will be helping to reduce
the problem instead of compounding it with a flame war. In every one of
these cases the bandwidth consumed by flames *far* exceeds that of the
original postings. 

-- 
Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl     Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532

tjw@cisunx.UUCP (TJ Wood WA3VQJ) (09/21/88)

In article <9150@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes:

>We're 
>our  own  people, and we're fast becoming the dominant  force  in 
>this  net! 

Hee hee!  Use THE FORCE Luke!

BTW: Can someone show me how to set up a KILL file that kills articles
with certain phrases in the BODY?  I've got it working killing articles
with phrases in the HEADER, but I've not had any luck with the body.
Thanks much.

-- 
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(BITNET)   TJW@PITTVMS
(Internet) tjw%vms.cis.pittsburgh.edu@vb.cc.cmu.edu
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rbp@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce) (09/25/88)

> In article <9150@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes:
> 
> >We're 
> >our  own  people, and we're fast becoming the dominant  force  in 
> >this  net! 
> 
> >Portal will soon be THE top contributor on  Usenet!   It's 
> >going to be OUR show soon, so get lost.
> 
> >     Criticism?   This  entire newsgroup is a fucking  LYNCH  MOB 
> >when Portal is involved!  You wan't war, buddy, YOU CAN HAVE  IT!  
> >How  about a nice posting in our internal events section,  asking 
> >EVERYBODY ON PORTAL to flame you!  Ready for 15,000 flames?  
> 
> >you  gods of Usenet?  Where the fuck is Admin if there's a  rules
> >violation?  Where the hell are the rules posted?  Oleg said  that 
> >a  .sig should be five lines, you say four.  SHOW ME  THE  RULES!  
> 
I would hate to think this is the same, nice John F. Tamburo who publishes
"The Audiophile-File" out of Chicago.  What a nasty person!  What language!
-- 
Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA				 412-471-5320
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