hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (05/09/87)
This seemed a more appropriate forum for this discussion, so I'm cross-posting my item and suggesting that followers-up who are able to, move this discussion here. Those of you who want more background should read the related postings in rec.music.gaffa, particularly from 5/6 to the present. To: Love-Hounds@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Subject: Something is Rotten in the State of the Net, MarK Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa,news.misc In-Reply-To: <8705090634.AA15040@trout.nosc.mil> My thanks to Bill, Gregory, Rob, and others for clearing up my suspicions and for pointing out the connection to rec.sport.misc. I must confess that even my newsaholism could not prevent me from exercising the "c" key after the 20th or so article about the Iditarod which had nothing to do with the race proper. Despite a promise on my part not to breach this subject, I feel obligated to momentarily suspend that vow in the hope that the readers of this list/newsgroup will allow their rational halves to prevail. Unless |>oug has received specific orders from the net gods themselves, I can see no aspect of this discussion which makes it particularly relevant to this newsgroup (as opposed to the net as a whole) and suggest that any future discussion be carried out in the appropriate group, perhaps news.misc, and whatever its companion ARPA-list may be. >Really-From: ganzer%trout@nosc.mil (Mark T. Ganzer) >------- >I don't know what this talk about a boycott is for because most of us don't >know what the HELL is going on. Perhaps a few more details, Jim, would >be enlightening, for what happened to you could happen to any of us. >Also, I think your boycott will only decimate this group without >resolving the problem, as your accuser will probably just go on his >merry way thinking he has succeeded in his purpose. Your best recourse >is to continue on as if nothing happened. A small note regarding your discourse, Mark: whether or not Jim's accuser is a male remains undemonstrated. I'm trying to read your article in a genderless fashion. I agree that any boycott would be a tragic loss to this group, but the rules of tact suggest that Hof's departure is par for the course, although I hope it will only be a temporary arrangement. While it may appear to be unfair to link him to Wicinski's expulsion, I'm sure the administrators at nrl would like nothing better than for this whole affair to cool off, and neither you nor I can fault Jim for wanting to keep quiet. >Actually I'm a bit pissed that you lumped all of the rest of us into >the same catagory as your crybaby accuser. These problems with language >seem to crop up periodically in every newsgroup. Unfortunately, I doubt >you'll find a computer mailing list where your freedom of speech is >totally guarenteed, because we are at the mercy of computer system >operators and administrators who run a mostly benevolent dictatorship, >not a democracy... Whoa. Calm down, Mark. Hof has assured me that he meant no personal affront to the vast majority of L-H'ers. As Gregory's message shows, however, we have ALL been accused, to some degree, before the eyes of the net. For those of us who have been respectfully (but fervently) discussing topics of KaTian import, I think I can say that this episode serves only as a source of protracted pain and embarassment. Are we, by staying out of the fire, somehow responsible? Without reading certain other groups, who among us could smell smoke? >To whom it may concern: >If you are offended by some of the language you see in this group, >either show some tolerance or get out, as you are not going to get >any sympathy from the rest of us, especially if it results in someone >like Hofmann leaving the group... >To the rest of us: >A lot of abuse is thrown around in this group, and most of us see that >it is usually all in jest. However, because this group does see a pretty >large circulation on the Usenet, it might help to periodically put in >some :-) signs when there is a question whether someone might take it >seriously. I would hate to lose people from this group over a >misunderstanding. > >MarK T. Ganzer Whether or not we offer any sympathy to unwanted members is immaterial. We waived that right when we became an official newsgroup. As the ARPA gods would have it, we probably gave up much of that when mail.katebush became Love-Hounds in the list of lists so long ago. While smiley-faces usually alleviate a great many problems, they do not seem applicable to this discussion. Aside from obvious aesthetic incompatibilities, Wic's stated position has been that vulgarity is intrinsic to art/life/whathaveyou, and THAT point he has made with remarkable, uh, bluntness. Satirical harassment is nevertheless still harassment, and his failure to desist when told to by the other party shows a severe flaw on his part. I won't judge his real motives though, as personal experience with net flamers far more caustic than "Dickhead" (yes, Sue, hard to believe but true) shows me that things are not always as they seem. The problem at hand, however, is a far greater one, and Rob's posting summarizes things rather well: >Really-From: rosen@ji.Berkeley.EDU (Rob Rosen) > > Well, rumours abound. One of them is that Sue has threatened legal >action. Many people are worried that if this matter is brought to general >public attention, bad things will happen. One of them might be that ARPAnet >sites will have news access severely curtailed or even removed completely, >because certain powerful figures might get very angry that American taxpayers' >dollars are being spent on worldwide discussions about the nature of a certain >musician's lyrical content. >... > Relevant Issue: Censorship and the Role of the Moderator. Should >moderators censor material which could be considered obscene? Do practical >matters override the vexing philosophical question at hand (should he who >wields the power to censor define censorship? What IS defined as obscene, >anyway?). The practical matter I am referring to is basically that many >administrators feel that they would rather censor any posting that could >even be regarded as REMOTELY obscene rather than risk a loss of news access. >With the recent change in newsgroup structure, is anything REALLY `moderated' >anymore? Again, as Rob notes, the first paragraph concerns RUMORS, and should be taken with several large grains of salt. Amidst all this talk of starting new mailing lists, the question must be asked: just how equivalent are moderated newsgroups to sanctioned mailing lists? The (bandy)kin, although not an officially public list, underwent the same sort of shakeout about a year ago when membership and content became uncontrollable. They solved it only by taking most the list underground again and restoring it (the list) to the status of a clique, something that would be disastrous to this group. We should be appalled that some party or parties' decision to ignore or bypass traditional if not established channels (e.g. the moderator) now threatens the existence of the "interesting" side of the ARPAnet. For what it's worth, I treat you now to a portion (I've edited the headers and omitted a redundant removal notice) of the exchange in which Jerry Pournelle was thrown off the net. Certainly, it illustrates how seriously system administrators have taken the threat of ARPA intervention in the past. >Date: Wed, 29 May 85 06:16:01 EST >From: ... >To: POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA >cc: USER-ACCOUNTS@MIT-MC.ARPA > >You used the word "ARPANET" in your June Byte column three times. You >even said > > "I gave Alex the local ARPANET access number to record for the 1200-baud > modem and inadvertently transposed two numbers." > >I don't care if Alex IS a computer -- you may soon find your accounts >on MC decremented by gov't order. >=== >Date: Thu, 30 May 85 18:44:42 EST >From: ... >To: POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA >cc: GUMBY@MIT-MC.ARPA >In-reply-to: Msg of Thu 30 May 85 03:57:38 EST from Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE at MIT-MC.ARPA> > > Date: Thu, 30 May 85 03:57:38 EST > From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE at MIT-MC.ARPA> > > thank you. if left to you I suppose I cewrtainly will find my > accounts terminated. Your nice private message appreciated. > seppuku follows.. maybe you ought to have me dumped off the net > and be done with it? or must you work through someone else? > J. E. Pournelle > >USER-A is the mailing list created explicitly for dealing with these >sorts of issues. It is the appropriate forum for discussion. There >are eight people on user-a. You probably know better than I do, but >last I heard about 100,000 times as many people read BYTE. Thus, the >issue of privacy is the last one you should raise. > >I don't particularly want to force you into ritual disembowelment; >rather, I'm interested -- and I'm not the only one -- in why you >find it necessary to flaunt your use of the arpanet. The more attention >you (and other people) draw to non-blow-em-up use of the arpanet the >more likely some Proxmire type is to start inquiring into its operations. >=== >Date: Fri, 31 May 85 01:11:16 EST >From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA> >To: ... >cc: GUMBY@MIT-MC.ARPA >In-reply-to: Msg of Thu 30 May 85 18:44:42 EST > >I find this thoroughly distasteful. If you have some authority >to order me off the net, do so. If not, leave me alone. >=== >Date: Tue, 4 Jun 85 17:04:29 EST >From: ... >To: USER-ACCOUNTS@MIT-MC.ARPA > >Given POURNE's obnoxious attitiudes towards USER-A and >his apparent belief that he has a god-given right to be >on this machine and the network, we have flushed him. >=== Don't construe this message to be an announcement of support for nor condemnation of the parties involved, although I am glad that the net administration at NRL absolved Jim of any wrongdoing. I'm only trying to head off a disastrous exodus by getting people to think twice before doing, and to realize that the issues of administration and censorship are inherent to the entire network, and not just to Love-Hounds or rec.music.gaffa...a lengthy reminder that we are no longer housed in our own, private, opaque enclave. -dave -- David T. Hsu Newsaholic Emeritus ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!mimsy!eneevax!hsu USNAIL: soon leaving the EE Computer Facility, U of Md, College Park, MD 20742 "This house is full of, full of, full of fight"
mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) (05/13/87)
In article <871@eneevax.UUCP> hsu@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Dave Hsu) writes: > This seemed a more appropriate forum for this discussion, so I'm > cross-posting my item and suggesting that followers-up who are able > to, move this discussion here. Those of you who want more background > should read the related postings in rec.music.gaffa, particularly from > 5/6 to the present. > > [followed by a 200-line reposting of some debate on censorship, > people allegedly being kicked off the net, etc., arising out of > some articles in rec.music.gaffa/Love-Hounds mailing list.] If this is meant to be interesting to a wider audience, the facts should be summarized and the issues raised thereby noted. I shouldn't have to wade through a week of rec.music.gaffa to attempt to do so. I am a regular reader of gaffa, and I *still* couldn't figure out what was going on -- there were allusions to goings on in soc.women (which I read only occasionally) and to a mysterious figure named "Sue", who is never identified, and her alleged actions never made clear. I am always interested in anything that might jeopardize the availability of Usenet at a given site, or in people having their net access terminated or restricted, but it is impossible from this forwarded message and from the other messages in gaffa to tell exactly whose ox was goreth. Mr. Hsu, can you fill us in? Michael C. Berch / mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa UUCP: {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg,lll-lcc,mordor}!styx!mcb (now) UUCP: {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg,lll-lcc,mordor}!styx!mcb (15 May and thereafter)
kathy@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Kathryn Smith) (05/13/87)
In article <21435@styx.UUCP>, mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: > In article <871@eneevax.UUCP> hsu@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Dave Hsu) writes: > > This seemed a more appropriate forum for this discussion, so I'm > > cross-posting my item and suggesting that followers-up who are able > > to, move this discussion here. Those of you who want more background > > should read the related postings in rec.music.gaffa, particularly from > > 5/6 to the present. > > > > [followed by a 200-line reposting of some debate on censorship, > > people allegedly being kicked off the net, etc., arising out of > > some articles in rec.music.gaffa/Love-Hounds mailing list.] > > If this is meant to be interesting to a wider audience, the facts > should be summarized and the issues raised thereby noted. I shouldn't > have to wade through a week of rec.music.gaffa to attempt to do so. > As the Usenet administrator here I share Mr. Berch's concern/interest in being aware of situations which may affect the status of Usenet, etc. However, there is an additional problem, above and beyond time constraints, with the idea of going to whatever newsgroups are involved and reading the back postings. Not everyone keeps news around that long. We only keep news for three days here, due to disk space constraints, and by the time a discussion like this moves into one of the news.* groups where I am likely to see it, the offending articles are already expired. A brief summary of the problem would be most useful when discussing this kind of issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kathryn L. Smith UUCP: ...ll-xn!kathy MIT Lincoln Laboratories ARPANET: kathy@XN.LL.MIT.EDU Lexington, MA PHONE: (617) 863-5500 ext. 816-2211 "I didn't do it, and I can justify it all anyway." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (05/13/87)
In article <21435@styx.UUCP> mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: > >I am always interested in anything that might jeopardize the >availability of Usenet at a given site, or in people having their net >access terminated or restricted, but it is impossible from this >forwarded message and from the other messages in gaffa to tell exactly >whose ox was goreth. Mr. Hsu, can you fill us in? > >Michael C. Berch / mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa My apologies, Michael, if my earlier posting was cryptic. It was meant largely to head off a relatively unwanted discussion in rec.music.gaffa, by isolating the parts of general interest and putting them here. I will try to summarize the events, first. My understanding is that the parties involved would like this episode to die down quietly; because the issues raise are of importance to the net as a whole, I think, I will identify each of the players only by a letter and gender. About a week ago, one of the prime contributors to rec.music.gaffa who I shall refer to as A, announced a boycott of that group on grounds of censorship and for lack of a better phrase, the absence of due process. It appears that some person or persons on the net had made allegations regarding his Usenet conduct directly to his superiors, neglecting to first contact both the accused and the moderator. Those allegations proved to be false, but not before the spectre of adminstrative discipline was raised. How this came to be requires some additional background, but is largely speculative. Both A and another newsreader at the same site who I will call B, specialized in discussing punk/hardcore/thrash rock and from a philosophical standpoint, the inescapability of vulgarism in music. As a result, many of their postings have been of a crude and vulgar nature that may seem severe to the uninitiated, but which make perfect sense in the context of their discussions. B, in particular, had engaged in some rather scathing (if facetious) personal attacks on a third netreader, C, late last year. C did boycott the group for a while at the beginning of this year, but returned and so established a sort of truce. The rest of the pertinent events are best documented in Gregory Taylor's posting of April 8th in rec.music.gaffa; it's lengthy (well, not when compared to the behomoth I posted here) but concise, and I won't try to condense it any further. If your site changed names from mod. to rec. at the correct time, it should be around article 120-125. You will probably have some difficulty sifting through the names, but his paragraph immediately following the included text best sums things up. Now, the questions that make this relevant to news.misc: (1) The prescribed method for resolving conflicts in moderated groups is to contact the moderator first, and then to contact the moderator pool through the moderators@cbosgd alias. With the recent newsgroup renaming, novice users will find it easier than ever to accidentally stumble into moderated groups, some of which have very different mores than the rest of the net. This is analogous to randomly watching movies without understanding the MPAA ratings system. Rec.music.gaffa, for instance, is often thought of as a closed mailing list but since the opening of the gateway last year, there exists the possibility that a contributor will forget that his or her submissions become publicly readable. This has, in fact, happened before. We can't just rot13 an entire newsgroup; is there a need to indoctrinate newer netreaders more thoroughly? How does the role of moderator change when he or she is expected to control the content of the discussion instead of the membership of the reader community? (2) Who, if not the moderator, is responsible for controlling newsreaders? In particular, I have heard a rumor that A's system administrator was bypassed, implying that some other non-news- related superior was contacted. If this is true, I hope it does not become widespread, as it would create an unwelcome link between one's netiquette and one's continued employment. The moderator step establishes a filter to weed out false accusations, nuisance complaints, and general noise from genuine problems. If people continue to bypass what is admittedly a weak system, what's to prevent roving bands of net enforcers (or hey, net terrorists) from harassing people who enter into controversial discussion? Who but the moderator could issue a qualified reprimand based on anything more than hearsay? (3) There have been rumors of legal action flying about. While it is hard to lend any credibility to such rumors, the point arises again: how important is it to minimize public scrutiny of the internet? Would a Proxmire-type still care about what we discuss? How does the internet differ in the public eye from the old Arpanet? I'm probably ranting and raving and rambling and babbling again, but that's about as much as I can sterilize the discussion thus far in gaffa. Any clearer now? -dave -- David T. Hsu Newsaholic Emeritus ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!mimsy!eneevax!hsu USNAIL: soon leaving the EE Computer Facility, U of Md, College Park, MD 20742 "I've been ionized, but I'm okay now..."