6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/12/89)
From article <4509.2583b654@uwovax.uwo.ca>, by jpalmer@uwovax.uwo.ca (J. Palmer): > In article <8139@stiatl.UUCP>, meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >> Mr. Paris claims via email to have over 60 sysadmins to have >> written him saying that they are dropping talk.bizarre propagation. > I get the strong feeling that at least some sysadmins are no > longer propagating talk.bizarre: during the past week, our system has > received only 95 articles in t.b, and nearly 300 in rec.humour and > comp.sys.ibm.pc. Usually these three groups have about the same number > of postings. Christ on a crutch! If this is true, the net will soon become a place NONE of us want to be! Re-propogate talk.bizarre RIGHT NOW! Lock it out of visibility on your system if you must, but DO NOT refuse to propogate it or THEY will catch on and rain their crap down on the legitimate groups! I can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to follow the brainless suggestion that bizarre-ites be goaded like this. They spill over enough already! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
cj@modernlvr.sgi.com (C J Silverio) (12/12/89)
In article <3290@hub.UUCP> 6600pete@hub.UUCP writes: [regarding as yet unverified assertions that brainless sysadmins are un-propagating t.b] |If this is true, the net will soon become a place NONE of us want to be! I think so too. Although, judging by your further fulminations and frothings, not for the same reason. |Re-propogate talk.bizarre RIGHT NOW! Lock it out of visibility on your system |if you must, but DO NOT refuse to propogate it or THEY will catch on and |rain their crap down on the legitimate groups! I, for one, resent this comment. My postings are "crap"? Have you even READ them? I thought not. And as for "legitimate" <snort>, I just HAVE to ask you what on earth you think USENET is for. Can you say "recreation"? SURE you can. Now tell us what "legitimate" means in that context. |I can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to follow the brainless |suggestion that bizarre-ites be goaded like this. They spill over enough |already! Support that "spill over" assertion with fact. I suggest you start with the crossposting ratios posted in news.lists. Call me back when you've read them. WHEN will people learn that the net needs good neighbors? If you don't want it [sci.aquaria, talk.bizarre] available on your system, FINE. But feed it downstream like a cooperative dude, huh? --- ucbvax!brahms!silverio C J Silverio/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 cj@modernlvr.wpd.sgi.com "The news.* weenies should no more be in charge of the net than the printers at a newspaper should decide its editorial content." R. Sexton
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (12/13/89)
In article <1922@odin.SGI.COM> cj@modernlvr.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
WHEN will people learn that the net needs good neighbors? If you
don't want it [sci.aquaria, talk.bizarre] available on your system,
FINE. But feed it downstream like a cooperative dude, huh?
How?
If someone "downstream" (nearly meaningless term these days) wants a
group, they can find someone who wants to feed it to them. There's
nobody standing in their way.
There are plenty of other ways to be neighborly, without doing
everything someone else wants me to do with this system.mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio) (12/13/89)
Can we please discuss the group on its own merits, or lack thereof, rather than attempting to blackmail the net as a whole? That's not likely to go over well; many sysadmins would probably leave the group alone, except that the proponents of the group are now threatening to make the rest of the net a miserable place to be. Let's hope that the sysadmins are willing to come down hard on the sites that originate such vandalism. Maybe when no one will feed them, they'll learn. Monica Cellio mjc@cs.cmu.edu
6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/13/89)
Gads. My first true flame-war. What excitement! (yawn...) Just for the record, I don't read news.admin, and this is the last article I will cross-post there. From article <1922@odin.SGI.COM>, by cj@modernlvr.sgi.com (C J Silverio): > In article <3290@hub.UUCP> 6600pete@hub.UUCP writes: > |Re-propogate talk.bizarre RIGHT NOW! Lock it out of visibility on your system > |if you must, but DO NOT refuse to propogate it or THEY will catch on and > |rain their crap down on the legitimate groups! > I, for one, resent this comment. My postings are > "crap"? Have you even READ them? I thought not. I read talk.bizarre for about a month before unsubscribing it in frustration. It was entertaining for a while, but the record was broken. I thought the fact that I lasted a month was brave. > And as for "legitimate" <snort>, I just HAVE to ask you what on earth you > think USENET is for. Can you say "recreation"? SURE you can. Now tell us > what "legitimate" means in that context. OK, "legitimate" was the wrong word. "Desirable" was the right one. I'm afraid recreation isn't on MY top ten list. I gave up on extrovertive relativism a long time ago. If democracy can ever work, it's through rational self-interest. In this case, it indicates I ought to encourage people to continue propogating talk.bizarre even if they don't make it available to their users so that I personally don't have to deal with crazies on the net. > |I can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to follow the brainless > |suggestion that bizarre-ites be goaded like this. They spill over enough > |already! > Support that "spill over" assertion with fact. I suggest you start with > the crossposting ratios posted in news.lists. Call me back when you've read > them. ANY % is too much. Sure, I can skip over headers I don't like, but too often I am tricked into starting to read some snuggles crap. Besides, it often costs money to cross-post. > WHEN will people learn that the net needs good neighbors? > If you don't want it [sci.aquaria, talk.bizarre] available > on your system, FINE. But feed it downstream like a > cooperative dude, huh? I agree 100%. You read the original post, and you agreed with my statement that was roughly equivalent (I fail to quote it here) except in motive, of course. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/13/89)
From article <7313@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, by mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio): > Can we please discuss the group on its own merits, or lack thereof, rather > than attempting to blackmail the net as a whole? That's not likely to go > over well; many sysadmins would probably leave the group alone, except that > the proponents of the group are now threatening to make the rest of the net > a miserable place to be. Out of some paranoid allegiance to clarity, let me point out that *I* am not the one making such threats. I further have not see any explicit threats from bizarre-ites (haven't read the group lately except for cross-posts). My theory is that if their group loses connectivity, they'll abandon it and filter out everywhere else, not by conscious effort, but by diffusion. (Hell, maybe it will be conscious effort...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) (12/13/89)
In article <7313@pt.cs.cmu.edu> mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio) writes: > Can we please discuss the group on its own merits, or lack thereof, rather > than attempting to blackmail the net as a whole? That's not likely to go > over well; many sysadmins would probably leave the group alone, except that > the proponents of the group are now threatening to make the rest of the net > a miserable place to be. That's not quite what's being said. It's not proponents of talk.bizarre that have been posting on this. No regular talk.bizarre poster has made any threats at all. Some old experienced hands (not me) have just made the observation that for a variety of reasons trying to stop propagation of talk.bizarre is real dumb. Is that o. k.?
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (12/13/89)
In article <1922@odin.SGI.COM> cj@modernlvr.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes: > And as for "legitimate" <snort>, I just HAVE to ask > you what on earth you think USENET is for. Can > you say "recreation"? SURE you can. Now tell us > what "legitimate" means in that context. Usenet is for recreation? For re-creation, perhaps, of working systems. I sure don't plow theough the junk in comp.dcom.lans.whatever for *fun*. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>. 'U` Also <peter@ficc.lonestar.org> or <peter@sugar.lonestar.org>. "It was just dumb luck that Unix managed to break through the Stupidity Barrier and become popular in spite of its inherent elegance." -- gavin@krypton.sgi.com
jat@hpsemc.HP.COM (Joe Talmadge) (12/14/89)
Monica Cellio writes: > Can we please discuss the group on its own merits, or lack thereof, rather > than attempting to blackmail the net as a whole? That's not likely to go > over well; many sysadmins would probably leave the group alone, except that > the proponents of the group are now threatening to make the rest of the net > a miserable place to be. Monica -- I haven't seen any blackmail. What I have seen, however, is several people (including Pete, who you were responding to) stating that from experience, they know that removing talk.bizarre would cause havoc on the net. If you remove or stop propogating talk.bizarre "on its own merits" and bizarrites spill into other groups, what objective does this accomplish? If your favorite group gets invaded, are you still going to be happy with your decision, because it was made "on its own merits"? In short, at the moment there is no blackmail. Just the (probably true) assertion that in the past, organized efforts to remove talk.bizarre have resulting in Bad Things happening, and that another organized effort may result in the same. Joe
mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio) (12/15/89)
>I haven't seen any blackmail. What I have seen, however, is several >people (including Pete, who you were responding to) stating that from >experience, they know that removing talk.bizarre would cause havoc on >the net. And this fear is justified, because there seem to have been successful blackmail threats in the past. I'm not suggesting that we nuke talk.bizarre. I don't read it; I don't care what they do in the group. If, however, it is true that they are more guilty than typical users of abusing the net (e.g. inappropriate crossposting), then it is appropriate to do something. Were I a sysadmin, I'd probably keep the group but block crossposts involving it. As with misc.misc, I cannot think of any legitimate reason to crosspost to/from talk.bizarre. If a sysadmin has a user who abuses the net consistently, he has some sort of obligation to do something about that user, and he should feel no qualms about cutting off the person's posting privileges until he grows up. Sites are just users on another level. Therefore, I think that we can, if we want to, exert pressure on those who abuse the net. Inappropriate crossposting is but one abuse. We should not keep a group *just* because we are afraid of what its users will do to the net if we don't. For the record, I don't see any reason to nuke talk.bizarre. There are better ways to deal with the problems that are connected to the group. Monica Cellio mjc@cs.cmu.edu
dave@ccicpg.UUCP ( Dave Hill) (12/15/89)
In article <3295@hub.UUCP>, 6600pete@hub.UUCP writes: > > I read talk.bizarre for about a month before unsubscribing it > in frustration. It was entertaining for a while, but the record > was broken. I thought the fact that I lasted a month was brave. Sorry to hear that you couldn't cut it. Wimp. > OK, "legitimate" was the wrong word. "Desirable" was the right one. Okay Mx. Net.I.Know.What's.Good.For.You. Let's have your list of "desirable" groups. > I'm afraid recreation isn't on MY top ten list. I gave up on > extrovertive relativism a long time ago. If democracy can ever > work, it's through rational self-interest. In this case, it > indicates I ought to encourage people to continue propogating > talk.bizarre even if they don't make it available to their users > so that I personally don't have to deal with crazies on the net. Please, get that list out here right now. We feed about 20 sites, I just gotta know what groups to kill. Geez, we've got a coupla hundred people right here in this building reading right now. This is worse than I thought... Ye Gods! They could be >shudder< enjoying themselves. They could be reading things that Mx. Net.I.Know.What's.Good.For.You doesn't find "desirable". IYEEEE!!!! Imminent Death Of Usenet Predicted! > ANY % is too much. Sure, I can skip over headers I don't like, > but too often I am tricked into starting to read some snuggles > crap. Hey, if it's gonna inconvenience YOU we'd just better shut the whole damn thing down RIGHT NOW. We wouldn't want you to waste any more of YOUR valuable time. Get that list out NOW! Then maybe YOU won't have to "deal with the crazies on the net". Dave
6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/15/89)
From article <7341@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, by mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio): > We should not keep a group *just* because we are afraid of what its users > will do to the net if we don't. Why not? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
griffith@con.Berkeley.EDU (Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith) (12/15/89)
In article <51171@ccicpg.UUCP> dave@ccicpg.UUCP ( Dave Hill) writes: >In article <3295@hub.UUCP>, 6600pete@hub.UUCP writes: [arguments back and forth about the suitability of talk.bizarre] As much as I dislike talk.bizarre and the actions occasionally taken collectively and individually by its subscribers, I have to defend the group's existance. I believe that the group serves a valuable function by providing a group in which users can interact, blow off steam, play around, and generally do whatever they want. I would rather have the group exist than have the group not exist and have those folks running rampant in *other* groups (as a reader of a group that the t.b. folks frequently target, I know that their presence outside of their group would be disastrous...). I've watched the Net grow, and with the growth, there is a dissproportional increase of ignorant users who screw around without realizing to what extent they damage groups' ability to relay information. Talk.bizarre's existance indirectly improves groups' ability to relay information. I realize that this large volume of what some consider to be simple noise increases resource problems at many sites. However, I think it is contrary to the meaning of this network to restrict the flow of data simply because some people don't approve of it. What we do locally is simply reduce the expiration dates for non-technical articles. Limiting propagation is too close to censorship for my tastes, regardless of the perceived "wastefulness" of the group. Then again, I kind of jumped into this without following the discussion that fclosely, so I might not know what the Hell I'm talking about... Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Griffith /--OO--\ | ...!ucbvax!scam!griffith | "Take my Worf. Please" BEWARE BATS WITHOUT NOSES! |
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (12/15/89)
According to mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio): >If, however, it is true that [talk.bizarre readers] are more guilty >than typical users of abusing the net (e.g. inappropriate crossposting), >then it is appropriate to do something. I agree. Fortunately, however, bizarrites DON'T cross-post more than others. So there's nothing we need to do. Isn't that a relief? After all, no one has yet proved that talk.bizarre is a problem! All we've had so far in lieu of such proof is a series of testimonials from former readers of t.b who felt left out because they Didn't Get The Joke. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> "The Usenet, in a very real sense, does not exist."
6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/16/89)
From article <20711@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, by griffith@con.Berkeley.EDU (Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith): > In article <51171@ccicpg.UUCP> dave@ccicpg.UUCP ( Dave Hill) writes: >>In article <3295@hub.UUCP>, 6600pete@hub.UUCP writes: > [arguments back and forth about the suitability of talk.bizarre] NONONONONONONONO! I couldn't care less if talk.bizarre becomes the most popular group on the net! Please don't associate me with the censors! Live long and prosper, talk.bizarre! > Talk.bizarre's existance indirectly improves groups' ability to relay > information. I wet my pants in vehement agreement! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/16/89)
From article <2589099E.25658@ateng.com>, by chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg): > After all, no one has yet proved that talk.bizarre is a problem! All we've > had so far in lieu of such proof is a series of testimonials from former > readers of t.b who felt left out because they Didn't Get The Joke. I can only assume this refers to me. If it's paranoia, it won't be the first time and it won't be the last. Again, I am NOT suggesting that anything be done about talk.bizarre! I am opposing the notion that anything be done about talk.bizarre! Leave the bugger alone; it's good where it is! After all, I wrote the header, didn't I? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills