wilson_3@h-sc1.UUCP (bradford wilson) (10/31/85)
I am writing in response to a posting by someone whose name my .editor has munged, but who comes out in favor of deleting anything he finds offensive. > Last Friday, I suggested that net.flame should be removed. > To date, I've received 23 letters about the subject, and the > concensus is 22 DELETE 1 KEEP. The one letter that wanted me > to "keep" net.flame actually said <and I DO quote> > > "..sick, faggot head, what gives you the f<>g right to > tell any non-pervert ..." > > <> encloses the obvious. For the record, I did not write the above letter, but I wish I had. I take it <> encloses your brain space. The deal is that most of the hardcore flamers aren't organized enough to speak up for their survival. ATTENTION FELLOW FLAMERS! Let the net know that you want to keep the group! > > I think that 22:1 is a good start toward a concensus. If the numbers were in my favor, I would feel that 2:1 was a concensus. Give me a freaking break! > 2) > > Today, a totally ungracious individual, who doesn't have > to justify the cost of the net, suggests in net.flame that we > should all write Gene Spafford (the real verb he was suggesting > was "harass", but he was politic and said "write") because > Gene enforced a rule that is well known, and did it AFTER > consulting other people (who may or may not wish to be named) > in positions similar to his. Now, I >did< write this flame. Good idea, huh? Hey Flamers, why not mail to this guy! Send him anything you have on file, especially the big, space-eating files. No one has the right to censor. > > Aside from the obvious, i.e. Gene has to justify the money spent > on nutnews at his site, and he does not feel that he can justify Awwww, sob. Spaf is such a great guy, he does all this neat stuff for free, he really like us, oh gosh I'm so ashamed :-). Seriously, though, this does not give him the right to say what he likes, and stamp out what he doesn't in a freaking witchhunt. i> nut.bizzare, or any group that doesn't have a start discussed properly > on the net, mailing to Gene ignores the fact that he is only > one of a bunch of people who agree with one or both of > the decisions. Picking on Gene because HE is the keeper of the > lists is just plain silly, as well as using the interstate > phone system for harassment. > In any case, suggesting federal crimes on the net (or something > that is likely to be able to be made out as a federal crime) > is a good case for removing both a user and a newsgroup, so What are you, ten years old? You think that's harassment? You want to know what harassment is? Are you gonna bust me for threatening you on the net? (Are you so scared of MY KIND that you don't print your signature at the end of your postings?) My techniques are those of revolution, for these are times that call for revolt. When my liberty is threatened, I feel the way kind of the way you feel when you read a *BAD* word (oo, yuck!) in your mail.> > IT'S TIME! I CALL ON NET ADMINISTRATORS WHO WANT THE NET TO > CONTINUE TO EXIST TO START THE DISCUSSION! YES IT IS! I WANT EVERY FLAMER TO RESPOND TO THIS PATHETIC CHALLENGE IF YOU WISH THIS GROUP TO CONTINUE!! > > My mail filter is still up, I will see your profanity, obscenity, > and the like, but it will be marked as such when I turn on the > mailer, and your root and news administrators will likely get a copy, if > you're good at being insulting. Oh, too bad I really wasn't at my best for this one! But I'm sure I can get one in front of the "net administrators" yet. These guys are worse than the Inquisition, right? I'm getting sick of being the only flamer interested in the survival of the group. I'll bet the rest of you are like the people who stood around while Kitty Genovese was being raped!. C'mon, prove I'm wrong! Wake up! Don't let what happened to net.bizarre happen here! There was no warning for the bizarreheads, but there has been plenty here. A storm is rolling in... The Wombat .:. "You've decided? MY best interests? How can you say what MY best interest is?" -- Suicidal Tendencies "Y'all go to hell." -*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
ins_apmj@jhunix.UUCP (Patrick M Juola) (11/01/85)
> > Last Friday, I suggested that net.flame should be removed. > To date, I've received 23 letters about the subject, and the > concensus is 22 DELETE 1 KEEP. > This is (surprise!) a semi-sentient letter in favor of keeping nut.flame -- Hopkins can't get the net.news.group, among others, so if I want to find out about whatever DICTATARIAL HEAVY-HANDED ABITRARY FASCIST DECISIONS you're making about the news groups, I have to wait until someone flames about it here. (Sorry about the shouting, I just lost control for a second. Yes, I can take pills for it :-) Yes, I admit that there's a lot of trash on this group, (if I have to read one more article about how English is decaying, I'll scream), but I figured out early on what the 'n' key does. And surely it's got to be better to hold arguments only on this group than on net.women, net.philosophy, and net.abortion, cross posted. It only costs a third as much, right? So change the figures -- it's now 22:2! Pat Juola Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Maths
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (11/01/85)
I would like to say for the record that I am in favor of the continual
existence of net.flame.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'.
Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET
ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA
UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaacej@ll1.UUCP (One of the Jones Boys) (11/01/85)
The below is Bradford Wilson responding to the idea to give a well desirved death to net.flame. > > Today, a totally ungracious individual, who doesn't have > > to justify the cost of the net, suggests in net.flame that we > > should all write Gene Spafford (the real verb he was suggesting > > was "harass", but he was politic and said "write") because > > Gene enforced a rule that is well known, and did it AFTER > > consulting other people (who may or may not wish to be named) > > in positions similar to his. > > Now, I >did< write this flame. Good idea, huh? Hey Flamers, > why not mail to this guy! Send him anything you have on file, especially > the big, space-eating files. No one has the right to censor. > > > Aside from the obvious, i.e. Gene has to justify the money spent > > on nutnews at his site, and he does not feel that he can justify > > Awwww, sob. Spaf is such a great guy, he does all this > neat stuff for free, he really like us, oh gosh I'm so ashamed :-). > Seriously, though, this does not give him the right to say what he likes, > and stamp out what he doesn't in a freaking witchhunt. > > The Wombat .:. Bradford, The major point people are trying to make is that you get USENET vertualy free! It is paid for largely by the backbone sites. By your own point of view, just as you can do what you want, they can do what they want. At this point there is some co-ordination between them. This co-ordination is the fact that they all agree together what groups they will have on thier machines. The agreed upon list is only KEPT by Spaf, not made-up by Spaf alone. So, by you own quite valid logic, they can choose to carry certain groups or not. Or, choose to stay a backbone site, or not. Or, choose to forward your mail, or not. Or, choose to leave USENET altogether. They can do what they want with THIER resources. THIER resources, not YOURS. (I first mailed this response, but I've been getting steamed by seeing people telling others what to do with thier resources in the name of individual freedom! So, here is is for the world to see!) -- 'Just carrying coals to Newcastle. ...ihnp4!mgnetp!ll1!cej Llewellyn Jones
wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (11/04/85)
(You don't read notes for a couple weeks, and look what happens...)
1. The person who posted the note about deleting net.flame was alice!jj.
Once upon a time, net.flame was a reasonable thing to read; when alice!jj
was rabbit!jj he used to read and contribute to the group, the volume wasn't
*too* high, and someone was always coming up with a new topic to flame
about. But after awhile the topics started repeating, and it wasn't much
longer before all you were seeing was new wordings of the same old arguments
you read six months ago. The last interesting thing I saw in net.flame was
Tim Maroney's e-mail dialogues with various officials at UNC. That was how
many years ago?
2. JJ has the right idea. I think net.flame's time has come and gone. (Add
my vote for its removal!) It and the other soapbox groups were useful as a
way of siphoning heated debates off from normal groups. But now they live on
as full-fledged groups, attracting new netters who come to believe pointless
flaming arguments are a good thing to send around the world and carry these
ideas into any other notesfile they discover. net.abortion and net.origins
should probably be added to the list. *However*, I don't think the argument
for throwing away those groups can be applied to the recreational/hobby
groups, for the simple reason that useful information is passed through
them, an argument that can't be used to save net.(flame,origins,abortion).
3. The death of net.bizarre is a Good Thing. I have no sympathy for a group
that degenerated into a slushpile as fast as net.bizarre did. I also have
none for anyone who doesn't read net.news.group. If you didn't read far
enough into the netiquette article to find out about it, you shouldn't have
a vote anyway. If you "aren't allowed to read net.news.group" you should
work on your site adminstrator to get that policy changed. You could
probably get a lot of leverage from the net to support such a request.
4. Gene Spafford has done a lot of good work for this net, but I think it's
unfortunate that the day he happened to crack down on things it was
net.internat that got hit. The removal has been a lesson in proper newsgroup
creation to people who read net.news, net.news.group, and net.internat, but
unfortunately not to the rest of the net. It would have been more
instructive if copied to mod.announce, but probably would just have caused
people to not read mod.announce anymore. The other unfortunate part is that
it can be taken as yet another example of blind, self-centered Americanism
by those so inclined. A little more diplomacy here would have averted this
long, drawn-out debate (boy am I glad that net.{unix-wizards, sf-lovers,
aviation} come before net.news* in my sequencer list) and prevented this
international incident. The damage having already been done, I support the
Vegan's intent, but disagree with the method; the old group should have been
allowed to continue while discussion went on in net.news.group and in
net.internat.
5. I am not in any way connected with wilson_3 and do not wish to be
confused with him.
"When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all."
Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand*
Wombat
ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombatarnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL) (11/08/85)
In article <3500017@ccvaxa> wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP writes: >3. The death of net.bizarre is a Good Thing. I have no sympathy for a group >that degenerated into a slushpile as fast as net.bizarre did. I also have >none for anyone who doesn't read net.news.group. If you didn't read far >enough into the netiquette article to find out about it, you shouldn't have >a vote anyway. If you "aren't allowed to read net.news.group" you should >work on your site adminstrator to get that policy changed. You could >probably get a lot of leverage from the net to support such a request. Look, I voted for both the creation and the deletion of net.bizarre. It certainly did become garbage quickly. But this is hardly a reasonable attitude. net.news.group is (read it and weep) a *high* *volume* newsgroup. So it isn't a minor thing just to keep up on it in case someone talks about deleting a group you like. It is so reasonable to post a simple message to the group saying its deletion is being discussed in net.news.group that I can't see why anyone would oppose this. (There seems to be some disagreement over whether this was done for net.bizarre -- did anyone out there *send* it? Several people saying "I think I saw one" isn't convincing enough for me.) I agree that not carrying net.news.group is not smart, but the whole net shouldn't have to suffer from it. On this, Wombat and I agree. Ken Arnold
wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (11/10/85)
I haven't seen any notes from people complaining that net.news.group wasn't available at their site; I have seen notes from people who said they *weren't allowed* to read it on their site. This strikes me as an unreasonable attitude on the part of their SAs, and one they should try to change. I see it this way: if no one who is interested enough in all the changes taking place on the net these days (where interested means interested enough to read net.news and/or net.news.group) thought it worthwhile to drum up support to save net.bizarre, then it must be that all the people who wanted net.bizarre to stay around don't really care about the net and are willing to let others decide what the direction of the net should be. Now that that's been done, they complain that someone else decided for them. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat
mcb@k.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Browne) (11/14/85)
In article <3500020@ccvaxa> wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP writes: >I see it this way: if no one who is interested enough in all the changes >taking place on the net these days (where interested means interested enough >to read net.news and/or net.news.group) thought it worthwhile to drum up >support to save net.bizarre, then it must be that all the people who wanted >net.bizarre to stay around don't really care about the net and are willing >to let others decide what the direction of the net should be. Once more with feeling... I first realized that there were changes taking place on the net when net.bizarre was removed. There was NO indication in net.bizarre that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen. (Some people claimed that there were cross-posts to net.bizarre that mentioned its removal. If someone DID post a warning, could you please step forward and settle this point?) I'm not saying that net.bizarre shouldn't have gone away, I'm just objecting to the manner in which it was removed. As an example of how a group SHOULD be removed, just take a look at net.flame. Virtually ALL of the discussion was cross-posted to net.flame. Calls for votes were cross-posted to net.flame. Even though the voting was overwhelmingly in favor of removal, net.flame wasn't removed, it was just dropped by several backbone sites. Earlier today, I saw a message from Greg Skinner that said that some SAs voted to remove net.flame, but it wouldn't be removed until the people that still wanted it had an opportunity to find alternate feeds. With net.bizarre, you had to be aware that the net was changing before you knew that support was necessary. With net.flame, the changes came to you and everyone had plenty of opportunity to defend it. And that's the way it should be. -- UUCP: ..!seismo!k.cs.cmu.edu!mcb ARPA: mcb@k.cs.cmu.edu "It came time to move, so I packed up my Salvador Dali print of two blindfolded dental hygienists trying to make a circle on an Etch-a-Sketch..."
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (11/14/85)
>I haven't seen any notes from people complaining that net.news.group wasn't >available at their site; I have seen notes from people who said they >*weren't allowed* to read it on their site. This strikes me as an >unreasonable attitude on the part of their SAs, and one they should try to >change. >I see it this way: if no one who is interested enough in all the changes >taking place on the net these days (where interested means interested enough >to read net.news and/or net.news.group) thought it worthwhile to drum up >support to save net.bizarre, then it must be that all the people who wanted >net.bizarre to stay around don't really care about the net and are willing >to let others decide what the direction of the net should be. Now that >that's been done, they complain that someone else decided for them. > Wombat At the time net.bizarre died, I wasn't allowed to read either net.news or net.news.group. It was not at all a question of being interested. OF COURSE it was an unreasonable attitude, but one that I had little ability to change, whether or not I was interested. Furthermore, the discussion about deleting net.bizarre was NOT posted to net.bizarre, so many people who wanted to keep net.bizarre didn't find out until it was too late. If they had known it was happening, they would have cared, but NOBODY TOLD THEM. By the way, there is currently a bizarre mailing list. Presumably some net.bizarre supporters DO consider it worthwhile to support the existence of net.bizarre in at least some form. -- If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa ...allegra!hopkins!jhunix!ins_akaa