moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime) (10/27/85)
Ok, Ok, a few points very quickly -- I've got two Stupid People's courts to
write today.
Gene's Behavior:
Well folks, it strikes me that the arguments against Gene so far have been
1) this is a democracy/anarchy/whatever, and thus we all have an equal say
in it, 2) nobody discussed it and 3) all non-technical newsgroups have the
same worth.
To 1): A slight misconception here, folks. Some people are supporting
Usenet software. Some people are paying to have both gold and manure
shipped via Usenet, especially those who own backbone sights. When you put
in two weekends of work a month to keep software going, I think that person
has more say over what goes on or off the net than most. And I think the
people who are footing the bill are the ones who have the BIGGEST say.
2): I think it's been discussed for the last five weeks in
net.news.groups. Read those description of it in that document you're
supposed to read when you get onto Usenet (in net.announce.newusers).
That's where the forum exists. Ignorance isn't an excuse here -- it's kinda
like voting; you hafta pay attention to these things.
3) Good argument. Nasty consequences if we follow it up, though.
Net.bizarre:
Well, as one of the people who voted to have it installed (when it was
legally asked to be installed in net.news.group), I can only give my value
judgement: I'm glad it's gone. Sure, there was good stuff: the Bizarre
Gazette and some individual postings. But the level of crap -- do you
remember the 3000 line article that was a core dump of a program, and ended
with a line that said "My program won't run -- can you look at the dump and
fix it?" A D+ joke IF the person had truncated it to 25 lines. I've since
removed Stupid People's Court from there (it's back in net.flame or via
mailing list (mail to moi if interested)), but arguably that's crap too.
Let me try to put my two main points in a more concise manner:
I remember when I was reading the news at the University of Washington two
years ago. Somebody was talking about something Chuq had done (or was
planning to do), and I objected to it, saying people can't play God on the
news network. Well, I'm probably as stupid as I've always been (if not more
so), but I've had a little experience, and a couple things have occurred to
me:
1) SOMEBODY'S got to be God(s) on this network. Otherwise, the software
doesn't get updated, the network connections aren't updated, and you can't
get mail from point A to point B.
2) 1) takes a lot of work and time and money (except for those rare and
cherished individuals who do this work for free).
3) According to the individuals in 1), their bosses at the backbones sites
(where the majority of the news is passed) are talking about a lot of
cutbacks. Why? Well, the industry (much of it) is in a recession. People
are being laid off. Factories are closing. And it's probably a LITTLE
DAMN DIFFICULT to justify net.bizarre, net.flame,
net.any-non-technical-thing to the corporation when you've just had to lay
off N * 10 number of individuals. Heck, it's tough to justify the net at
all given this.
4) So given the above *realities* (not abstracts -- their is nothing less
abstract than a family going on welfare, or with a reduced paycheck), I am
having a little trouble with those individuals humming "The Star-Spangled
Banner" and waving First Amendment Rights over their heads. We're looking
at priorities here, gang, and it's time to pick them.
5) I really like posting to the net. It's one of my favorite things to do.
But if someone comes up to me tomorrow and says, "net.comics and net.tv and
net.movies have been canceled due to too much traffic", I don't see that I
have much beef. If someone says "AT&T has decided not to be backbone sites
any longer", I can't argue with that either. I'm a bit amazed that we've
got what we've got now. I hope it continues. But if the circumstances
discussed above happen, there's not much I can argue with. And if cutbacks
in some newsgroups will help cut down the traffic, and it's discussed in the
proper forum (heck, Spaf has asked for opinions on changing the PRESENT
forum -- didn't you people read his first article? He bent over backwards
to be fair), then I give a reluctant thumbs-up. Boy, I hope net.comics and
net.movies don't go. But nobody said life was going to be fair, and those
who are paying for, or supporting, this service are the ones who should be
making the decisions (with opinions gotten from the newsgroup at large, via
net.news.groups).
One last note... over the years I've been reading and posting news, I don't
think there is anyone on the net (with the exception of Jerry Boyajian) who
I have never met with in person, nor talked with on the phone, but have
written to and read from that is more a gentleman than Gene Spafford. He
avoids histrionics. He does tons of work for the Net (like The Hortons, like
Chuq used to, like countless others I could mention), I assume for free. He
is invariably pleasant in his conversations. He seems quite professional.
In short, the term "Southern Gentleman" keeps giving off word association
value with Gene. So perhaps the people going off on exaggerated diatribes
against Spaf might cut back their spite and observe those who are currently
disagree with his actions and his views, but are being polite and
to-the-point in their discussions. I've gone off the deep end myself (I
just recently did, to Tim Maroney, and I feel pretty bad about it), and can
understand how it happens; but these kind of attacks reflect badly on the
poster and the views that were posted, and do no one any good. If you have
posted one of these notes to Gene, no jibes; just please, let keep the
name-calling out of it.
Err... let's be careful out there.
"OW! Rubber spider venom! That's not fair!"
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>