jj@alice.UUCP (06/24/85)
In the last few weeks, a spate of activity heretofore unknown on USENET has been seen in nut.flame. Due to the extremely prejudicial nature of this traffic, and to the continued insistance from those posting the "traffic" that nut.flame is an "anything goes" newsgroup in which questions of legality and net survival are not to be considered, I PROPOSE: It is in the interest of those who wish to see nutnews continue as the nation's number one use of cpu and user cycles to formally, and permanantly remove nut.flame from the list of newgroups supported by nutnews. Any site who wishes, desipite this lack of support, to continue carrying nut.flame may indeed do so, however, those who feel that it is inappropriate and prejudicial to the continued existance of the net may remove it and remain "USENET" subscribers. I do not propose this measure lightly, as it will undoubtedly lead to the slow but certain removal of many controversial newsgroups, and possibly expose the net to charges of censorship, however, it is clear that the time has come where responsible and informed system administrators may feel that netnews is a threat to their own freedom and financial wellbeing. If anyone can suggest another method to control the misuse of the network, I await your article. Serious mail comments will be replied to, threats, insults, obscenity and flames will be mailed to the net authority nearest your site. -- TEDDY BEARS MAY BECOME EXTINCT! HELP AN ENDANGERED SPECIES! "...So many years have passed, though I'm older but a year, my mother's eyes, from your eyes, cry to me." (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj
sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) (06/25/85)
From: jj@alice.UUCP Message-ID: <3892@alice.UUCP> > I do not propose this measure lightly, as it will undoubtedly > lead to the slow but certain removal of many controversial newsgroups, > and possibly expose the net to charges of censorship, however, it is clear > that the time has come where responsible and informed system administrators > may feel that netnews is a threat to their own freedom and financial > wellbeing. > If anyone can suggest another method to control the > misuse of the network, I await your article. Can you afford to have the 'flamers' prey on another newsgroup, like what happened to net.auto and net.women? These 'flamers' help turn a 'peaceful' newsgroup into another net.flame. If net.flame is removed won't these people look for another haven? Or even worse, roam around the newsgroups and trash them and then leave to find another victim. I think the problem is to control user access to Usenet. I'm sure many are against moderation of the newsgroups, but that could only be done if someone (or more than one) would be willing to moderate each one of the newsgroups. How about a system where people could 'squeel' to the system administrator of the offender and then have the Sys.Adm. take care of it? And if nothing comes of it (the offender continues to of- fend), then maybe trying upstream (the feed for the offender's site). How about that as a try? Sunil Trivedi sunil@ut-ngp.ARPA \ / ut-sally netword \ / ut-ngp | sunil
smv8890@ritcv.UUCP (Steve Valentine) (06/25/85)
As I am sure others will point out, harpooning net.flame will likely
have the effect of scattering the flames to the four winds, and they
will land on all the other poor, unsuspecting net-groups out there.
What would perhapps be a better solution would be to prevent posting
flames to multiple news-groups, (as I believe that this is how the
current brew-ha-ha got started). This would have the effect of
containing the flames more effectively, rather than fanning them.
"Burnin' down the house!"
- Steve Valentine
- Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
- UUCP: {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!smv8890
- ARPA: ritcv!smv8890@rochester
- CSNET: smv8890@ritmangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (06/26/85)
In article <1913@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) writes: > Can you afford to have the 'flamers' prey on another newsgroup, like > what happened to net.auto and net.women? These 'flamers' help turn a > 'peaceful' newsgroup into another net.flame. If net.flame is removed > won't these people look for another haven? Or even worse, roam around > the newsgroups and trash them and then leave to find another victim. I > think the problem is to control user access to Usenet. I'm sure many > are against moderation of the newsgroups, but that could only be done > if someone (or more than one) would be willing to moderate each one of > the newsgroups. How about a system where people could 'squeel' to the > system administrator of the offender and then have the Sys.Adm. take > care of it? And if nothing comes of it (the offender continues to of- > fend), then maybe trying upstream (the feed for the offender's site). > How about that as a try? Just for Yuks, I counted the number of articles in net.flame at our site which were NOT posted to some other group. (I tried counting the other way, but gave up after 100 articles!) There were only 29 articles which were not multiply-posted, out of about 200 articles. This essentially means that net.flame has become a flag for users of rn to use in ignoring certain articles. I would also like to point out that some of the most inflamatory postings which have been seen recently occured outside of net.flame anyway; just for starters, there was the whole Don Black thing in net.religion which was repeated in net.politics and which he tried to repeat in arms-d (which is, I remind readers, a moderated group). Some regions of the net are collapsing into anarchy. People are seriously talking about shutting off some feeds, and in one case it has actually happened. Reed College took itself off the net because someone there illegally posted a copy of a commercial software product. I must confess that I have at times used rn to ignore any articles by certain persons; but if the current problems flare up again, I may have no choice. I don't know of any solutions. Certainly system administrators are going to have to be mre watchful. Maybe net.flame should go. But I doubt that the anarchy will abate easily. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
stevel@haddock.UUCP (06/26/85)
How about if all sites aim 30% of the net.flame traffic through thier
site into /dev/null.
Since only some of the traffic will be lost it will look like the net
in normal operation :-). Whenever net.flame has trouble on our machine
I wait at least a week before fixing it, really help the spool space.
net.flame is an adolecsent indulgence.
Steve Ludlum {decvax ! cca | yale | ihnp4 | cbosgd}!ima!stevel
Interactive Systems, 7th floor, 441 Stuart st, Boston, MA 02116; 617-247-1155phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (06/26/85)
Why don't we just take UCLA off the net? Seems that's where all the abusers
are. Was it by coincidence that I just read a UCLA student was convicted of
"breaking into a Dept of Defense computer network"?
--
Gertrude Stein about Oakland, California: "There is no There there."
Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPAlauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (06/27/85)
Exactly HOW do you go about "removing a site" from the net? (I intend this as a rhetorical question, not as a trigger for endless replies on this topic!) A site simply changes its name and/or finds sites that are willing to feed it. It isn't practical for everyone to install software to try find and filter certain articles--and people would rapidly learn how to bypass these in various ways anyway. The phone-based Usenet is by DEFINITION an uncontrollable free-for-all. As the number of sites and users increases, we can expect to see more "offensive" articles that attract much more attention and waste much more of everyone's time than other articles. That's the name of the game. Wait until there are, oh, 200 thousand people or so on the net. Then you'll REALLY see the silly putty start to fly. It might be sooner than one might think. --- By the way, the UCLA student convicted a couple of days ago of playing games with various ARPA and other computers (in other words, he mucked around with typical non-classified R&D computers) wasn't even a legit user of the UCLA-LOCUS system. In fact, UCLA computers were among the ones he attacked, and the UCLA CS dept. was involved in helping to track him down. This guy was apparently doing things like changing people's passwords and altering/deleting files, and left a trail of muck the size of tank tracks. He was convicted for "malicious" activities, and indeed what he was doing sure seems to have been malicious in nature. Anyway, don't blame the UCLA machines on the net for him. He wasn't one of their own. --Lauren--
b-davis@utah-cs.UUCP (Brad Davis) (06/27/85)
In article <14100008@haddock.UUCP> stevel@haddock.UUCP writes: > >How about if all sites aim 30% of the net.flame traffic through thier >site into /dev/null. > How about making net.flame only of local distribution. That way the SA can see it (so as to reprimand the culprit) and no one else has to. We haven't had net.flame for some time now and I haven't missed it at all (mostly because I unsubscribed long before). P.S. Chuq, I liked your comments. We can only have anarchy if we have social responsiblity. -- Brad Davis {ihnp4, decvax, seismo}!utah-cs!b-davis b-davis@utah-cs.ARPA
alex@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/28/85)
Summary: In article <1818@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: > >Why don't we just take UCLA off the net? Seems that's where all the abusers >are. Was it by coincidence that I just read a UCLA student was convicted of >"breaking into a Dept of Defense computer network"? Perhaps you who are net wizards will listen to a few comments from one of the dynamic duo from UCLA who seem to have caused this mess: (1) The followup line changing was stupid, but was well intentioned. It was in response to Sophie and Jeanette's double postings to net.women and net.flame. I'd figured that they'd see net.auto and net.motss if they followed up to the flame and would therefore change it and stop double posting. Obviously it didn't work. I have apologized (twice now, by the way) and don't think it is to likely that it will happen again. (2) In calling someone an abuser you really have to judge the context of their messages, as well as the content. A posting to net.general critizing someone's sexual habits is quite possibly slander and is certainly abusive. However, when the same posting is done in net.flame in response to a satirical posting, it should be reasonably clear that the posting is satirical and not offensive, especially when the person who it was directed to responded in kind. Similarly, calling someone an ---hole on the net in response to their calling you an ---hole is quite possibly immature, but is probably not abusive. How many net.flame users really take the insulting and name calling seriously? (3) Be careful that you as a system administrator don't automatically assume a posting is offensive because it offends you PERSONALLY, especially when it is likely to be shown to you out of context. I just read a net.news posting saying that Ken Arndt is the only regular contributor worth reading. I can think of plenty of people, myself not included, who find his postings absolute trash and very offensive. Our personal mail (srt and I) is well in favor of our postings (and there have even been people who thought changing the followup lines was great) so there a many people who like them (as hard as that may be for you to believe). (4) Finally, show some restraint. How many of you bothered to check with us before ranting and raving about how abusive our postings are? It is clear that many of you are simply looking for an excuse to get rid of newsgroups or opinions you don't like. Many of you were pretty quick to judge a whole institution on one or two postings to net.flame. Our postings to other groups are useful contributions to the net. net.flame is supposed to be used for venting frustration and anger, and possibly providing comic relief, and not for providing professional knowledge to others. Don't critize those who are using net.flame for its intended purpose. Alex
das@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/28/85)
In article <1818@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: > >Why don't we just take UCLA off the net? Seems that's where all the abusers ^^^ >are. Was it by coincidence that I just read a UCLA student was convicted of >"breaking into a Dept of Defense computer network"? [Second question first: Ronald Mark Austin was a physics major who never took anything more than an intro CS course; he had no legitimate access to any UCLA machine on USENET or the ARPAnet. What does he have to do with anything?] Say what? *ALL* of the net abusers are at UCLA? Anyway, my recollection is that Scott and Alex together posted no more than half a dozen messages that many people might find abusive AND that were not responses "in kind" to earlier messages. [For that you want to lose Peter Reiher's movie reviews?!] I think you've skipped a step in the "How to deal with Rogues" procedure: 1. Send a well-reasoned, non-inflammatory message to the rogue, explaining why his behavior is not appropriate. 2. If that fails, try again; stronger language is OK here, as well as a preview of later steps. 3. If that fails, drop a line to the rogue's site administrator. Be fair: don't quote flames out of context. I'd suggest to the SA that the rogue be told that if he makes one more annoying posting, he'll lose {his ability to post/his account/his job/whatever is appropriate for his situation}. After all, the rogue just may have misunderstood the rules of the game, and a note from an "outsider" doesn't carry much weight compared to one's own SA. 4. If that fails, tell the SA that his/her site may be taken off the net if the situation is not cleared up. 5. If that fails, do it. Please show how step 3 has failed. You seem to be reacting to three-week-old postings and all the followups to them. Since step 3 happened, I haven't noticed Alex playing any followup-line games, and Scott has rotated and double-rotated all his postings (and at least one person has found them funny enough to post a C program to read Scott's postings). [Broadening my reply to issues others have brought up:] About nuking net.flame: It currently serves as an escape valve; if a discussion in another group gets too heated, the flamer is told to (if s/he hasn't already done so) take it to net.flame. [It would be nice if "net.flame" being included in the Newsgroups line caused all other groups on that line to be ignored, or possibly cause "See net.flame for the text of this message" to be posted to them. That special casing would sharpen for ignorant users the distinction between flaming and non-flaming forums. (net.general should be special cased, too, to solve some of its problems)] If net.flame is nuked, a massive re-education project would have to be undertaken to inform everyone that flaming is NEVER acceptable net behavior. I think it would fail, since different people draw the line at different points (when does a political argument with a little bit of name-calling turn into a flame?). I don't think libel is the big deal people seem to be making it out to be (although I'd hate to be the test case, true). It ain't libel if it's true, and it ain't libel if there's not a chance that the reader will take it to be true. If I say that you eat fecal matter, for example, no one is going to believe that, and I could claim that I was speaking metaphorically, anyway. A newspaper (or the National Inquirer) may well be believed, since many people expect what's published therein to be basically true; net.flame, however, is recognized as a forum for the exchange of insults (even though that is a childish (if they're uncreative and unfunny) misuse of the group), so there's no real expectation of truth. (An exception might be if someone told a story about someone that purported to be true.) I've violated my self-imposed limit on length of postings, so I'll stop here. -- David Smallberg, das@{ucla-cs.ARPA,cs.ucla.edu}, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das
jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (06/28/85)
> From: jj@alice.UUCP Message-ID: <3892@alice.UUCP> > > > I do not propose this measure lightly, as it will undoubtedly > > lead to the slow but certain removal of many controversial newsgroups, > > ... > > If anyone can suggest another method to control the > > misuse of the network, I await your article. > > Can you afford to have the 'flamers' prey on another newsgroup, like > what happened to net.auto and net.women? > sunil From what little I know about the history of the net, I gather that net.flame was created as a place where people could take their arguments from other newsgroups when they got angry at each other, so as not to clutter the othe groups with insults and diatribe. However, the use of net.flame has gone beyond this. Now people use it to engage in verbal abuse as a sport. Recently, irresponsibility by flamers has become a sport, too. Marshall MacLuhan said that "The medium is the message," and one couldn't find a better example than net.flame. The mere existence of this newsgroup encourages obnoxiousness. The message is, "since a newsgroup exists for the sole purpose of verbal abuse, slander, and vile insult, then there is nothing wrong with such behavior; otherwise, why would the group have ever been created?" It's a short step from this attitude to one of general irresponsibility of the sort recently demonstrated by Alex Quilici. How would you feel if, for some reason, your local government erected a building next to your house, and passed a law allowing any sort of behavior inside the building? You would most likely feel endangered, because almost certainly the bad behavior wouldn't stay inside the building. The mere existence of net.flame not only attracts irresponsible people to the net, but also sanctions bad manners and behavior. Evidently, some people learn their writing and arguing styles in net.flame and take it elsewhere. Thus, the simple existence of the newsgroup contributes to the decline of the net. I feel that, in the long run, the elimination of net.flame would be good for the net. At first, the hard-core flamers would try to take their abuse to other groups, but they wouldn't have any centralised place to reinforce each other. Eventually, the various groups would get back to civilised discussion, and the ones who use the net only as a way to annoy would find some other way to entertain themselves. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (06/28/85)
In article <3892@alice.UUCP> jj@alice.UUCP writes: > >In the last few weeks, a spate of activity heretofore unknown on >USENET has been seen in nut.flame. Due to the extremely prejudicial >nature of this traffic, and to the continued insistance from >those posting the "traffic" that nut.flame is an "anything goes" >newsgroup in which questions of legality and net survival are >not to be considered, I PROPOSE: > It is in the interest of those who wish to see nutnews continue >as the nation's number one use of cpu and user cycles to formally, >and permanantly remove nut.flame from the list of newgroups supported >by nutnews. I think that JJ is right. It is time to get rid of net.flame. My comments on the whole situation are below, excerpted from a letter I wrote last night to someone. I think the network is at a critical point -- it is either going to move forward and grow better, or it is going to fall back and eventually die. I look at this as a maturation point. The net has simply grown too large to be everything to everybody, and we are going to have to figure out what the network ought to be and take it there. There isn't a lot of choice, actually, since if we do nothing I firmly believe we are sounding the death knoll of the network. I've seen that happen once before, I don't want to see it again if I can help it. Just for my information, if you are an admistrator that is considering (or removing) net.flame from your site, please drop me a line and let me know, and tell me how many sites downstream are going to be affected. The reality of the situation is that if enough sites do remove net.flame (and my mail indicates a LOT of sites seem to be leaning in that direction) net.flame will die regardless of the bitching and moaning. If that is the case, we probably ought to just ratify the reality and do away with it. chuq ==== begin excerpt ===== I should point out my philosophy of net.flame. Given the context of the entire network, and I am looking at this on a netwide basis, I think that net.flame creates a significant problem for the entire net by its simple existence. It condones flaming and personal abuse, and I don't think the network can survive that long term. When the network was small (under 100 sites) most of the people knew each other pretty well, and it was OK to get out and let your hair down after a long hack session. The network is now well over 2000 sites and probably 10000 readers (with something like 500 active posters over a months time) and at the current phone costs and volume levels is becoming increasingly noticed by management that doessn't see the environment, only the money. It is EASY to justify net.unix-wizards, but try to justify net.singles or net.motss or net.music or net.religion (of which I only read one, but I fight for them all) or any of the other "non-technical" groups. My fight, and I've been carrying this on in one way or another for two years, is to keep Usenet at the cost/volume level that is under the notice of a majority of managements. If we don't do that, these bean counters will come in and cut apart the net for us, and they will usually cut it down to work related groups only. This is a critical mistake in the long term because it is the non-technical groups that bring in the people that make up the postings that make the technical groups as useful as they are. If we had only technical groups, a lot of the people that read the net would simply leave, and we would be cutting off a significant part of what makes Usenet as good as it is -- the brainpower available. So, you end up with a dilemma. I see a time (not very far off, I think) where if you do nothing, someone does it for you (to you?). If you do something, you have to be careful to do it right. I think that what ultimately has to happen is for the net to shrink and to refocus itself on the priorities. I see these priorities as being the systems it supports (Unix and the other stuff like net.micro) and the people (net.singles, net.motss, net.religion, and the other groups). net.flame is a problem in a number of ways. It generates a lot of volume, which ups the cost of the net, making it more likely to become the focus of a bean counter. It generates very little useful information, and the network has gotten big enough that useless information can no longer be ignored -- the static level is interfering with the information exchange. It generates a LOT of articles that, if taken out of context, would give someone a lot of great ammunition if they want to get a site off the net; and I guarantee you that they WOULD take it out of context. Worst of all, I think that it generates an atmosphere that says "hey, you can say anything you want"; that flaming is okay; that anything goes. This atmosphere leaks out into the other groups -- take a look at net.religion or net.music sometime. My position is that if we can get rid of net.flame and come down hard on the really bad flamers we will cause the others to think twice before they flame. If we can make the flame unacceptable, then maybe people will start talking to each other instead of yelling, and we might actually learn something. It's hard enough to get information across this network as it is, we don't need to make it harder, and I really believe that the flames DO make it harder to get real communication across. It is too easy to forget that the thing on the other end of the CRT is a human being, too, and that they have feelings. My philosophy is simple -- never say anything you wouldn't say in a room full of people. The network is simply a very large room. 90% of what I see come through net.flame would make most people either blush or get mad, and that means that the group fails as a communication medium -- you are no longer talking to a person, you are throwing darts at a piece of cardboard. And you don't see it when the cardboard starts bleeding. I have a vision of where I'd like to see the network go, and I do what I can to take it there. I'm not saying I'm right, because I'm probably not, but at least I'm trying. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to get it there. I think net.flame has to go because it creates a negative environment on the net and I think Scott gave the net the push it needed to realize what a problem net.flame is. Any dozen articles a month could have served the same purpose, as far as I'm concerned. I think Scott just had the bad luck not to duck fast enough, and not to be quite smart enough to back off when people started yelling. If he had backed off and been nice and contrite, it would have blown over in a couple of days. What he did, though, was stand up and say "yeah? You and what army?" which isn't a completely sane thing to do in front of a mob, and he is getting trampled for it. With any luck, it will teach the other flamers to be a little more careful about what they say, because the mob is going to be looking for other people to trample. I, of course, am not afraid to stand in front of the mob and play cheerleader, either... *grin* But I always run the risk of tripping and getting trampled, too. For your information, one thing I've always been willing to sacrifice for the net, and I've done it a couple of times in one way or another, is me. That is how far my committment to this sucker goes. I've never really figured out why, either. >I guess what I have learned from all of this are things >we should have gotten from your net.announce.newusers posting: It is >easy to lose the meaning when all you see are the words. Look at me as a GREAT example of that. I've been hacking this net for over two years now, and I put out a LOT of volume (although I've been more or less out of it since the first of the year until now because I've been working on other stuff, like REAL writing). Despite that, I still put my foot in my mouth with great regularity. If I, as close to a professional Usenet poster as you will probably find continues to screw up, what chance does a rank amateur have? >While I understand that net.flame has a cost, >it does have some benefits, specifically providing a place for people >to vent their anger. To tell the truth, I like to flame. I consider flames lazy writing. With a little bit of thought, you can say the same things in ways that are at least as satisfying and a LOT more productive. Too many people on the net are taking the lazy way out, and it doesn't help them and it doesn't help others. If all you want to do is vent frustration, then go punch a parking meter. The net is here to communicate. You can do both if you try. -- :From the misfiring synapses of: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA The offices were very nice, and the clients were only raping the land, and then, of course, there was the money...
alex@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/29/85)
In article <1913@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) writes: > How about a system where people could 'squeel' to the > system administrator of the offender and then have the Sys.Adm. take > care of it? And if nothing comes of it (the offender continues to of- > fend), then maybe trying upstream (the feed for the offender's site). > How about that as a try? If you are upset about a posting, complain to the offender first, before "squealing" to their system administrator, or complaining to every newsgroup on the net. Give the offender a chance to correct the mistake. Logging in to find a mailbox full of hate mail will make most offenders aware of the problem, and motivate them to do something to correct it. "Oinking" to the system administrator should be reserved for those cases where the person clearly doesn't care and many net readers are bothered, not just you and your best buddy. Maybe there should be "net.news.squeal" where all those who are offended can post the persons name, the complaint, and a pointer to the offensive posting. If there are many complaints about the same posting, then the system administrator could be notified. Alex Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
lab@qubix.UUCP (Larry Bickford) (06/29/85)
As the man said:
"Self-government won't work - without self-discipline."
Wherein Usenet will not discpline itself and will not allow itself to be
disciplined, it does not deserve to be. [Editorial - this also applies
to the news media.]
Abuse requires three things: abuser, victim (not necessarily a specific
person), and channel for abuse. Ending abuse can thus be done by
removing the victim from any possible channel, removing the channel, or
removing the abuser. The middle implies nuking net.flame; but abusers
will find other places to dump on. The first implies a strictly
technical and/or moderated net. [Yes, I hear those raspberries! I want
to keep {ba,ca}.general.] The last is illegal unless:
the abuser's company does something
the abuser's news feed(s) do(es) something
News feeds don't have to account for no longer servicing an abuser's
site. In the case of a multi-site place such as UCLA, though, this may
not be easy.
But if a site thinks that an abuser is costing them something, they then
have reason to take action.... may take some creativity in the case of
UCLA, but it's the only sure way without endangering Usenet's current
anarchy.
Or you can settle for the other alternatives... your choice.
--
The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
{amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab
You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (06/29/85)
Another point in the net.flame controversy: Certain groups (the various religion groups, for instance) are very prone to discussions which rapidly turn into (or start out as) flaming sessions. These discussions rarely move over into net.flame, except when they are cross-posted to both. This only helps those rn users who don't want to read anything from net.flame. For these groups, I don't think that the removal of net.flame will change things much. It never seemed to sop up the perennial "driving courtesy" fight in net.auto. As I've watched groups get added, I've noticed that people tend to post where they feel like, ragardless of the structure of the system. Attacks upon Christianity are still carried out in net.religion and net.philosophy; evolution debates keep appearing in net.religion. Trekkie discussions and Dr. Who continue to infest net.sf-lovers. In that respect I think that net.flame is a failure, especially considering how much of its traffic is cross-posted to other groups. Considering that one promonent and rather flamy netter has publicly stated tht he will post articles wherever he feels like posting them, I think that system adminstrators have every right to take matters into their own hands. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/01/85)
In article <6179@ucla-cs.ARPA> das@ucla-cs.UUCP (David Smallberg) writes: >In article <1818@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: >> >>Why don't we just take UCLA off the net? Seems that's where all the abusers ucla is a very small part of the problem. They just happened to be standing up and yelling when the net noticed. The problem isn't ucla, it is the concept of net.flame. >I think you've skipped a step in the "How to deal with Rogues" procedure: >1. Send a well-reasoned, non-inflammatory message to the rogue, explaining why > his behavior is not appropriate. >2. If that fails, try again; stronger language is OK here, as well as a preview > of later steps. >3. If that fails, drop a line to the rogue's site administrator. Be fair: > don't quote flames out of context. I'd suggest to the SA that the rogue be > told that if he makes one more annoying posting, he'll lose {his ability to > post/his account/his job/whatever is appropriate for his situation}. After > all, the rogue just may have misunderstood the rules of the game, and a note > from an "outsider" doesn't carry much weight compared to one's own SA. >4. If that fails, tell the SA that his/her site may be taken off the net if the > situation is not cleared up. >5. If that fails, do it. > >Please show how step 3 has failed. You seem to be reacting to three-week-old >postings and all the followups to them. Since step 3 happened, I haven't >noticed Alex playing any followup-line games, and Scott has rotated and >double-rotated all his postings (and at least one person has found them funny >enough to post a C program to read Scott's postings). In my specific case, I feel that step 3 failed in this case because the apology that was returned from Scott involved his cross posting to net.women and not the content of his posting in general, when my original complain was that it was posted AT ALL. Therefore, the actions taken by ucla against scott that I am aware of are not acceptable because they did not deal with my complaint. For the record, actions 4 and 5 up there simply have no enforcement mechanism. There simply isn't any way I can get an upstream site from ucla (to use an example, there are others that would qualify as well) to cancel their feed. We can talk about it, but to my knowledge it hasn't been done and a realistic way of doing it hasn't been found. All we can really do is set things up so that all messages from a specific user or site can be boycotted by individual sites and hope for a large enough boycott to make a notice. To my knowledge, this also has never occurred successfully. chuq -- :From the misfiring synapses of: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA The offices were very nice, and the clients were only raping the land, and then, of course, there was the money...
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (07/01/85)
[note: this got a little long trying to anticipate some design issues] 1. This is not original, I believe something like it was used in a system called Xanadu. 2. Suspend your immediate ideas that all this could be circumvented by a hacker, assume peer pressure and other checks by other sites. 3. This focuses on quantity more than quality but should improve both. Ok... The primary way to prevent abuse of resources is to put a cost on those resources, even an artificial one (eg. computer funny money.) This is a summary of an idea I heard second hand about another system that made some sense to me. Maybe rather than flaming flames people could work out the necessary details and software if they are interested. Assume you are given an account to send some number of messages and some amount of message text per unit time (say, month.) Now, everyone starts out with some reasonable amount which limits them. The positive feedback in the system is that if people find your article useful (this part is hard!) they return to you, at no cost to them, one 'unit' of I like your stuff which then ups your allotment. If they don't, your account just drains. The analogy is publishing. You pay for the cost of printing etc and if you did something useful then people buy your book and you are encouraged to do more. If they don't, well, you are out of business. Problems with implementation: 1. How do people 'pay' you? First, I would hope the system would not limit this to only if they agree with you, just that they found it interesting. An overly simple idea would be just that they read (printed out) your article tho that's the only way to often discover that it's just garbage and maybe not what the Subject: line claimed. A purely voluntary system (please enter value: ) would not work either I don't think, although maybe if the answer was just 'y' or 'n' (Pay? ) that would suffice. Yes, people would abuse it somewhat but hopefully it would average out to the truth and everyone is subject to the same silliness anyhow. 2. How do we enforce? What is to stop people from upping their accounts on unregulated machines? I would just assume that a filter would keep accounting at every site that wanted to and major abusers would be spotted with typical consequences (warn, threaten, shut them off.) Counterfeiting is a serious crime. 3. What about things like net.sources which are voluminous, wouldn't that discourage some of the most useful stuff? Not if it were really useful, as I said, you get paid back. We have to assume your initial account is large enough to allow such postings or perhaps some groups like net.sources could be unregulated, lower rates or post-accounted. 4. Isn't this gonna cause a lot of errors due to added complexities? What if my '$$' don't find their way back to me due to some transmission problem? Them's the breaks I guess, again, would probably affect everyone the same if that's any comfort and it would be sad if such a concern would kill an otherwise good idea, no? 5. Won't all this accounting info cause even more overhead? If it causes more traffic than it reduces than it is a failure of an idea. I suspect though we aren't talking about an enormous amount of data though the whole assocative data base could be problematic for sites with limited disk space. A back of the envelope calculation: Say you kept each site in a table (I dunno, 1,000 sites?) which took 20 bytes each, that's 20K. Add to that 20 users for each site (ie. non-zero this month only) at 8 bytes for a userid plus 8 bytes for an account amount (4 for usage, 4 for payage), (16 bytes) which is another 320K or 340K total. Double that and you're still not up to very much disk space. 6. These data bases of accounting will *never* be in synch! Not generally important unless you suspect someone of being an abuser which is probably the only time you would look at another site's usage/payage. In this case you could always double check with some other sites. The main hope is that your local base for your users is kept up which should not be as hard. Another possibility is a small number of sites try to act as official record keepers sending out summaries at the end of the month for everyone or on demand (tho in any case you keep your local users accounting.) -Barry Shein, Boston University Free associating in public, as usual
jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) (07/01/85)
> It is in the interest of those who wish to see nutnews continue > as the nation's number one use of cpu and user cycles to formally, > and permanantly remove nut.flame from the list of newgroups supported > by nutnews. Any site who wishes, desipite this lack of support, > to continue carrying nut.flame may indeed do so, however, > those who feel that it is inappropriate and prejudicial to the > continued existance of the net may remove it and remain "USENET" > subscribers. > > I do not propose this measure lightly, as it will undoubtedly > lead to the slow but certain removal of many controversial newsgroups, > and possibly expose the net to charges of censorship, however, it is clear > that the time has come where responsible and informed system administrators > may feel that netnews is a threat to their own freedom and financial > wellbeing. > > (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj All this "responsibility" from someone who misuses the ORGANIZATION header: Organization: New Jersey State Farm for the Terminally Bewildered What news groups a site carries is between that site and it's neighbors. If the administration of a site feels that a group is inappropriate then cut it off and advise your neighbors that you are doing so. Don't tell the rest of the net what to do. Removing net.flame will not get rid of flames. It will just spread them arround in other groups and make it impossible for sites to selectively control them. Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC {hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry
rohn@randvax.UUCP (Laurinda Rohn) (07/01/85)
In article <6179@ucla-cs.ARPA> das@ucla-cs.UUCP (David Smallberg) writes: >[Broadening my reply to issues others have brought up:] >About nuking net.flame: It currently serves as an escape valve; if a >discussion in another group gets too heated, the flamer is told to (if s/he >hasn't already done so) take it to net.flame. > ... >If net.flame is nuked, a massive re-education project would have to be >undertaken to inform everyone that flaming is NEVER acceptable net behavior. >I think it would fail, since different people draw the line at different >points (when does a political argument with a little bit of name-calling turn >into a flame?). I think David has made an excellent point. This would be my main objection to removing net.flame. While I personally feel that the group is about as worthwhile as an electric candle snuffer, it does serve a purpose. It sometimes seems that there are people who can't respond to an article without flaming, and net.flame gives them somewhere to do it so the rest of us don't have to read it. Lauri rohn@rand-unix.ARPA ..decvax!randvax!rohn "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on."
phoenix@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (John H. Johnson) (07/02/85)
No one has yet mentioned that flames can be *mailed* - most newsreading
programs have a reply capability. There are very few remarks that need public
frying, and you get burned just as well with a personal note for most purposes.
If alternatives are stressed, it may be easier for people concerned with an
outlet to accept the move away from net.flame. As for improving the mentality,
I believe that those who flame will feel a bit more constrained in +what+ they
post, since mail is more personal, more direct. Comments?
0 0 (Crises?.... What Crises?)
^
\_/ John
Phoenix@ucbtopaz ucbvax!ucbtopaz!phoenixitkin@luke.UUCP (Steven List) (07/02/85)
In article <484@oliveb.UUCP> jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) writes: >What news groups a site carries is between that site and it's neighbors. >If the administration of a site feels that a group is inappropriate then >cut it off and advise your neighbors that you are doing so. Don't tell >the rest of the net what to do. Yay Jerry! While I might not love all of what passes through net.flame, I do enjoy reading it most of the time. Since oliveb is our feed, I'm really pleased with Jerry's attitude. Thus far, I've not heard any CONVINCING arguments for removing net.flame. It seems that the simplest thing to do is ignore it if you don't like it. I've actually heard of people who've never even READ net.flame (shocking! :^>~). -- *** * Steven List @ Benetics Corporation, Mt. View, CA * Just part of the stock at "Uncle Bene's Farm" * {cdp,greipa,idi,oliveb,sun,tolerant}!bene!luke!steven ***
nrh@faust.UUCP (07/03/85)
I've bad news. The idea of getting rid of a certain sort of behavior by canceling the corresponding newsgroup has been tried. It failed. I believe it was 4 or 5 years ago that a separate newsgroup for "jokes of questionable taste" was deleted. As I recall, "net.jokes.q" was removed by Mark Horton after a particularly execrable joke regarded as racist or sexist was posted there. Horton sent out rmgroup messages, the group ceased to exist, and the "questionable" jokes began appearing in net.jokes. At the time, I recall Horton remarking that it just goes to show that if you plug the sewers the sewage flows out onto the streets. It was at this point that some forgotten genius came up with the idea of "rot13", probably saving the net from the deletion of net.jokes, and (personal opinion) the spreading of the jokes elsewhere. We DO need some way of attacking the idea that the existence of the group implies the toleration or encouragement of discussion of the subject. As one placard put it (while the 39 hostages were still imprisoned) "Endurance is not toleration".
xavier@ut-ngp.UTEXAS ( Xavier) (07/03/85)
From: alex@ucla-cs.UUCP <6173@ucla-cs.ARPA> ] Perhaps you who are net wizards will listen to a few comments from ] one of the dynamic duo from UCLA who seem to have caused this mess: So Alex still thinks he was pretty smart! I guess if one can't get famous, he can try hard to be infamous. ] (1) The followup line changing was stupid, but was well intentioned. ] It was in response to Sophie and Jeanette's double postings to ] net.women and net.flame. I'd figured that they'd see net.auto ] and net.motss if they followed up to the flame and would therefore ] change it and stop double posting. Obviously it didn't work. I ] have apologized (twice now, by the way) and don't think it is to ] likely that it will happen again. Not likely, but possibly, huh? Your immaturity is bound to surface again (once you placate your audience)! Already you've convinced Chuq with your sweet-talking B.S. The reason those two brats sent followups to net.auto and net.motss is because both Scott and Alex had already had a field day with net.auto and both of them have shown their hate/fear of the gay community. ] (2) In calling someone an abuser you really have to judge the context ] of their messages, as well as the content. A posting to net.general ] critizing someone's sexual habits is quite possibly slander and is ] certainly abusive. However, when the same posting is done in net.flame ] ... How many net.flame users really take the insulting and name calling ] seriously? Upon seeing the responses to their insults on Sophie and Jeanette one could clearly see that most were not laughing with them and the majority were quite upset at the language they used. Who told them that they could put whatever they wanted on net.flame, their proctologist? ] Our personal mail (srt and I) is well ] in favor of our postings (and there have even been people who ] thought changing the followup lines was great) so there a many ] people who like them (as hard as that may be for you to believe). I bet that Scott and Alex have plenty of followers (enough to start a new sect). Those two have been working together for some time, first doing a number on net.auto and then on net.women & net.flame. ] (4) Finally, show some restraint. How many of you bothered to check with ] us before ranting and raving about how abusive our postings are? Who's telling whom to show restraint! I'm sure all those who were angered by those brats saw their brilliance on net.women/net.flame. Why should anyone "check" with them when they try to humiliate others? I guess the analogy to Alex's statement could be "check with the rapist, before the victim and eye-witnesses". ] Many of you were pretty ] quick to judge a whole institution on one or two postings to net.flame. ] Our postings to other groups are useful contributions to the net. Actually more than a couple of postings to net.flame & net.women. Other people, not Scott or Alex, have made "useful" contributions. ] net.flame is supposed to be used for venting frustration and anger,... ] Don't critize those who are using net.flame for its intended purpose. I believe there was something in net.announce.newuser about net ettiquete. If Scott or Alex need to vent their frustrations and anger they have each other since they know each other VERY well. Is that the reason they dislike net.motss? <Seeing that slime use net.news as a forum to justify his behavior, made me participate in this discussion. Worms, like Alex and Scott, make dumping net.flame a must. Instead of worrying about "feeding" sites like ucla-cs how about the other part of UUCP, "picking up" their articles or UUCP mail? Feed uncontrollable sites but have the "feed" not pick up any articles. Can that be done without too much pain? Sorry, Chuq for "venting" my anger here.>
chrisa@azure.UUCP (Chris Andersen) (07/03/85)
In article <3892@alice.UUCP> jj@alice.UUCP writes: > > I PROPOSE: > It is in the interest of those who wish to see nutnews continue >as the nation's number one use of cpu and user cycles to formally, >and permanantly remove nut.flame from the list of newgroups supported >by nutnews. Any site who wishes, desipite this lack of support, >to continue carrying nut.flame may indeed do so, however, >those who feel that it is inappropriate and prejudicial to the >continued existance of the net may remove it and remain "USENET" >subscribers. I thought that site adminstrators can already do this (as a matter of fact, some have already done it). If any site wishes to stop receiving net.flame, they may do so (of course they may have to contend with the ire of their users). I think that many of the problems (usually associated with cross-posting to net.flame) can be eliminated if the news software was to prompt a poster any time his/her followup will go to more then one newsgroup (not just net.flame but ANY newsgroups). This would make people more aware of just where there "profound" words are going. Also, changing the news prefix from "net" to "world" as someone else suggested may also go far tworads solving these problems. Many people may not realize just how many are actually reading their words (and possibly getting quite a laugh out of them B-)). If your suggesting the COMPLETE removal of net.flame then I would say that this is a bad move. People will naturally flame when they feel the need arises and I'm sure many would agree that it would be better to contain it to one newsgroup instead of allowing it to pollute the entire net. Chris Andersen
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (07/05/85)
net.flame was created to give the flamers a place to post so they would keep their flames off the other newsgroups. For the most part, this has worked well. If we remove net.flame, the flames will just start to appear in other groups. One thing we could do is forbid (in software) cross posting to net.flame and anything else. We could refuse to accept or forward such postings, just like moderated groups. This would help keep flames from spilling out into other groups. Another thing that might be useful is to automatically rotate all postings to net.flame. Finally, there is no guarantee that any particular site will propagate nonessential groups like net.flame. If a particular group shows up in the top 25 and a SA feels it's eating up too much of his/her machine's resources, just don't forward it. I am not asking all hosts to turn it off, since that would cripple the connectivity of net.flame, making it a non-group and giving flamers an excuse to move to other groups. Just pointing out that hosts are not required to carry every single newsgroup. Some other high volume / low value groups might belong in this category too. Mark Horton
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (07/05/85)
> It seems that the simplest thing to do is ignore it if you don't like > it. I've actually heard of people who've never even READ net.flame > (shocking! :^>~). > *** > * Steven List @ Benetics Corporation, Mt. View, CA > * {cdp,greipa,idi,oliveb,sun,tolerant}!bene!luke!steven You've missed the point of the prior discussion, which was not just that net.flame was offensive to some, but that (1) it takes up gobs of disk space, communications time, and the like, and (2) it might at least theoretically leave a site passing it open to libel suits. Ignoring net.flame hardly deals with those two problems. -- D Gary Grady Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706 (919) 684-3695 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
fair@ucbvax.ARPA (Erik E. Fair) (07/08/85)
Let's consider the argument that flames would smear all the other ``good'' newsgroups if net.flame were removed. For the class of postings that appear in both net.flame and in some other newsgroup, having net.flame does no good, since the flames are also being posted to the group involved. Ucbvax keeps one month of netnews on line, and the numbers there are 49% cross posted (338 articles), 51% only in net.flame (359 articles). So half the identified flames on the network already DO appear in the other newsgroups. I suggest that all of you ask yourselves two questions: 1. In your experience, how often have flaming arguments been completely moved from <arbitrary newsgroup> to net.flame so that other discussion could continue on, ``business as usual''? 2. Would you (do you!) tolerate or condone unbridled flaming in your favorite newsgroup (this assumes that your favorite newsgroup is not net.flame)? Further comments are solicited. keeper of the network news on ucbvax, Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
frodo@wcom.UUCP (Jim Scardelis) (07/08/85)
> > It seems that the simplest thing to do is ignore it if you don't like > > it. I've actually heard of people who've never even READ net.flame > > (shocking! :^>~). > > *** > > * Steven List @ Benetics Corporation, Mt. View, CA > > * {cdp,greipa,idi,oliveb,sun,tolerant}!bene!luke!steven > > You've missed the point of the prior discussion, which was not just that > net.flame was offensive to some, but that (1) it takes up gobs of disk > space, communications time, and the like, and (2) it might at least > theoretically leave a site passing it open to libel suits. Ignoring > net.flame hardly deals with those two problems. > -- > D Gary Grady > Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706 > (919) 684-3695 > USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary And removing net.flame doesn't deal with them either, it just moves the problem out into all the other newsgroups where we don't want to see the flames. The best solution is a patch to inews insuring that flames go to net.flame and not to multiple newsgroups. Incidentally, wcom is an IBM PC/AT with *very* limited disk space, so we only get a limited news feed from timeinc, consisting of the newsgroups that were demanded by my users. Net.flame is one of them. -- Jim Scardelis uucp: {vax135|ihnp4}!timeinc!wcom!frodo ARPA: 1891@NJIT-EIES.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA "The opinions expressed herein are those of my computer, and not necessarily those of myself, Warner Computer Systems, or any other computer or company along the line. "
bala@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (bala) (07/08/85)
From: fair@ucbvax.ARPA (Erik E. Fair) Message-ID: <8853@ucbvax.ARPA> > For the class of postings that appear in both net.flame and in some > other newsgroup, having net.flame does no good, since the flames are > also being posted to the group involved. Ucbvax keeps one month of > netnews on line, and the numbers there are 49% cross posted (338 > articles), 51% only in net.flame (359 articles). > So half the identified flames on the network already DO appear in the > other newsgroups. Has anyone looked at net.politics or net.women recently and to a lesser degree net.social and net.followup? I think the "stats" on net.politics and maybe net.women approach the 50% cross-posting like net.flame. I was just reviewing the last 200-250 articles on net.politics and most of them were cross-posted with net.women and/or net.social and/or net.followup. "You know what I really hate?" I hate to have to continually use the 'n' key in vnews (ut-ngp doesn't have rn) having already read the particular articles in another newsgroup. net.politics really pulls in articles so the cross-posting doesn't help any. Maybe the discussion on net.flame will also address the problems with cross-posting (especially net.politics since almost any discussion can be [and is] considered 'political').
jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) (07/09/85)
> > You've missed the point of the prior discussion, which was not just that > net.flame was offensive to some, but that (1) it takes up gobs of disk > space, communications time, and the like, and (2) it might at least > theoretically leave a site passing it open to libel suits. Ignoring > net.flame hardly deals with those two problems. > -- > D Gary Grady > Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706 > (919) 684-3695 > USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary Can we remove disk space from the list of complaints about news volumn! If you want to claim that your system is overloaded (cpu) or that your modems are busy then fine. But if your complaint is that you don't have enough disk space then I think you are stupid. Why don't you just expire the groups you think are junk after X days. I hear about lots of sites that expire jokes, flames, religion, etc. after a few days. When our disk gets full I do it too. By expiring the "junk" quickly you can keep the disk usage down while still feeding it to other sites. The same goes for sites that won't add another feed because "we don't have enough disk space". Havn't you heard of batched news. With the F option your overhead is limited to a list of filenames, one file of a few Kbytes. I also question how many sites are really short of cpu cycles. I have yet to see a machine that was busy at 3AM. (No examples please, I am sure there are a few.) With batching you can control when the news gets sent. So the only real resource is communications. If your modems can't keep up with the volumn during the non-peak hours or if you are paying extra for that communication then you have a perfect reason to limit it. Before someone flames me for what they thought I said let me state my possition. I think any site can carry what it wants and refuse what it wants. I just don't like to hear them justifying censorship with false reasons. I don't read flame, jokes, religion, or politics. However I don't intend to remove them just because they don't interest me. So will the next SA to complain about news resources please tell us whether they have attempted to use batching, compression, early expiration, and scheduling during off hours. Otherwise just blow it away because you don't like it and quit trying to justify yourself. Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC {hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry
edward@ukecc.UUCP (Edward C. Bennett) (07/09/85)
In article <990@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>, phoenix@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (John H. Johnson) writes: > > No one has yet mentioned that flames can be *mailed* - most newsreading > programs have a reply capability. There are very few remarks that need public > frying, and you get burned just as well with a personal note for most purposes. > If alternatives are stressed, it may be easier for people concerned with an > outlet to accept the move away from net.flame. As for improving the mentality, > I believe that those who flame will feel a bit more constrained in +what+ they > post, since mail is more personal, more direct. Comments? > But a mailed flame would not satisfy most flamers. There seems to be a certain amout of ego gratification associated with flaming. Flamers get a charge out of `winning' a public battle of wits. To `win' in a private mail discussion offers less thrills than humiliating someone infront of the entire USENET. Read just about any flame. There is almost an implied "See, I'm better/smarter/more-sophisticated than you" message underlying the thoughts of the flamer. Many USENETters, it seems, rely on this method of pumping their egos to fill some void in their personalities. As has been said before, if net.flame is removed, these people will migrate to other newsgroups for their mindgames. -- Edward C. Bennett UUCP: ihnp4!cbosgd!ukma!ukecc!edward /* A charter member of the Scooter bunch */
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) (07/11/85)
> net.flame was created to give the flamers a place to post so they > would keep their flames off the other newsgroups. For the most > part, this has worked well. If we remove net.flame, the flames > will just start to appear in other groups. > > One thing we could do is forbid (in software) cross posting to > net.flame and anything else. We could refuse to accept or forward > such postings, just like moderated groups. This would help keep > flames from spilling out into other groups. > > Mark Horton This is the best solution I've seen. This should probably be configurable through a system administrator-controlled file, so that the net can clamp down on other cross-postings without requiring a new version of netnews. After all, it's already being done in some cases with net.general. I also agree with the previous remarks that suggest forcing followups to multiple news groups to be verfied, as in the mock dialog: The following newsgroups are given; please choose only those necessary: net.news[n]? net.news.group[n]? net.women[n]? net.religion[n]? Of course, the default action of many carriage returns would specify NO newsgroups, which could be the same as "cancelled". Joel West CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego) {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@SDCSVAX.ARPA