cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (12/14/89)
korenek@ficc.uu.net (Gary Korenek) writes: >In article <49576@bbn.COM>, cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: >> hettinger@krypton.arc.nasa.gov (Lawrence J. Hettinger) writes: >> > In rec.humor I read a particularly brutal series of >> >sadistic jokes dealing with child abuse and pedophilia posted >> >by an individual who will go unnamed... >> > [text deleted] >> > Am I right or wrong? >> I'm neither the net censor, nor the net policeman; so if I don't like >> something, I figure I just shouldn't read it. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >How do you know that you don't like it unless you read it first? That is one of the reasons why part of good netiquette includes using good and informative subject lines, and maybe even Keyword: and Summary: header lines. In some of the newsgroups, rot13 is also used often. Altogether, *most* postings give you a pretty good clue what they're going to be about withoutyour having to actually read them. Yes, there are occasional landmines that slip through your subject-line-filter, and it will sometimes have you pass over a posting that you might have actually wanted to see... but that's the breaks --- nothing in life is perfect. I'm not a rec.humor reader, so I don't know about this posting in particular. If it didn't include enough hints about tastelessness to follow, then one can rightly doubly flame the author --- once for lack of taste, and again for lack of netiquette, but it still strikes me as a private matter between the poster and the offended reader, no? /\
cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (12/15/89)
capehart@arrakis.nevada.edu (ANNE CAPEHART) writes: >cosell@bbn.com writes: >hettinger@krypton.arc.nasa.gov (Lawrence J. Hettinger) writes: >>> In rec.humor I read a particularly brutal series of >>distic jokes dealing with child abuse and pedophilia posted >>>by an individual who will go unnamed. I have spent a little >>>bit of time yesterday and today blasting this person via e-mail, >>>and I wrote to the system administrator at the University where >>>the posting originated. I basically just lodged a protest with >>>the sysad, but also asked that consideration be made of terminating >>>this individual's access to the net. >>> Am I right or wrong? >>Unless you have been appointed some kind of network-goodness-evaluator, >>regardless of what notion might exist of "abuse" of the net, I think >>you were out of line. Plain and simple, I think it is just none of your >>business... > Sorry, I have to disagree! No, he's not the network censor; neither >am I. But someone else's rights stop where my nose begins. And when >one makes light of child abuse on a public forum, my nose is getting rubbed >into it. > Maybe the person did have the "right" to post such jokes. But I also >have a right to strongly voice my opposition to them! Well, we're doomed to disagree. But I think you missed the antecedent of what I said was "out of line". The question was *NOT* if you have a right a right to voice such opposition; the question was what is the appropriate *response*. Flaming the guy to a cinder on rec.humor.d... perfectly fair game. Emailing the guy flamage... perfectly fair and appropriate. And as I said, orthogonally, my *personal* ecology dictates that this is "just usenet" and life's too short for this kind of shit, so I just put the guy in my KILL file and forget about him. But "running to mommy 'cause Jimmy is pissing me off" [that is, going to his sysadmin, or a downstream feed of his site, or his local newspapers or some other third-party who you think will exact vengeange on your behalf] is NOT an appropriate response IMHO. Said more clearly: I think you can take ANY response you would like that keeps the matter between you and the poster that pissed you off, and keeps the matter a usenet-one (e.g., flame the guy to death). Once you take actions that could affect OTHER posters/newsreadingpersons, or that drags things OUT of the usenet domain I think you're out of line. I do NOT believe that you should have the prerogative to decide what *I* can read [which is precisely the effect if you work to get the net privileges revoked for people who irritate you], nor will I impose my biases and inclinations on you. /Bernie\