From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wheps!eagle!mhuxt!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Newsgroups: net.news,net.jokes.d
Title: net.jokes.q just shafted somebody
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2431
Posted: Fri Jul  2 11:06:24 1982
Received: Sat Jul  3 01:49:21 1982

At USENIX in Santa Monica, we all agreed that net.jokes.q was causing
problems, and it would be renamed to ug.jokes.  This would prevent
anyone from getting it by accident, so that both sites and user that
wanted it would have to explicitly get it.

Since we don't get that newsgroup here in Columbus (by administrative
mandate) I was unable to monitor the implementation of this.  However,
it appears that net.jokes.q is alive and well and being heavily used.

Well, today the **** hit the fan.  One site (I am not at liberty to say
who) had a number of secretaries that read netnews.  They saw
net.jokes.q, got offended, and went up 3 levels of management and
complained.  This manager, who does not log in himself and probably
didn't even know that netnews existed, was appalled, and immediately
ordered netnews off that system.  (This is a typical overreaction.  It
happened because nobody had told the manager about it beforehand, so he
didn't know how useful netnews is.) Some fast talking and the
production of several documented examples of how netnews has done
significant good at that site got the manager to relent slightly: now
they are only allowed to receive "work related news".  (The good news
is that this will test the limits on subscription fields in the sys
file.  If any other site has this policy implemented, I'd like to hear
what problems you had with buffer lengths, and see your list of "work
related newsgroups".)  Also, in a typical management mandate from
someone who has been caught by surprise, the system administrator was
ordered not to tell anyone that a change had taken place.  Thus, a lot
of users are suddenly going to be in the dark.

So here we have a concrete example of how net.jokes.q did some real
harm.  It nearly did the business some harm.  It probably will next
time, when the system administrator can't produce examples.

For this reason, I'm now going to put my foot down on net.jokes.q.
RIGHT NOW, WOULD EVERY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR PLEASE PUT
!net.jokes.q,!net.jokes.limerick in their ngfile and their sys file
line for their own system.  This will only take a minute and will break
the back of this newsgroup.  I'm also going to install a program that
sends hate mail to the author of any net.jokes.q article.  It is
especially important for well connected sites to refuse these
newsgroups, because this will keep many people from getting them.  The
sites ucbvax, npois, harpo, decvax, sri-unix, duke, houxi, eagle, and
lime are probaby sufficient to kill this newsgroup.

Now, everyone please understand me.  I am not against dirty or
offensive jokes existing, or being passed around among consenting
sites.  What I am against is people being ACCIDENTLY exposed to them.
This tends to get people upset.  The problem is that subscribing to
net.jokes AUTOMATICALLY gets you net.jokes.q as well.  Thus, the
problem with accidents.  If you want to use ug.jokes, fine.  More power
to you.  In fact, I hope ug.jokes thrives, because it gives people a
legitimate outlet for their dirty jokes.  This will, in turn, keep them
off net.jokes.

	Mark Horton