Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Re: Form and Substance Message-ID: <1005@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Thu, 11-Oct-84 18:51:33 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.1005 Posted: Thu Oct 11 18:51:33 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 06:13:04 EDT References: <947@phs.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 46 Come off it!! Are you serious?? That the complaint(s) is Arndt is "unsupportive", "unintelligible", "rude"? Do you actually read either Arndt's or anyone else's postings in net.motss? (I'm get- ting tired of asking this rather rhetorical question, but the myopia on this net is just unbelievable!) SOME of the complaints against belligerent f*ckups like Arndt & Brunson are that they're bigoted, insulting, exhibitionistic in really loathsome ways (like, for example, street psychotics), filled with hatred and self-hatred, etc. etc. And this adds up to merely "rude"? Is it merely "rude" to call a group of blacks "filthy niggers" who ought to be "hung from the nearest available tree" AND then launch into, say, "rational" discussion of race relations and the legislative agenda before Congress? And then swerve into a polemic denouncing funding for sickle cell anemia ("Let 'em die! We'll finally have social peace!"), and discourse repetitively & at great length about the genetic disposition of black men to commit rape (of white women, that is)? "Unsupportive", "unintelligible", & "rude". Are we even speaking the same language (English, that is)? Sometimes I really wonder. No one would make coherence or "supportiveness" (whatever that term means) a criterion for posting messages on this net, considering the character of much net mail. A newsgroup moderator won't function to "translate" rant into a kind of rational filtrate: the whole point about the Arndt Phenomenon is that bigoted and deliberately offensive postings are totally unacceptable. NO exchange will occur unless parti- cipants observe MINIMUM standards of civility & respect for each other. And indulging, revelling in, something as vile as blatant and uninhibited bigotry on the net simply won't be tolerated, at least not in this newsgroup. Here's a suggestion for assigning "penances" to offenders who "repent" (fat chance!): ban them from publication or even summarizing in mod.motss for as long a period as they've been "sinning", in the case of Arndt, one whole year (so Ken can't expect to rejoin the fray until November 1985). Of course, for Arndts & Brunsons it would be entirely just to ban them permanently, & I don't mean to argue against this option at all. "Words, words, words: I know not what they mean." Ron Rizzo