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!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Re: Form and Substance Message-ID: <1006@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Thu, 11-Oct-84 19:37:52 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.1006 Posted: Thu Oct 11 19:37:52 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 06:13:22 EDT References: <947@phs.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 51 It is beyond me how so many people like Dolber will so gladly act as apologists for Arndt's behavior. We are discussing, not "supportiveness" (UGGH), not "agreement" (UGGH UGGH), but civility and the ability to treat a discussion and its members seriously. Right now, there is only one proper place for his sentiments, and that is in net.flame. Let's get one thing clear here. If he acted this way in any other newsgroup, he would be dismissed immediately as a crank. If he behaved in public similar to the way he writes in net.motss, he would be dragged off for psychiatric observation, presumably kicking and screaming still. Why are the standards for net.motss any different than other groups on USENET? They are not. Arndt tried the same behavior in net.woman, and was summarily asked to clean up his act. For some strange reason (perhaps he has fewer personal troubles with women's issues than with gay issues) he more or less obeyed. I suspect strongly (correct me if I'm wrong) that Mr. Dolber and Mr. Moffett and any other private apologists for Arndt's behavior have come to this discussion a little late. When Arndt first started behaving so bizarrely, other contributors to net.motss attempted to take him seriously. We come to this action now only after an exhausting six months or so of enduring his tiresome anti-social behavior. The readers and contributors to net.motss could not be seriously accused of intolerance by anyone who knows the facts. Let's make another thing clear: net.motss and mod.motss are not "the real world", they are discussion groups. It is an appalling, ignorant charge that gay people would prefer to live in a "protected" fantasy world, simply because the members of net.motss would like to discuss important issues seriously in an environment free of hecklers. First, only some of the members of net.motss are gay. Second, it is only by such apologists that infernal caterwauling has suddenly become a virtue. It is only through such apologists that the inability to express an idea clearly is now irrelevant to serious discourse. It is right and responsible to expect a certain standard of behavior in most USENET newsgroups, just as it is right and responsible to have standards of public behavior. By no stretch of the imagination does the history of Arndt's behavior in net.motss fit any such standard. By Mr. Dolber's standards, we should allow children to scream in the middle of a performance, and we should acquiesce when a series of hecklers stand up and disrupt a lecture. Hey, that's the real world, right? Arndt should be judged on his own boorish behavior, not as a representative of any movement other than Ken Arndt, Inc. And to reiterate the subject line here, we are discussing form and not content. Anyone willing to exercise some intellectual responsibility for their comments are welcome, and will be taken seriously. -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA