Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!nsc!chuqui
From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.flame
Subject: Re: mod.all and net.fascism
Message-ID: <1614@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 21:01:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: nsc.1614
Posted: Wed Oct 17 21:01:08 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Oct-84 01:44:29 EDT
References: <1612@nsc.UUCP> <379@amdahl.UUCP>
Organization: The Warlocks Cave, Castrovalva
Lines: 142

> == amdahl!gam

> Sorry but I don't see it that way.  Net.motss was suffering from extreme
> divergence of viewpoint, not garbage generated by assholes.
Another divergence of viewpoint here. Not.motss was set up so that the gay
people could have a place to discuss the issues surrounding being gay.
Unfortunately they have been harrassed by a number of people who keep
bringing up discussions of whether gay's SHOULD exist and force the readers
of the group to defend themselves instead of using the group to understand
themselves better. The majority of the readers of net.motss seem to be
tired of having deal with this harrassment and would like to use the group
for what it is defined as. You can call this a divergence of view if you
like, most of the readers see it as harrassment and as an inappropriate use
of the topic. The moderator is put there to keep things to a minimum.
Perhaps we need net.is_gay_perversion to keep those other types happy, or
even net.religion.is_gay_against_god...

> The very fact that we disagree on the issue of moderated newsgroups
> suggests that something is wrong here.
Disagreement does not imply problems-- disagreements can occur because
perspectives are different even though the attitudes are the same.

> It amazes me how you redefine free speech (with all its problems)
> as censorship.
Free speech can be censorship. If I stand up to talk, I am exercising my
right to free speech. But if you want to talk as well, and I won't let you
because I'm exercising my right, am I not also infringing upon yours and
censoring you? If we BOTH talk and I talk louder, and I also not censoring
you? The problem is that usenet is not really a great medium for 'free
speech' because it is a dedicated line-- you can hear only one voice at a
time. If someone decides to use his right to the exclusion of others, there
isn't much that the listeners can do about it, and the moderators are one
way of helping to minimize this problem (just because you have the right to
talk doesn't mean we have the responsibility to listen).

> WHO is defining "inappropriate"?  WHAT do you mean by "offensive"?
As far as I am concerned, the readers make those definitions. They will do
so by telling me, the moderator, what they don't want to see. I will make
the minimal assumptions on applicability neccesary and let them tell me
where they want the lines drawn. Specifically to mod.singles I am making
two restrictions to postings: 
    (1) it has to be oriented towards singles. We recently had a discussion
    of religion and singles degenerate into a discussion of religion only.
    I would have suggested that the discussion be taken into private mail 
    or to {net,mod}.religion because it was more appropriate there.

    (2) items of an inflammatory nature. Personal attacks (as considered
    separate from disagreements) and items such as the recent postings by
    Mr. Williams from DEC (I talked to the DEC people about him. They have
    assured me that Mr. Williams will act in a manner becoming a gentleman
    in the future on net.singles) are clearly inappropriate.

I may also make suggestions that certain discussions be moved to mail,
especially in the case where it looks like two or three people are arguing
to the exclusion of the rest of the group. On any article I decide to not
post, the person has the right to ask me to reconsider and discuss the
situation. I might change my mind, I might post it with a request for the
readers to let me know whether or not it was appropriate so that I would
have a better idea next time, or I might suggest that he post to
net.singles and let the readers tell me if I screwed up. From the feedback
that I've gotten from the readers of net.singles, this is what they are
looking for, and it certainly doesn't look restrictive to me.

> As for "anything that forces people to unsubscribe to a group", that
> seems to include "anything that I don't want to read because I disagree
> with it."  This is exactly what was/is happening in net.motss.
Maybe for you, but I don't think that is the majority viewpoint. With the
case of net.motss, many people simple get VERY tired of constantly having
their sexual alignments being challenged and bombarded. It does wonders for
your self image. Imagine being the only smoker in a room of fanatics.
Imagine being the only meat eater in a room of vegetarians. Wouldn't you
eventually get tired of the harrasement? I think it is not so much a case
of people not wanting to hear other viewpoints but a case of
self-preservation-- there is a group of people who feel that any pro-gay
discussion is wrong and try to sabotage it at any opportunity. THEY are the
ones doing the censoring because they are the ones refusing to allow
disagreeing opinions to exist.

> We obviously disagree about what "noise" is.  Again, going back to
> net.motss, it wasn't suffering from noise, it was suffering from
> a great intolerance of Ken Ardnt.  Can you tell me that if Ken Ardnt
> had never posted to net.motss that it would still have wrought mod.motss?
It was more than just Ken. This is just a disagreement of what noise is, so
I won't even try to argue it.

> Can Ken Ardnt post to mod.motss?  Will he want to?
Can he? I won't talk for the mod.motss moderator, but my feeling is if Ken
is willing to deal with the motss group on a rational level he will be
welcome. Whether he will want to (I haven't seen a lot of it yet) is simply
up to Ken. I do know that we shouldn't let a single negative case such as
Ken create problems for the majority of readers to the level he has.

> I don't want a moderator to select just what I want to read.  I want
> to read things that perhaps I don't want to read (if you get my drift)
> because I like to be exposed to opinions different from my own.
> (I have no quarrel with your moderation of mod.singles, btw, as I
> don't read net.singles anyway).
I won't be selecting what you read. I'll be protecting you from the things
you've already told me that you don't want to read anyway-- Look at me more
as a filter than an arbitrator of thoughts. I personally don't care WHAT
you say as long as it has something to do with what we were supposed to be
talking about in the first place.

> except that where YOU draw the line might be different
> than where I would, which is my point.  Leave the editing of newsgroups
> to me and my 'n' key, and I'll be happy.
I think I said this before-- not everone has the time or the patience to
use the 'n' key. My hope is to remove as many of the 'automatic' n-key 
messages from the group so that you can make intelligent choices about what
you want to read. I've found myself (and I'm not unique) going into n-key
mode-- there is so much stuff that I just 'n' everything until I realize
that I've moved past a couple of articles I DID want to see. If I reduce
the noise, I'll be more aware (and willing) to look at what is left. Right
now, it is basically a situation of 'Why should I read this' instead of 'do
I really want to read this' because of the noise. I'd rather see people
default to a positive action (read this unless...) instead of a negative
action (don't read this unless...) and that seems to be the default for
most people right now.

> I don't think asking a discussion to be moved to a more appropriate place
> is the issue here.  The issue is WHO should decide when that move should
> take place, and WHO will be the one to say, "sorry, you can't post that
> here," and enforce that decision?
> 
> It seems the net is exchanging social controls (peer pressure, if you will),
> for centralized controls (moderators).
Peer pressure hasn't worked, for one reason-- we asked that the religious
discussion move along a number of times to no avail. The decision will
STILL be with the peers-- for once, someone, the moderator, will have some
chance of enforcing it. That is better than the old way where nobody could
enforce it.

chuq
-- 
From the Department of Bistromatics:                   Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

(Editors note: Bistromatics is NOT a typo. Bistromathics is the study of
math on an italian waiters checkpad. Bistromatics is the study of Italian
cooking on females of the human species. Please quit sending me mail)

  I'd know those eyes from a million years away....