Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cmu-cs-k.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-k!tim From: tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: "FREE"dom of the net is costing over $600,000 this year Message-ID: <27@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> Date: Wed, 7-Nov-84 03:51:45 EST Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-k.27 Posted: Wed Nov 7 03:51:45 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Nov-84 08:43:58 EST References: <284@sdchema.UUCP> Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 44 >> To sum up: If everyone at your site has the right to post, except you, and >> this decision was made on the basis of unpopular opinions in your postings, >> your civil rights have been violated. >At this site, *nobody* has a *right* to post articles to the net. However, >everyone does have a qualified privilege to do so. The primary qualification >is that site management not find such postings to violate reasonable >standards of decency, the law, or contractual agreements with outside >entities. Let us not quibble when the meaning is clear, John. I stated very explicitly in the article you quoted that no one says there is a right to post in the ethical sense of a "right". It was plain that I was referring in the quoted passage to the privilege of posting, not to some "right" which I had already denied the existence of! As to your criteria, the last two seem perfectly sensible, even mandatory. The first is more questionable. Social standards for the medium are still evolving. My opinion is that no one should be censured for the use of language which the vulgar call vulgar, because that is an unwarranted violation of the RIGHT of free speech. Continued ad hominem attack, on the other hand, makes the whole medium less usable, and it should be minimized. No one should have their privilege taken away on this basis unless they post several articles consisting solely of ad hominem attack AFTER they are given a SPECIFIC warning which refers to SPECIFIC objectionable articles, and of course some hearing in the public record. Unless there is significant outcry from the net community at large, you should not even take it to the warning stage. And of course, no politicial or religious opinion should be considered to violate a reasonable standard of decency in itself. To deprive someone of the privilege to post on such grounds would be to invite legal action. Always remember that many great Americans have been diehard flamers. Among these are such as Mark Twain and Thomas Paine. These stalwarts faced opposition and censorship in their careers; it is un-American to continue such persecution of flamers in the modern age. And I doubt that I have to remind anyone who is well-read that the writer's role is inherently a revolutionary one. -- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: Try sending through a gateway such as DECWRL, UCB-VAX, SEISMO, or HARVARD -- mailer conventions differ on syntax