Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!sophie From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: net.flame (surprise!) Message-ID: <1256@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 15:11:46 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1256 Posted: Wed Jul 10 15:11:46 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 10-Jul-85 16:28:56 EDT References: <702@vortex.UUCP> Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 66 I don't know if this conversation has died a natural death yet or not. I was away on holidays, so I haven't caught up yet, but I want to state my opinion anyway (since I am one of the supposedly libelled, it might be relevant). 1 - offense is in the eyes of the beholder. I was much less offended by net.flamers using 4-letter words to describe some of my personnal parts (sticks and stones...) than by some of the serious (!?) comments other people have made about women in other newsgroups such as net.women. As a matter of fact, I was amused by the idea of a "squat-in" for me and Jeannette. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed those yukky words that Scott (or Alex, can't remember) used to describe female bodily parts, but I though they revealed more about their authors than about me. Hey, these guys can't even make a good joke or flame without resorting to obscenity! besides, it was pretty obvious from the language used that these guys didn't even know what they were talking about..... Now there is some stuff that is really VERY hard to take, such as the discussion on rape and women's clothing that was going on for a while in net.women. That's real stuff!! That is very PAINFUL to take if you are a woman, much more painful than some silly pee-pee-ca-ca-cucumber discussion. Yet I heard very few censorship cries when that discussion was going on. There were women on the net who had been raped and who read that discussion. I can't imagine how much it would have hurt them to hear all those same stupid sexist nasty arguments again and again. It hurt me and I haven't been raped. Yet this discussion went on and on and on.... no net-wide discussion of whether this should be stopped or the system administrators of those people called, even though it hurt so much. I am not suggesting that such a discussion can be stopped or that even that it should be stopped; it probably shouldn't: hopefully something was learned by it. All I am saying is that the most obviously offensive postings are not necessarily the most harmful. 2 - Volume: Well, I haven't caught up yet on net.flame and I was only gone for 2 weeks but I did notice something very interesting: how much complaining was done about the size of trash. Seriously guys, scott's and alex's "contributions" were nothing in volume compared to what you generated to reprimand them and lecture them (and us) on how costly this all is. Chuq, I usually agree with you, but did you need multiple messages of 150+ lines to express your opinion on wasting space and courtesy? To be perfectly honest, I find this quite suspect. Not that I can't understand the argument behind cutting net.flame because of cost. I don't think people should pay for something they don't want (please, please, let's not start a discussion on income tax here), but I don't see why this should result in a usenet-wide censorship of certain newsgroups. Each site is probably quite capable of deciding what they can afford. 3 - Most importantly, I don't think removing net.flame will work. Lauren and others made the point about flames spilling into other newsgroups very well so I won't repeat it. On the net, I don't think that censorship works very well when it comes to shutting people up. Ranting and raving doesn't work either (I learned that from my pre-palsy-walsy days with Ken Arndt). The best two ways I have found so far to deal with offensive postings are to either ignore them completely or turn them into a joke. 4 - So, if it isn't clear by now, I vote to keep net.flame. 'nough said.. -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie