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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
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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