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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: Re: Removing net.flame
Message-ID: <517@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 03:07:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.517
Posted: Fri Jun 28 03:07:58 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 00:48:44 EDT
References: <3892@alice.UUCP> <1913@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 50
Xref: watmath net.news:3525 net.news.group:3198

> From: jj@alice.UUCP Message-ID: <3892@alice.UUCP>
> 
> > 	I do not propose this measure lightly, as it will undoubtedly
> > lead to the slow but certain removal of many controversial newsgroups,
> > ...
> > 	If anyone can suggest another method to control the
> > misuse of the network, I await your article.
> 
>    Can you afford to have the 'flamers' prey on another newsgroup, like
>    what happened to net.auto and net.women?
> 					      sunil

From what little I know about the history of the net, I gather that net.flame
was created as a place where people could take their arguments from other
newsgroups when they got angry at each other, so as not to clutter the
othe groups with insults and diatribe.  However, the use of net.flame has
gone beyond this.  Now people use it to engage in verbal abuse as a sport.
Recently, irresponsibility by flamers has become a sport, too.

Marshall MacLuhan said that "The medium is the message," and one couldn't
find a better example than net.flame.  The mere existence of this newsgroup
encourages obnoxiousness.  The message is, "since a newsgroup exists for
the sole purpose of verbal abuse, slander, and vile insult, then there is
nothing wrong with such behavior; otherwise, why would the group have ever
been created?"  It's a short step from this attitude to one of general
irresponsibility of the sort recently demonstrated by Alex Quilici.

How would you feel if, for some reason, your local government erected a
building next to your house, and passed a law allowing any sort of behavior
inside the building?  You would most likely feel endangered, because almost
certainly the bad behavior wouldn't stay inside the building.

The mere existence of net.flame not only attracts irresponsible people to
the net, but also sanctions bad manners and behavior.  Evidently, some
people learn their writing and arguing styles in net.flame and take it
elsewhere.  Thus, the simple existence of the newsgroup contributes to the
decline of the net.

I feel that, in the long run, the elimination of net.flame would be good
for the net.  At first, the hard-core flamers would try to take their abuse
to other groups, but they wouldn't have any centralised place to reinforce
each other.  Eventually, the various groups would get back to civilised
discussion, and the ones who use the net only as a way to annoy would find
some other way to entertain themselves.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

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