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Path: utzoo!utcsri!hogg
From: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Kelvin Thompson's June reviews
Message-ID: <1251@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 13:14:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1251
Posted: Fri Jul 12 13:14:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 13:27:06 EDT
References: <8827@ucbvax.ARPA> <3200003@ccvaxa>
Reply-To: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 29
Summary: 


>What wit is there in posting something that makes you appear to be
>an idiot?  There are enough seriously idiotic things posted on the
>net that we cannot be expected to recognize a posting as satirical
>when all it appears to be is stupid.  Viewed as humor, the reviews
>were reasonably amusing -- if they had been posted in a fashion that
>made their humorous intent obvious (as, for example, if they had
>been posted as a group or marked with the traditional :-)) a lot of
>us would have been amused and appreciative.  Posting them in the
>guise of serious reviews just made the author appear stupid.

[Mutter mutter curse...]

The art of satire has been around for slightly longer than Usenet; perhaps
you have read some Leacock or Twain.  While I have certainly not read all
of either of these gentlemen's works, I cannot recall ever having seen a
smiley-face symbol in anything they wrote.

Perhaps in the days when people could spell, the written version of a
laugh-track was not considered to be necessary.  Perhaps it still isn't.
In my own arrogant way, I feel that a reader who cannot recognize humour is
not worth communicating with.

You may fire when your terminals bear...
-- 

John Hogg
Computer Systems Research Institute, UofT
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!hogg