Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group Subject: Re: Removing net.flame Message-ID: <476@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 22:58:13 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.476 Posted: Tue Jun 25 22:58:13 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 23:59:23 EDT References: <3892@alice.UUCP> <1913@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 41 Xref: watmath net.news:3501 net.news.group:3188 In article <1913@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) writes: > Can you afford to have the 'flamers' prey on another newsgroup, like > what happened to net.auto and net.women? These 'flamers' help turn a > 'peaceful' newsgroup into another net.flame. If net.flame is removed > won't these people look for another haven? Or even worse, roam around > the newsgroups and trash them and then leave to find another victim. I > think the problem is to control user access to Usenet. I'm sure many > are against moderation of the newsgroups, but that could only be done > if someone (or more than one) would be willing to moderate each one of > the newsgroups. How about a system where people could 'squeel' to the > system administrator of the offender and then have the Sys.Adm. take > care of it? And if nothing comes of it (the offender continues to of- > fend), then maybe trying upstream (the feed for the offender's site). > How about that as a try? Just for Yuks, I counted the number of articles in net.flame at our site which were NOT posted to some other group. (I tried counting the other way, but gave up after 100 articles!) There were only 29 articles which were not multiply-posted, out of about 200 articles. This essentially means that net.flame has become a flag for users of rn to use in ignoring certain articles. I would also like to point out that some of the most inflamatory postings which have been seen recently occured outside of net.flame anyway; just for starters, there was the whole Don Black thing in net.religion which was repeated in net.politics and which he tried to repeat in arms-d (which is, I remind readers, a moderated group). Some regions of the net are collapsing into anarchy. People are seriously talking about shutting off some feeds, and in one case it has actually happened. Reed College took itself off the net because someone there illegally posted a copy of a commercial software product. I must confess that I have at times used rn to ignore any articles by certain persons; but if the current problems flare up again, I may have no choice. I don't know of any solutions. Certainly system administrators are going to have to be mre watchful. Maybe net.flame should go. But I doubt that the anarchy will abate easily. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe