Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!das From: das@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group Subject: Re: Removing net.flame Message-ID: <6179@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 02:51:19 EDT Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6179 Posted: Fri Jun 28 02:51:19 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 03:06:48 EDT References: <3892@alice.UUCP> <1818@amdcad.UUCP> Reply-To: das@ucla-cs.UUCP (David Smallberg) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 68 Xref: watmath net.news:3528 net.news.group:3200 Summary: In article <1818@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: > >Why don't we just take UCLA off the net? Seems that's where all the abusers ^^^ >are. Was it by coincidence that I just read a UCLA student was convicted of >"breaking into a Dept of Defense computer network"? [Second question first: Ronald Mark Austin was a physics major who never took anything more than an intro CS course; he had no legitimate access to any UCLA machine on USENET or the ARPAnet. What does he have to do with anything?] Say what? *ALL* of the net abusers are at UCLA? Anyway, my recollection is that Scott and Alex together posted no more than half a dozen messages that many people might find abusive AND that were not responses "in kind" to earlier messages. [For that you want to lose Peter Reiher's movie reviews?!] I think you've skipped a step in the "How to deal with Rogues" procedure: 1. Send a well-reasoned, non-inflammatory message to the rogue, explaining why his behavior is not appropriate. 2. If that fails, try again; stronger language is OK here, as well as a preview of later steps. 3. If that fails, drop a line to the rogue's site administrator. Be fair: don't quote flames out of context. I'd suggest to the SA that the rogue be told that if he makes one more annoying posting, he'll lose {his ability to post/his account/his job/whatever is appropriate for his situation}. After all, the rogue just may have misunderstood the rules of the game, and a note from an "outsider" doesn't carry much weight compared to one's own SA. 4. If that fails, tell the SA that his/her site may be taken off the net if the situation is not cleared up. 5. If that fails, do it. Please show how step 3 has failed. You seem to be reacting to three-week-old postings and all the followups to them. Since step 3 happened, I haven't noticed Alex playing any followup-line games, and Scott has rotated and double-rotated all his postings (and at least one person has found them funny enough to post a C program to read Scott's postings). [Broadening my reply to issues others have brought up:] About nuking net.flame: It currently serves as an escape valve; if a discussion in another group gets too heated, the flamer is told to (if s/he hasn't already done so) take it to net.flame. [It would be nice if "net.flame" being included in the Newsgroups line caused all other groups on that line to be ignored, or possibly cause "See net.flame for the text of this message" to be posted to them. That special casing would sharpen for ignorant users the distinction between flaming and non-flaming forums. (net.general should be special cased, too, to solve some of its problems)] If net.flame is nuked, a massive re-education project would have to be undertaken to inform everyone that flaming is NEVER acceptable net behavior. I think it would fail, since different people draw the line at different points (when does a political argument with a little bit of name-calling turn into a flame?). I don't think libel is the big deal people seem to be making it out to be (although I'd hate to be the test case, true). It ain't libel if it's true, and it ain't libel if there's not a chance that the reader will take it to be true. If I say that you eat fecal matter, for example, no one is going to believe that, and I could claim that I was speaking metaphorically, anyway. A newspaper (or the National Inquirer) may well be believed, since many people expect what's published therein to be basically true; net.flame, however, is recognized as a forum for the exchange of insults (even though that is a childish (if they're uncreative and unfunny) misuse of the group), so there's no real expectation of truth. (An exception might be if someone told a story about someone that purported to be true.) I've violated my self-imposed limit on length of postings, so I'll stop here. -- David Smallberg, das@{ucla-cs.ARPA,cs.ucla.edu}, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das