Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!ucsd!hub!comdesign!pst
From: pst@comdesign.uucp (Paul Traina)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: minimum age for voting on new groups
Summary: Think before you flame.
Message-ID: <357@comdesign.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jun 88 20:02:12 GMT
References: <441@wpg.UUCP> <346@comdesign.UUCP> <80@carpet.WLK.COM>
Followup-To: /dev/null
Distribution: na
Organization: Network Equipment Technologies, Santa Barbara
Lines: 90


	>>DANGER:  SARCASM or SATIRE USED IN THIS ARTICLE<<

For those who do not understand the concept of using humor to expose
falacy in thinking or to illustrate a point, please type 'n' now.

					Thank you,

					  Acme Flame Retardants, Inc.


From article <80@carpet.WLK.COM>, by bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy):
>>Net "property owners"?  Perhaps we should limit sufferage to TRUE net
>>property owners...
> ... Would
> you qualify within your own conditions?  If so, good!  Let's proceed.

Actually, yes, I do qualify, but that was not the point of the original
posting.  I was trivializing (your own words, not mine) the concept of a
minimum voting age and other ridiculous restrictions.  I find the concept
distasteful, and the practice unenforceable.  How could we restrict voting
by some means when it is in a sysadmin's power to simply stuff the ballot
by making up 5000 votes to send to the coordinator.

Should we require each user to send his/her SSN in the mail message?  What
would our non-US friends do?

(by the way, the last two sentences are sarcastic, just in case you still
haven't caught on.)

>>then again, I think there might be some flames -- does Spaf own his own
>>USENET node? Does Rick Adams?  Does Mark Horton?  Hmmmm, perhaps this isn't

What kind of idiot would blast three of the most influential people on the net?
Give me more credit than that,  Bill.  I'm surprised that anyone wouldn't
understand, by the tone of the article,  that this was tounge-in-cheek, it was
not a criticism.  My entire point was an effort to show that the people who
seem to put the most work into the net would not qualify to vote.  This struck
me as clearly ridiculous.

> I think that you are overlooking a *VERY* important point here.  Each of the
> individuals that you have mentioned by name has made countless hours of
> contributed labor, gratis.  They have created and maintained, for the rest
> of us, one of the most fascinating (and sometimes, like now, frustrating)
> information networks on earth.

Exactly!  I agree with you 100% -- that's exactly why I used those names.
See above.

>	[talk about how I'm a slime to suggest that it would be scary if
>	 Bob bought a PC with UUPC and started getting news]

About the snide remark about Bob,  ok, I stand guilty -- I will now publicly
admit:
	I have nothing against Bob, and I have loved and enjoyed the
	antics of the entire situation.  It has often brought a smile
	to my face on an otherwise gloomy day.  I loved the idea of
	comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac and should have voted for it.  I think
	Bob is a fine human being and he has performed the useful function
	of making people THINK.

I threw in a cheap shot, done in good fun.  I made the mistake of assuming
that from the tone of my entire article,  it would be understood as such.

>	[more verbage about my posting being a fart and that I should
>	 not trivialize important ideas]

Re-read the article,  I take back nothing except the poke-in-the-ribs
about Bob.  All I can say is "Think before you hit the 'f' key."

In an effort to avoid further mindless flamage from people who accept
everything that comes over the wire without stopping to think that a human
being,  not a machine,  wrote the posting; I will endeavor to place big:

	>>DANGER:  SARCASM or SATIRE USED IN THIS ARTICLE<<

messages at the beginning of the article.

> Bill Kennedy  Internet:  bill@ssbn.WLK.COM
>                 Usenet:  { killer | att-cb | ihnp4!tness7 }!ssbn!bill
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