Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber From: webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Users should : Monitor site output (formerly portal bashing) Message-ID:Date: 6 Jun 88 22:16:41 GMT References: <2134@rtech.UUCP> <2398@ll1a.UUCP> <4356@killer.UUCP> <4367@killer.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 39 In article <4367@killer.UUCP>, wisner@killer.UUCP (Bill Wisner) writes: > webber@constance.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes: > ... > The point is that you're making another one of those broad generalizations. My message was perfectly in keeping with the one I was replying to that advocated sysadmin's monitoring user's postings (at all sites, not just public access ones). > comp.women supporters aren't universally rude; Please don't confuse me with Rick Adams. We are easy to tell apart. I am the one with the argyle socks in my construction boots. > similarly, public access site > administrators aren't universally incompetent. I did not say they were - what I said was that mistakes made by administrators (any administrator, not just public access ones) posting off-the-wall messages like the recent ones from customer service at portal about calling in the federal postal inspectors are far more damaging to the net than those posted by users and so it is more important that sysadmins submit their messages to ``policing'' by users than for users to submit their messages for ``policing'' by sysadmins. Not that such policing is actually warrented by the number of problems we have seen so far caused by either users or admins, but just that it is important to get one's priorities straight when and if we should ever go to such a set up. I find it disturbing that portal hasn't been dropped off the net given their willingness to call in the feds on such trivial matters and no indication from them that they now realize they might have over-reacted (which would be understandable given the silliness of the original reaction to the postings by the net at large). They speak of supplying a host of information about net usage to their users, but one wonders if they have read any of it themselves. While they were perfectly within their legal rights to take such action, that does not mean that we have to continue to associate with them. --------- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)