Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!eos!timelord
From: timelord@eos.UUCP (G. Murdock Helms)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: A SERIOUS DILEMMA FOR THE NET
Keywords: Something MUST be done about Portal
Message-ID: <1566@eos.UUCP>
Date: 19 Sep 88 22:57:13 GMT
Reply-To: timelord@eos.UUCP (G. Murdock Helms)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California
Lines: 67

In several newsgroups, copies of the following 'form posting' have appeared
from various individuals:

>To the members of Usenet:
>
>Hello.  There has emerged, what we feel to be a huge problem.  For
>a while now, the net has been plagued with postings from several
>"people" at the Portal System (tm) in California.  The postings are
>made from ambiguous accounts such as "Spartan", "Hijacker", "Argent",
>"ANKH" etc, ad nauseum.  It is our opinion that the Site Administrator's
>decision to let subscribers use these "handles" (and apparently change
>them at will) encourages some of them to post irresponsibly, and perhaps
>not use the best of judgement when doing it.  
[ text deleted ]

Is this truly a 'huge problem'?  The various facilities for reading news 
all include the 'kill file' option to each user, i.e.: the ability to
filter out specific postings.  If a user finds postings from Portal to
be such a problem, then that user can implement his kill file to eliminate
them.  For those who do not use kill files (such as myself), it is a 
relatively simple matter to skip postings that do not appeal to the reader.

There has recently been a tendency towards suppression on the net that is
chilling in its implications.  I am referring specifically to the removal
of at least one person's net access, perhaps even his account, due to
several complaints about his postings.  The unpleasant aspect of this is
that the person in question was not posting overtly offensive material to
the net.  Yes, he produced a lot of articles, and yes, he could be 
somewhat irritating, but there are other individuals in many groups who
can be accused of the same faults.  The point is: someone was able to convince
the sysadmin of that machine to remove a user who had not done anything 
explicitly 'wrong'.

And this could happen to you....or me.

There have been discussions on removing specific people from the net, cutting
people's newsfeed (or a machine's newsfeed), and now various discussions on
what to do about Portal.  Is this suppression neccessary?  Why is it that
so many people with net access cannot act responsibly and solve their 
differences with people/machines/newsgroups without first becoming rude
and insulting, and then demanding suppression of the 'offending' party?
The rule in social interaction that applies here is:  If you have a problem
with an account, machine, or newsgroup, then it is YOUR problem, not the
entire world's, and therefore you alone must solve it.  That may mean the
creation of a kill file, or the exercising of patience, but it still remains
*your* problem.

It has been suggested by various parties that some of the 'irresponsible'
posters from Portal are youngsters of various ages.  From my experience
working with children of various ages, I can assure you that the approach
that has been taken thus far towards 'controlling' these children is
entirely incorrect.  People of any age younger than yourself have a desire
to be treated as an equal.  In working with them, greater progress is made
with helpful comments and suggestions than with a slow roast over spiteful
and degrading flames.  A simple, *polite* mail message to an 'offender' 
suggesting how to access the manual pages on news readers, and how to edit 
a posting for inclusion in a followup should suffice to fix the problem.

As you may note, my login is not my real name.  My name listing is not
my real name either.  The fact that I possess the ability to change my
'name' at whim has not in any manner influenced me to post irresponsibly.
If there are any questions about the events I have mentioned or other comments
that you wish to discuss with me, I can be contacted via email at
timelord@eos.arc.nasa.gov, and would be interested in exchanging mail with 
you.

-Murdock					timelord@eos.arc.nasa.gov