Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!labrea!agate!garnet!weemba
From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Report Card . . .  (really: portal sysadmin weenie strikes again!)
Message-ID: <14513@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Sep 88 21:41:58 GMT
References: <9228@cup.portal.com> <9255@cup.portal.com> <3052@mit-amt>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central
Lines: 34
In-reply-to: henry@garp.mit.edu (Henry Mensch)

In article <3052@mit-amt>, henry@garp (Henry Mensch) writes:
>PHil@cup.portal.com wrote:
>-> (portal hornblowing deleted)

>this is my pet peeve with portal: these weenies don't do anything to
>inform their users in the ways of the net.  they then go on to post an
>advertisement describing what services portal offers and how to
>connect.

The reason they do this is they get a bounty for each new user they
bring in.

Just like the AT&T VP who ordered subordinates to post his IEEE campaign
garbage, Portal, rather than informing its users of the ways of USENET,
deliberately encourages users to violate the rules.  But unlike AT&T,
Portal has zero concern about the bad image thus derived.  Making a
stink out of it is meaningless to Portal.

>it seems to me that the people who run portal aren't very
>professional.  they continue to act this way even after problems are
>identified to them.

Of course they're professional: that is what making money means.  It's
their income to take advantage of the net's largesse this way.

>		      just this morning i received a response to e-mail
>i sent to postmaster@cup.portal.com ... it was a one-line "i have
>forwarded the net-etiquette posting to foo-user" sort of thing, and it
>was signed simply "CS."  i'm supposed to know who / what CS is, right?

CS: customer support.  Isn't nice to know that foo-user got a copy of
the netiquette postings?

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720