Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!princeton!phoenix!greg From: greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Portal flames back! Message-ID: <3686@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 18 Sep 88 20:53:02 GMT References: <9027@cup.portal.com> <6934@gryphon.CTS.COM> <9150@cup.portal.com> Reply-To: greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 43 In article <9150@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes: >We're >our own people, and we're fast becoming the dominant force in >this net! It seems like Portal users have a somewhat skewed idea of the purpose and ecology of Usenet. In article <9152@cup.portal.com> john_f_tamburo@cup.portal.com writes: >Portal will soon be THE top contributor on Usenet! It's >going to be OUR show soon, so get lost. Besides the obvious implicit threat, does this strike anyone else as evidence of a "competitive" conception of Usenet? > Criticism? This entire newsgroup is a fucking LYNCH MOB >when Portal is involved! You wan't war, buddy, YOU CAN HAVE IT! >How about a nice posting in our internal events section, asking >EVERYBODY ON PORTAL to flame you! Ready for 15,000 flames? And here the threat is made explicit. Something clearly needs to be done aobut Portal. My own opinion is that Portal is packaging Usenet as a commercial product, and in some sense violating the anti-commercialism rule, but that's just one opinion. >you gods of Usenet? Where the fuck is Admin if there's a rules >violation? Where the hell are the rules posted? Oleg said that >a .sig should be five lines, you say four. SHOW ME THE RULES! At the very least, Portal management could supply its users with an introduction to the net which points them to news.announce.newusers, which should help with such queries. It might also clear up some Portal users' confusion about the nature of Usenet rules/"customs", since they seem to think that only the "rules" need to be obeyed, but the "customs" can be safely ignored. -- rutgers!phoenix.princeton.edu!greg Gregory A Nowak/Phoenix Gang/Princeton NJ "Take 2*3*5*7*11*13. It's divisible by 59." --Matt Crawford