Xref: utzoo news.admin:7919 news.groups:15491
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ontek!mikey
From: mikey@ontek.UUCP (Michael E. Lee)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: let's quit propagating talk.bizarre
Summary: in between springy and folly
Keywords: cross-posting wars
Message-ID: <831@ontek.UUCP>
Date: 8 Dec 89 18:16:33 GMT
References: <122@rayssd.ray.com>
Reply-To: mikey@ontek.UUCP (Michael E. Lee)
Organization: Krill Bait & Tackle Corporation
Lines: 58

In article <122@rayssd.ray.com> gmp@quahog.ssd.ray.com (Greg Paris) writes:
| Some of you may be aware that a few easily amused people think it's funny to
| start up cross-posting wars between talk.bizarre and other groups.  A typical

   These "easily amused people" would be happy to do the same from any group --
   there is nothing magical about the name "talk.bizarre".  Destroy it's
   connectivity and the "nice" people on talk.bizarre will suffer, whilst
   the "evil" ones will just do the same trick from alt.flame or rec.humor.

| beginning of these wars is that somebody posts an outrageous article to
| talk.bizarre and cross-posts it to the victim group.  Naive readers of the
| victim group follow up to the article and the war begins.

  Did it occur to you that it is equally the fault of the naive?  Would you
  propose we lobotomize smart people rather than educating the illiterate?
  I didn't think so.  It's real easy to teach people to ignore such bait,
  and some can even be made to understand kill files.  

| Two such articles have recently arrived here, showing up in rec.arts.startrek.
| One was posted by Richard Sexton, the other was posted by E.E. Carasso.  Sexton
| has tried this same trick several times in the past and a few times he's been
| successful in starting a protracted war between the groups.

  I'm not a Richard Sexton sycophant, so I won't apologize for him.  
  "E.E." Carasso (gorby, cosby, roger) is my hero and if you say anything
  bad about him I'll... I'll... I'll... cry!  (Carasso sycophant card #4877)

| Personally, I'd have no problem with the existence of talk.bizarre if it
| wasn't for this type of blatantly offensive behavior on the part of some
| talk.bizarre posters.  

  Every newsgroup has some creeps.  Even sci.physics gets some weirdos.
  Perhaps we should stop propagating that one?  If it really offends you,
  send e-mail to the author or his/her site admin.  

| If they'd just keep to themselves, everybody would
| be happy.  

  I've heard exactly that same phrase applied to homosexuality.  Your
  use of it offends me more than you are capable of understanding.

| My proposal is this: let's quit propagating talk.bizarre.  Leave the group
| intact, but don't forward it to your neighbors.  This action can be thought
| of as a penalty for poor net-citizenship.  If you think that the actions of
| talk.bizarre posters are out of line, please quit propagating the group.

  EXCUSE ME! PARDON ME! I think all of your arguments apply equally well
  to news.groups, where it's almost required that articles be
  cross-posted and where flame wars can last months.  Before we point
  fingers at a relatively benign talk group, we should wonder if perhaps
  Mr. Paris's article was a deliberate attempt to start exactly the kind
  of flame war which seems to disgust him so.

  If you took the bait, don't blame the worm. 

                          _K_r_i_l_l-_M_a_n 
                          And proud of it!
                          mikey@ontek.uucp