Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re^2: What constitutes abuse of the net?
Message-ID: <49670@bbn.COM>
Date: 14 Dec 89 03:53:28 GMT
References: <37942@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <49576@bbn.COM> <7288@ficc.uu.net>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Lines: 32

korenek@ficc.uu.net (Gary Korenek) writes:

>In article <49576@bbn.COM>, cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>> hettinger@krypton.arc.nasa.gov (Lawrence J. Hettinger) writes:
>> >	In rec.humor I read a particularly brutal series of
>> >sadistic jokes dealing with child abuse and pedophilia posted
>> >by an individual who will go unnamed...
>> > [text deleted]
>> >	Am I right or wrong?
>> I'm neither the net censor, nor the net policeman; so if I don't like
>> something, I figure I just shouldn't read it.
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>How do you know that you don't like it unless you read it first?

That is one of the reasons why part of good netiquette includes using
good and informative subject lines, and maybe even Keyword: and
Summary: header lines.  In some of the newsgroups, rot13 is also used
often.  Altogether, *most* postings give you a pretty good clue what
they're going to be about withoutyour having to actually read them.
Yes, there are occasional landmines that slip through your
subject-line-filter, and it will sometimes have you pass over a posting
that you might have actually wanted to see... but that's the breaks ---
nothing in life is perfect.

I'm not a rec.humor reader, so I don't know about this posting in
particular.  If it didn't include enough hints about tastelessness to
follow, then one can rightly doubly flame the author --- once for lack
of taste, and again for lack of netiquette, but it still strikes me as
a private matter between the poster and the offended reader, no?

  /\