Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Who pays the bill? Message-ID: <65517@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 29 Jul 90 23:54:36 GMT References: <1990Jul29.073316.16433@vicom.com> Sender: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 40 In article , lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) writes: > > In article <1990Jul29.073316.16433@vicom.com> lmb@vicom.com (Larry Blair) writes: > > [Eliot calls freeloaders who complain ``rude''.] > > Not half as rude as sending mail off to oblivion. > > When you use someone else's resources gratis, your only POLITE dissent > is to stop using them. Go ask Miss Manners. That is interesting. I guessed Miss Manners would say that it is rude to impose upon others, and even more impolite to complain if their performance in your service is incompetent. However, my obviously flawed upbringing says that if you cannot or will not accede to a request, then you must politely refuse (e.g. by bouncing a mail message). I would have have guessed Miss Manners would say you cannot accept a task and do anything except do your best to complete it, exactly as the requester intended. I thought the rudeness of the original request is irrelevant. I also would have guessed that a public and unsolicited offer to do a service (e.g. publishing a map entry listing out-going connections) would not make those who occassionally avail themselves of such invitations "freeloaders." I would have guessed that those served would only to be obliged to be polite. In some circumstances, I would have thought it necessary to find a polite excuse to refuse the invitation. It even seemed to me, until now, that if the invitation turn out to be other than as advertised, a polite and perhaps public note to that effect would not be rude. Would it be rude to ask that those who choose to not honor the routes in passing mail to not advertise their connections? Am I wrong in thinking that the UUCP maps are not a way to brag of the number of UUCP links you maintain, but are an offer to do a service, without expectation of payment or even reciprocity? Vernon Schryver vjs@sgi.com