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From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: The responsibilities of volunteers
Message-ID: <1990Dec9.225810.10838@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 90 22:58:10 GMT
References: <1990Nov27.075737.16836@vicom.com> <10820@rayssd.ssd.ray.com> <1990Nov28.214659.26551@looking.on.ca> <2756A27D.5D54@tct.uucp> <1842@utodaycom>
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Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <1842@utodaycom>, sean@utodaycom (Sean Fulton) writes:
|> Let me get this straight: The Rich Salz bashers are a couple of
|> students at Yale; the Rich Salz defenders are mostly professionals who
|> take time away from making money to contribute to Usenet.
|> 
|> Does this seem strange to anyone?

  It really, really annoys me when people state untruths which are so easily
proven false.  Sean, I can't accuse you of lying, because a person can only
lie if he knows that he is not telling the truth, and I don't know if you
realize that the statement above just isn't true.  I will therefore simply
show that it isn't true and let the rest of the net draw its own conclusions.

  I just went through 147 postings to news.admin on the subject of
comp.sources.unix and Rich Salz starting with the one from Larry Blair which
started the whole thing.  I divided the postings into three categories by
saving them to different files -- postings which expressed the belief that the
status quo in comp.sources.unix is fine, postings which expressed the belief
that change to the status quo is desirable, and postings whose stance were
unclear to me.  Since my beliefs fall into the second category, I tried to
bias my interpretation in favor of the first and third categories in order to
make things a bit more fair.

  The following people posted messages which I thought fell into the
"pro status quo" category:

        From: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
        From: billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson)
        From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
        From: chris@utgard.uucp (Chris Anderson)
        From: dnb@meshugge.media.mit.edu (David N. Blank)
        From: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti)
        From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
        From: jgd@convex.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick)
        From: keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
        From: lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot)
        From: marc@dumbcat.sf.ca.us (Marco S Hyman)
        From: reid@wrl.dec.com (Brian Reid)
        From: rodgers@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu
        From: sean@utodaycom (Sean Fulton)
        From: tombre@crin.fr (Karl Tombre)
        From: tony@oha.UUCP (Tony Olekshy)
        From: woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods)
        From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan)

The following people posted messages which I thought fell into the "pro
change" category:

        From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR)
        From: bleys@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh)
        From: chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg)
        From: chrisb@risky.Convergent.COM (Chris Bertin)
        From: gmp@rayssd.ssd.ray.com (Gregory M. Paris)
        From: hack@moxie.lonestar.org (Greg Hackney)
        From: horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne)
        From: jef@well.sf.ca.us (Jef Poskanzer)
        From: jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre)
        From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
        From: lmb@vicom.com (Larry Blair)
        From: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham)
        From: rabe@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (brett m rabe; Jiffy Script Inc.)
        From: ruck@reef.cis.ufl.edu (John Ruckstuhl)
        From: scott@wiley.uucp (Scott Simpson)
        From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
        From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
        From: warkent@ltisun7.epfl.ch (Ken Warkentyne)

I won't include the undecided list at this point because it's quite long
(there were lots of tangents :-) and doesn't really affect the point I'm
trying to make.

  I apologize to anyone who feels I have grouped them "on the wrong side" in
the lists I've posted above.  However, even several such misinterpretations
would not change the fact that there are quite a few more than "a couple
students at Yale" asking for change in comp.sources.unix.

  Incidentally, I am very, very tired of the old accusation that "students"
don't contribute to the Usenet, but "professionals" do; that "students" don't
know enough for their postings to be relevant, but "professionals" do; that
people who haven't been around the Usenet since its creation don't have a say
in anything that happens on it, but that the old-timers always do.  Give me a
break.

  I'm not trying to prove anything in this posting.  I'm not trying to say,
"See, more people are pro change than anti change, so there should be a
change!"  I'm just trying to prevent the unwarranted belittling of one side of
this debate.  Let's try to discuss things reasonably, people?

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8085			      Home: 617-782-0710