From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!mes
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: Re: ELLEN - (nf)
Article-I.D.: zeppo.361
Posted: Tue Nov  2 14:00:04 1982
Received: Wed Nov  3 03:07:40 1982

#R:rmas70:-22000:zeppo:18000008:000:1841
zeppo!mes    Nov  2 13:37:00 1982

I agree that disallowing certain feelings on the net is rather
hypocritical. However, we must be bound by some sort of legality, and
a personal attack of the nature we have seen seems to me, to be grounds for
libel (or slander? - I'm not a lawyer). After all, the individual in
question was attacked openly in a public forum, and one must be responsible
for what one generates in any public forum, including this one. May I
suggest that the expression of the feelings involved here was certainly
acceptable, and perhaps the sharing of experiences with others will help
to ease presonal feelings of pain and loss. However, I believe that the
mechanism of the submission in question, where deep feelings were couched
in a open frontal attack on another human being, is not appropriate for
this forum.  Obviously, I am not suggesting that one stay perfectly abstract
in everything one submits, rather, I think we all need to carefully review
what we intend to submit to determine what it is that we really wish to say,
rather than this attack mode. I don't feel that this is censorship - this
is more of a personal responsibility. Finally, everyone who submits anything
to this forum is as openly liable as an individual who submits material
to a "letter to the editors" column in a newspaper - although here, there
is (and will never be, I hope) and editor to screen submissions
for acceptability before publication.

Finally, there is a possibility that the whole thing was a "joke". It appears
that as of 2 Nov, we have yet to hear from "Ellen" at all -- I would like
to ask her to perhaps submit a second article, detailing the feelings involved,
rather than another open attack.

                              Not sure if we've all been had or what,
                                Michael Sajor
                                zeppo!mes