Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site burl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!burl!rcj
From: rcj@burl.UUCP (R. Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.jokes
Subject: let's not endanger the net, OK?  PLEASE READ!
Message-ID: <355@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Oct-83 13:19:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.355
Posted: Fri Oct 21 13:19:29 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Oct-83 03:56:09 EDT
Organization: Western Electric, Burlington, NC
Lines: 36

(a) The reason that there was such a furor over net.motss was NOT
because we did not want System Administrators getting upset; it was
because we did not want their BOSSES getting upset.  You know, those
guys who pay the phone bills for the net?  Keep in mind that although
a LOT of the stuff on the net is job-related, and I myself have used
the resources of the many people on the net to solve many problems
here at work, etc., etc., that a lot of the stuff on here is provided
by the various companies and universities on the net as a perk to YOU.

(b) This is particularly addressed to Mr. LaDew, but to the net in
general:  If you do not think that rotating jokes is necessary, please
consider the situation at ABI Denver -- this is the story as I
heard it:  Because someone on druxi objected to a ROTATED joke (!!),
which they took the time to unrot and read (obviously) first, net.jokes
was taken off of druxi at least.  I do not know if they also took
it off the rest of the dr* systems.  After that, the steering committee
that originally considered netnews got back together and wiped almost
EVERY non-directly-job-related newsgroup.  If they are willing to
do that over a rot13 joke, you can BET that there are people around
who will do it over unrot stuff.  Descriptive title lines are not only
insufficient -- they are ill-advised.  DO NOT put 'Dead Baby Joke (rot 13)'
as your title if you can help it (not trying to pick on you, Mr. LaDew,
just the last one I saw) -- say something like
'Gross Joke (rot 13)', or 'Very Offensive joke (rot 13)'.
In case anyone is wondering why a descriptive title line is not good
enough to warn someone to hit their 'n' key:  it definitely is.  Unfor-
tunately, I know a lot of people who use the '-p' option on readnews
to automatically read their news into a file and process it that way --
so go ahead and rot13 the stuff so they don't have to read it!!

Thanks very much for your time, and flames/discussions/rotten-tomatoes
are welcomed at the address below:
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ floyd clyde ihnp4 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj