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From: norman@sdcsla.UUCP (Donald A. Norman)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Inappropriate net behavior (Re: Perlman)
Message-ID: <799@sdcsla.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 08:42:48 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsla.799
Posted: Wed Feb 13 08:42:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Feb-85 05:36:03 EST
References: <2346@nsc.UUCP>
Reply-To: norman@sdcsla.UUCP (Donald A. Norman)
Distribution: net
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Cognitive Science Lab
Lines: 28
Summary: 

Something nasty and quite inappropriate society seems to be taking
place.  I decided to ask Gary (Perlman) just what it was that happened that
caused his decision.   His response was quite distrubing, at least to me:
	... recently, for reasons not entirely clear to me, I started

	to get personal hate mail.  At first, it was just attacks
	on my qualifications, and those of the Wang Institute.  Then
	I started to get a continuous stream of personal attacks of
	the poorest of taste.  I found that I was dreading reading my
	mail, it got me so fired up.  I got good at identifying
	the messages from the headers and just deleted them for a week.
	I sent out notice of my net death, and I have not received any
	hate mail lately, just a lot of inquiries.

This goes far beyond the normal flames and diatribes we see on the net itself.
THe only parallel I can think of comes from those who physically attack and
abuse the homes of people whose public policies they disapprove of.  

I find it appalling.  I would be tempted to take legal action against the
culprits.  The net -- and normal life -- can only survive if we practice
tolerance against one another.  Personal attacks and verbal abuse simply should
play no role in the kinds of discussions we have on the net.  

 Donald A. Norman
 Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
 University of California, San Diego
 La Jolla, California 92093
 UNIX: {ucbvax,decvax}!sdcsvax!sdcsla!norman   OR   ARPA: norman@nprdc