Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!think!ames!hc!beta!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!eneevax!hsu From: hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Forwarded from rec.music.gaffa Message-ID: <881@eneevax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 13-May-87 14:09:14 EDT Article-I.D.: eneevax.881 Posted: Wed May 13 14:09:14 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 05:58:35 EDT References: <871@eneevax.UUCP> <21435@styx.UUCP> Reply-To: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Dave Hsu) Organization: The Royal Maryland Wormucking Institute Lines: 97 In article <21435@styx.UUCP> mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: > >I am always interested in anything that might jeopardize the >availability of Usenet at a given site, or in people having their net >access terminated or restricted, but it is impossible from this >forwarded message and from the other messages in gaffa to tell exactly >whose ox was goreth. Mr. Hsu, can you fill us in? > >Michael C. Berch / mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa My apologies, Michael, if my earlier posting was cryptic. It was meant largely to head off a relatively unwanted discussion in rec.music.gaffa, by isolating the parts of general interest and putting them here. I will try to summarize the events, first. My understanding is that the parties involved would like this episode to die down quietly; because the issues raise are of importance to the net as a whole, I think, I will identify each of the players only by a letter and gender. About a week ago, one of the prime contributors to rec.music.gaffa who I shall refer to as A, announced a boycott of that group on grounds of censorship and for lack of a better phrase, the absence of due process. It appears that some person or persons on the net had made allegations regarding his Usenet conduct directly to his superiors, neglecting to first contact both the accused and the moderator. Those allegations proved to be false, but not before the spectre of adminstrative discipline was raised. How this came to be requires some additional background, but is largely speculative. Both A and another newsreader at the same site who I will call B, specialized in discussing punk/hardcore/thrash rock and from a philosophical standpoint, the inescapability of vulgarism in music. As a result, many of their postings have been of a crude and vulgar nature that may seem severe to the uninitiated, but which make perfect sense in the context of their discussions. B, in particular, had engaged in some rather scathing (if facetious) personal attacks on a third netreader, C, late last year. C did boycott the group for a while at the beginning of this year, but returned and so established a sort of truce. The rest of the pertinent events are best documented in Gregory Taylor's posting of April 8th in rec.music.gaffa; it's lengthy (well, not when compared to the behomoth I posted here) but concise, and I won't try to condense it any further. If your site changed names from mod. to rec. at the correct time, it should be around article 120-125. You will probably have some difficulty sifting through the names, but his paragraph immediately following the included text best sums things up. Now, the questions that make this relevant to news.misc: (1) The prescribed method for resolving conflicts in moderated groups is to contact the moderator first, and then to contact the moderator pool through the moderators@cbosgd alias. With the recent newsgroup renaming, novice users will find it easier than ever to accidentally stumble into moderated groups, some of which have very different mores than the rest of the net. This is analogous to randomly watching movies without understanding the MPAA ratings system. Rec.music.gaffa, for instance, is often thought of as a closed mailing list but since the opening of the gateway last year, there exists the possibility that a contributor will forget that his or her submissions become publicly readable. This has, in fact, happened before. We can't just rot13 an entire newsgroup; is there a need to indoctrinate newer netreaders more thoroughly? How does the role of moderator change when he or she is expected to control the content of the discussion instead of the membership of the reader community? (2) Who, if not the moderator, is responsible for controlling newsreaders? In particular, I have heard a rumor that A's system administrator was bypassed, implying that some other non-news- related superior was contacted. If this is true, I hope it does not become widespread, as it would create an unwelcome link between one's netiquette and one's continued employment. The moderator step establishes a filter to weed out false accusations, nuisance complaints, and general noise from genuine problems. If people continue to bypass what is admittedly a weak system, what's to prevent roving bands of net enforcers (or hey, net terrorists) from harassing people who enter into controversial discussion? Who but the moderator could issue a qualified reprimand based on anything more than hearsay? (3) There have been rumors of legal action flying about. While it is hard to lend any credibility to such rumors, the point arises again: how important is it to minimize public scrutiny of the internet? Would a Proxmire-type still care about what we discuss? How does the internet differ in the public eye from the old Arpanet? I'm probably ranting and raving and rambling and babbling again, but that's about as much as I can sterilize the discussion thus far in gaffa. Any clearer now? -dave -- David T. Hsu Newsaholic Emeritus ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!mimsy!eneevax!hsu USNAIL: soon leaving the EE Computer Facility, U of Md, College Park, MD 20742 "I've been ionized, but I'm okay now..."