Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!well!abd
From: abd@well.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.women
Subject: Re: retraction
Message-ID: <3217@well.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 19:59:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.3217
Posted: Wed Jun  3 19:59:48 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 06:11:11 EDT
References: <9729@clyde.ATT.COM> <3767@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: abd@well.UUCP (AbdulRahman Dennis Lomax)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 125
Keywords: Stuart Brand, tax shelters, discrimination
Xref: utgpu news.misc:444 soc.women:4253


In article <3788@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> era1987@violet.berkeley.edu () writes:
>In article <16895@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:
>>
>>So, Mark, could you supply more details on what happened at the Well,
>>why you think they turned off your account, and whether you think they
>>were justified? Keep in mind that the Well is not a Federally funded
>>operation in any sense of the word.
>
>I've reported what they told me.  If you want further details, why not
>ask some of the people from the Well who have been making personal attacks
>on me here, to supply the details here instead?  I'm interested to know
>why they would censor feminist or egalitarian views, but not censor porn,
>obscenity or swastikas.
>
>The Well got its hardware from tax exempt entities called NETI and Point
>Foundation.  It got its software free on a beta test and probably got a
>free newsfeed.  It resells the resources it got for free, and provides
>a service for Libertarians and those whose views agree with those of
>Well management.  They refused to sell their services to me because my
>views differed from theirs.
>
>--Mark

The event which immediately preceded Mark's final eviction from the Well
was her posting to the net soliciting assistance in legal action against
the Well and its parent organizations NETI and Point Foundation.

Nearly every statement made or implied by Mark above is false. It is
Mark's ability to generate such shotgun arguments, which only occasionaly
contain any seed of truth, yet are believable to many on first reading,
which has led to all this uproar.

If I simply describe what Mark did in the months during which she had
a free account on the Well (and special privileges as a host), many will
doubtlessly accuse me of flaming. I'll mention a few facts.

Mark's postings to the Well were rarely censored. Yet postings in her
conference, which she controlled (and therefore could censor) were
heavily censored (by her), to the extent that the conference became
unreadable. Bear in mind that, on the Well, any conference host can
request any other user not to post in his or her conference, and it has
never occurred to my knowledge that such a request has not been honored.

Mark apparently has a great deal of time to devote to telecom. As of the
last time that I had any information, her sole means of support was
either welfare (SSI) or disability. Many times in correspondence or
in her conference she explained that she could not work because all
employers would expect a woman to be sexually available or to wear tokens
of sexual inferiority or the like.

[Mark raises genuine issues, but does so in such a way as to utterly
obscure them.]

She had a credit card, probably a relic of the days when she was employed
as an electrician by the U.S. Navy. Apparently, she worked several years
for the Navy, with her coworkers believing that she was a man. When the
information was leaked that she was actually a woman, her position became
untenable. She was (according to my memory, based on her accounts)
terminated on the grounds that she was hostile and argumentative.

She sued the Navy, charging breach of confidentiality [her true sex had
been stated in her file] and sexual discrimination. Somehow the breach
of confidentiality part of the suit got set aside, and, when I met her,
she was facing a government motion for summary judgement on the sexual
discrimination issue.

Apparently, she had filed reams of accusations; the judge (a woman;
I don't know if that is relevant....) asked her to state her case
succinctly without arguments. At the suggestion of Donna Hall, her friend
and an attorney, I helped her to understand what the judge was requesting
and to prepare to file the papers. I do not know if they were ever filed.
She apparently gave up. The "victory" she has mentioned is that the
court referred to her using what she calls the inclusive pronon, and
so did the defense, apparently on the judge's instruction.

As some of us predicted months ago when Mark became active on the net,
she is again generating megabytes of controversy which mostly does not
go anywhere. What should be done about it?

Nothing. Nothing should be done to prevent Mark from accessing the net
through any site which wishes to provide her an account. Nor should
anything be done to prevent those who know her history from recounting
it. Nor should anything be done to protect us from Mark's verbal abuse
or to protect Mark from verbal abuse. We can take care of ourselves.

While the jury is still out, the best position to take is that the net
is not responsible for content, for monitoring content is impractical.
However, sites at which libelous material originates could under some
circumstances be liable should an offended party wish to pursue the
matter. But a party must suffer actual damage for a libel action to
stand and such damage would be very difficult to prove on either side....

Meanwhile, Mark will doubtless continue to attract sympathy from those
who think that she is espousing feminist causes. Mark once told me that
she would work for the Nazis if they would give her a job without
sexual harassment. She said that she never complained when she heard
the men she worked with expressing sexist opinions; it might have
rocked the boat. I suspect that she thinks all men, among themselves,
think like those Navy electricians.

By the way, I am using the feminine pronoun because it matches Mark's
stated sex. Since it is quite likely that the issue will be raised,
I use pronouns according to (1) known sex (2) stated sex (3) inferred
sex, in that order of priority. Where sex cannot be inferred, I use
gender-free or inclusive forms (like he/she). I believe that this
practice matches that of most feminists. (And, incidentally, of Mark,
when she is not guarding her words or attempting to insult someone by
using a counter-sex pronoun.)

In a subsequent message, Mark has replied to Andy Beale with more
charges and speculations which are, basically, ridiculous if one knows
the facts. But it would take much time to answer each point. I am,
incidentally, the only possible person she could be referring to as
the disruptive host. In discussions on the Well, when I referred to
the conference as evidence that I had not disrupted it, she took the
conference private so that it could not be read. As mentioned above,
she could have prevented my posting at any time by merely requesting
that I stop. However, her definition of my writing as disruptive was
ex post facto, so to speak. It happened when I dared to disagree;
she went back and censored *every* posting of mine on *every* subject,
no matter how noncontroversial....

Believe it or not, that's what happened. If I wanted to flame about it,
I could say a *lot* more....