Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!uwvax!oddjob!hao!ames!amdcad!amd!intelca!oliveb!pyramid!uccba!hal!ncoast!billw From: billw@ncoast.UUCP (Bill Wisner) Newsgroups: soc.women,news.misc Subject: Re: Moderation Message-ID: <2740@ncoast.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Jun-87 02:29:09 EDT Article-I.D.: ncoast.2740 Posted: Mon Jun 29 02:29:09 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 18:49:09 EDT References: <699@hjuxa.UUCP> <4009@sri-unix.ARPA> <4117@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: billw@wolf.UUCP (Bill Wisner) Followup-To: soc.women Distribution: world Organization: The ACME Group Lines: 129 Xref: mnetor soc.women:5254 news.misc:652 My sincerest apologies for posting this in news.groups. I felt I had to respond to Mark's ridiculous article, though, so here it is. Follow-ups are directed to soc.women, which I never read, so I doubt if I will ever be saying another word on the subject. [It's a long article; but my, it's fun bashing on this pompous, deluded twit.] In article <4117@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> era1987@violet.berkeley.edu writes: >>How about a quick consensus-posting about moderation for this group? >>Not formal, just how do we feel about the idea? ALL NOTE: I would NOT >>support prohibiting men from posting. I would support limiting postings >>from men to those directly concerning the subject at hand and not >>containing ad hominem (ad feminem?) attacks or female bashing or >>gratuitous rambling. >You know I'm all for it, but in her continuous postings, Alan Curtis >has proven that it won't work. She can post to moderated groups, and >if her only purpose is to attack a woman, disrupt soc.women, or malign >feminists, nobody can stop her. And the same thing happened recently in comp.sources.misc. An inflammatory faction has decided to take matters into its own hands and post "self- moderated" articles with a phoney Approved: line. Nobody ever claimed that moderation is one hundred percent, but if you dispute that it cuts down on garbage postings, pull your head out of the sand. >The simple fact is that all usenet sites are either privately owned by >or under the de facto control of males, and except for sexualizing, >trivializing, or harassing women, they have no use for women at all. >They either don't notice, or don't care about the hostile, intimidating >atmosphere that keeps most women from participating. While people are >quick to write to SA's if a woman responds with justifiable anger to a >personal attack, and most SA's are quick in such cases to remove the >offending woman's access, either nobody has complained to Alan's SA, or >her SA felt that since she was only attacking a woman, no problem existed >even though she posted an unauthorized article to a supposedly moderated >group. Had the moderator of comp.risks, Peter Newman, taken his >responsibilities seriously, he'd have written to Alan's SA, requesting >that Alan's access be removed. But as a male, Peter is well aware that >the site adminstrator will also be male, and will simply laugh off all >breaches of netiquette by males, while severely punishing women who >"might," but actually haven't committed any breach of netiquette. What is life like, living in constant paranoia of the male sex? And where do you get your "facts"? Every usenet site I have ever been on has had a very understanding administrator (and one of them was a female!) who made every attempt to make women feel just as welcome as men. If the woman decides she doesn't like the system or its users, that's up to her. There's not a whole lot the SA can do about it, correct? (Oh, of course there is. He could ban all males from the system. He could even ban himself and hand the root account over to the first female to come along.) Perhaps Alan's SA felt that everybody, regardless of what they say, has an equal right to say it. This is known, by the way, as the First Amendment. The only infraction committed was forging an Approved: line in an article header. For all we know, maybe her SA did reprimand her via mail. How are we to know? She has just as much of a right to attack a woman as you have to to post your blind flames against all men. You suggest Peter Newmann doesn't take his responsibilities seriously. You seem to assume that he did not write to Alan's SA (or Alan) about the article. Then, you go on to implicate that Peter is involved in some kind of fantastic male conspiracy. What kind of a fantasy world are you living in? Again, you jump to many conclusions. And, even if Peter did NOT make any response, who are you to interpret his motives? >There is nothing to be done. We are in a patriarchy, and if soc.women >were moderated, Alan and her friends, with the permission and consent >of her SA, would continue to post whatever she wished directly to the >moderated group without authorization and without penalty. I wish it >were otherwise. I wish women musicians could participate in music groups >without receiving obscene death threats, and women doctors could post to >sci.med without receiving obscene death threats, and women of all walks >of life could post to soc.women without being subjected to personal attacks, >but in a patriarchy, that's not how things are. Oh, so now all men have repressed psychotic urges, and wish to send women musicians obscene death threats? Only a few actually overcome their inhibitions and do so? Refer to my previous comments about fantasy worlds. No matter what you post to on usenet, you better expect flames ("personal attacks") from people who may not agree with your opinions. Unless you stick completely to facts in your postings, don't expect sympathy after people send you personal flames in the mail. I'm not well versed on sci.med. Please, give me an example of a woman doctor posting an article and receiving a death threat. I will, in turn, give you an example of a usenet user with serious psychological problems. I'm sure they're out there -- and I am sure there are some females that fit, as well. All of this assuming, of course, that the supposed death threat was not meant in jest. [By the way, I will not be posting inflammatory articles to news.misc regarding anybody who might flame me as a result of this article.] >There MIGHT be some possibility of attacking the problem from the area >of the use of federal funds and common carriers to perpetuate discrimination, >but with the Reagan Administration still in power, and males in control >of the courts and regulatory agencies, there's not really much hope there >either. Ronald Reagan, his cabinet, and the Supreme Court are obviously part of the aforementioned male conspiracy. And I am very democrat -- I'm NOT defending Raygun's politics. >I'd like to see Pat Schroeder run for President in '88. I'm sure that >if Representative Schroeder was elected, we'd have more women appointed >to policy positions, and we could begin to hope for the right to >participate in "public" forums on an equal basis. We happen to be >half the "public" and the majority of computer users in industry, >although you sure wouldn't know it from usenet. I don't know a thing about Pat Schroeder. If she is a reasonable candidate, then I'm all for it. But if she has attitudes similar to yours, then the day she becomes president is the day I pack my bags and get an account on a usenet site down under. A president like that may even try to make the US like the world detailed in Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAIDEN'S (handmaid's?) TALE, but in reverse. I think this here country would lose population quite quickly. >The boys are running the show, and as Randy Seuss said in another posting, >"That's the biz, sweetheart." This is what I get for twenty-five minutes of banging around in vi? Fooey. Well, that's my one point five million dollars worth. Now I think I'll go play with my news.misc kill file... -- Bill Wisner ..{cbosgd,decvax}!cwruecmp!ncoast!billw