Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU!gsmith From: gsmith@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.flame Subject: Maroney Archives, vol I Message-ID: <8710030730.AA26085@garnet.berkeley.edu> Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 03:30:09 EDT Article-I.D.: garnet.8710030730.AA26085 Posted: Sat Oct 3 03:30:09 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 04:37:40 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu () Organization: Garnet Gang Gems of Wisdom, Inc. Lines: 149 Let me start out by describing how the Maroney assault began from my point of view: the more necessary since Matthew Wiener isn't around to give me *his* point of view. I was aware that some sort of flame war was going on between Wiener and Maroney; I didn't know the details nor always the location of the flames. I later learned it started over an aardvark in a comic book. I was not a part of this war, nor did I propose to join it. I flamed Maroney over calling Michael Berch a member of the "Brahms Gang"; and Matthew Wiener read it over my shoulder and wanted to add a little more and co-sign it. This, I guess, made me a part of Wiener's conspiracy to drive Maroney nuts, and is probably why Maroney then posted an article saying the net as a whole should try to close down the "Brahms Gang"; which I suppose meant Matthew and me at least, and perhaps also Steve Carrier, Jim Propp or even Michael Ellis. I gave this a short flame in response. Then Matthew showed me the following letter: Date: Fri, 31 Jul 87 06:41:08 PDT From: hoptoad.UUCP!tim@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Maroney) To: postmaster@brahms.Berkeley.EDU Subject: harrassment and slander Cc: laura@cgl.ucsf.edu, tim@cgl.ucsf.edu Whenever I appear on USENET these days, I am immediately beset by harrassing messages. These messages do not come from a wide variety of sources, but primarily from a single source, brahms.berkeley.edu . To be specific, they come from Matthew Wiener and Gene Ward Smith. As you can see from the messages I have forwarded to you, these messages not only exceed reasonable limits of discourse and good taste, but by making repeated public attacks on my intelligence and sanity, commit the crime of slander. I am quite prepared to demonstrate in court that I am neither stupid nor insane, but I hope it will not come to this. Instead, please simply suspend the network access of the individuals involved until such time as they are willing to issue a sincere public apology and retraction, and to vow not to attack me again in public or in private. I have received as many ad hominem personal messages from them as public USENET messages, but I have since discarded them. The most recent was Wiener telling me - yet again - that I am unbelievably stupid, this time for putting an apostrophe into "Finnegans Wake". I sincerely regret having to make this request. Were it simply a matter of occassional rude disagreements of content, I would keep my silence, but it is not. Daily, gratuitous personal attacks having nothing to do with the substance of Wiener's messages continue to be directed against me. Frequently, as with the article from rec.arts.comics which I have forwarded to you, the only purpose of the message is to insult me. I have borne the assaults of what is known as the Brahms gang since last year without seeking to have them stopped by force, but it has become clear that they will not act like civilized human beings regardless of the tack I take with respect to them. I have tried being polite and reasonable in hopes they would follow suit. This only caused more intense taunting. I have asked them by private mail to stop the attacks. The result was the same. The fact is that they have committed slander using machines under your control, and at this point I am two steps away from contacting my attorney. These gratuitous and false attacks must stop. I doubt very much that this is the first complaint you have heard againt these individuals on similar grounds. If I cannot obtain satisfaction from you, my next step will be to contact the chairman of the mathematics department. Tim Maroney, Centram sun!hoptaod!tim At this point, I was (justifiably, I think) annoyed with Tim. I wasn't intending to join this damn war, but here he was pitchforking me into the thick of it, and attempting to carry out his campaign to shut us up. This sort of thing seems to be typical of him: I remember him violently attacking Michael Ellis on the grounds that Ellis said nasty, awful things which Ellis in fact did not say: Matthew did. But to Tim, these are just details: he later refers to Michael Berch as a member of the "Brahms Gang". Other things in the letter are simply untrue: and I don't know if they are deliberate lies, or whether Maroney has Reagan's problem: a seeming inability to separate truth from falsehood. For instance: the claim that he sent mail to me, at least, is false. Since he was capable of sending mail to others here, I can presume he would be capable of sending me mail. He never has, and Matthew told me he never got any e-mail requests from Maroney either. Tell me Tim: why did you claim you did so? As for his statement that he has recieved many "personal" messages from "them", I don't know whether Matthew sent him mail or not. I sent him none, and this sounds like another outright lie to me. Some of the evidence Maroney provides in this first letter follows: Date: Fri, 31 Jul 87 06:04:36 PDT From: hoptoad.UUCP!tim@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Maroney) To: postmaster@brahms.Berkeley.EDU Path: hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU!gsmith From: gsmith@BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage Subject: Re: The ridiculous and the sublime and the Maroney Message-ID: <8707291314.AA19449@brahms.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 29 Jul 87 13:14:07 GMT References: <2516@hoptoad.uucp> <2534@hoptoad.uucp> <21618@lll-tis.arpa> <2562@hoptoad.uucp> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: brahms.Berkeley.EDU!gsmith@brahms.Berkeley.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central Lines: 21 In article <2562@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes, in replying to Michael Berch: > you are >likely to be disappointed - and I know how much a member of the Brahms gang >hates to be disappointed when searching out inferiority in others, so you >are better advised not to try. As usual, Tim, you do not disappoint us in the least. Your Achilles heel stands out like an Olympia Mons up close. We are referring to, of course, your minimal talents at digesting what you read on the net. Michael Berch, however well-qualified he may be in other respects, is not associated with the mathematics department at UC Berkeley, and hence cannot be a member of the Brahms Gang. If you haven't seen the Brahms Gang style .signature, we'll be glad to e-mail you a copy. We yet again chortle in Tim Maroney's general direction! Ayuck yuck yuck. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith /Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 Without NNTP, the brahms gang itself would be impossible.--Erik E Fair Whether this "exceeds the limits of reasonable discourse and good taste", as Maroney alleges, must be left to the individual to judge. Obviously, however, it is much less rude than many a thing Maroney has posted, and does not qualify as slander in the legal sense. I was annoyed at Maroney for mixing up Michael Berch with the Brahms Gang, partly because I remembered the extraordinarily vicious and unfair assault he made on Michael Ellis because of a similar confusion. Matthew, of course, was in the midst of a flame war. So it goes... The other articles in this series are Wiener's flames of Maroney; I'm glad Tim likes them so well that he wishes them to be better known. An anthology follows. And this is, remember, just the *first* letter! "This paragraph is why I have felt free to insult you." -- Tim Maroney ucbvax!bosco!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720