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From: gsmith@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Usenet account "termination with extreme prejudice"
Message-ID: <8710032340.AA04613@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 19:40:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: garnet.8710032340.AA04613
Posted: Sat Oct  3 19:40:46 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 04:56:30 EDT
References: <18322@amdcad.AMD.COM> <4550@ncoast.UUCP> <20931@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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Organization: Garnet Gang Gems of Wisdom, Inc.
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In article <20931@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) writes:

>My interactions with Matthew Wiener and Gene Ward Smith have been
>completely polite and cordial, and with very few exceptions, strictly
>technical. I am also acquainted with Tim Maroney and he has been
>nothing but polite and genial to me.

   Thanks. This shows again the difference between posting articles 
and direct communication; in the latter case one uses non-verbal
cues to establish many things.

>I never got any of the complaint
>letters that Tim sent about Matthew, because they weren't directed
>to me (and wisely so, since Matthew's news system is not my "turf").

  It is hard to say exactly whose bailiwick Matthew's news system
is (or was), since he wrote and used his own news reading and
posting system. This was partly the result of the math department
turning off posting privleges for a while--which didn't shut
Matthew Wiener up, but did those who depended on the "official"
system using inews. This is partly why I objected to Maroney's
shotgun attacks on the "Brahms Gang": they were too likely to hit
the wrong target and hurt people who had done Maroney no harm. As
it is, of course, Matthew's ability to read and post news is
still intact and I suspect he will use it when he gets back (I
hear he has a job, so this might not be until next year.)

>If there ever was a time when I could have defused
>the situation, it has long since passed, and all I can do now is
>watch the fireworks.

   Dispite Maroney's lies about sending us e-mail and trying to
defuse the situation privately, he never showed any interest in
this. Now of course, after getting me involved in flaming him to
a crisp, he generously offers to walk away provided I never
mention his Holy Name again.

>I do find some irony to this, because I've been on the network
>long enough to recall Tim's experiences at UNC.

   I think he learned the wrong lesson: he uses this experience
to justify paranoid ideas about large and sinister plots against
him.

>Since the USENET is a big network, I expect that Matthew Wiener
>will find another system where he is welcome to read and post, as
>did Tim Maroney (and more recently, Mark Ethan Smith).

  Such as weemba@violet.berkeley.edu.

>Getting
>someone kicked off the network is a temporary remedy at best;
>ultimately, Tim and Matthew will have to come to some kind of
>accomodation or forever be locked in mortal network combat.

   The same with me: I am now obviously in this mess up to my
earlobes.

ucbvax!garnet!gsmith     Gene Ward Smith/Garnet Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
 This posting was made possible by a grant from the Mobil Corporation