Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!weemba From: weemba@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.flame Subject: Wienerology 101 Message-ID: <8710200519.AA23982@violet.berkeley.edu> Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 01:19:13 EDT Article-I.D.: violet.8710200519.AA23982 Posted: Tue Oct 20 01:19:13 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Oct-87 01:51:14 EDT References: <378d6016.b8ab@apollo.uucp> <5261@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: weemba@violet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) Organization: Violet Gang Posting Central Lines: 283 Keywords: "wienerology"? Summary: gotta rush rush rush, plane leaves at midnight folks In article <21778@lll-tis.arpa> mcb@lll-tis.arpa (Michael C. Berch) writes: >In article <8710090832.AA28475@garnet.berkeley.edu> gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu >(Gene W. Smith) writes: >> In article <21748@lll-tis.arpa> mcb@lll-tis.arpa (Michael C. Berch) writes: >> [...] >> >This sort of case seems to come up every couple of years or so. >> >The first time I came across Matthew Wiener was some time back when he >> >wanted to sue Rich Rosen for defamation, I had NO intention of suing Rich for defamation. >> and I posted a couple of articles >> >to try to get him (and others who were beginning to get hot under the >> >collar) to cool down. >> This is not quite correct. Matthew Wiener was taking a dig at >> Rich Rosen, which consisted of trying to find if he would have >> grounds if he wanted to sue--which he had no intention of doing. >> At least that is how I remember the incident, and I am the >> closest thing to an expert on Wienerology left on the net. > >Well, the flames had gotten to High Broil by the time Mr. Wiener >posted his inquiry regarding grounds for a defamation suit. Whether >it can be presumed that X "wants to sue" Y when X posts a lengthy set >of excerpts from Y's articles and asks (to my mind not rhetorically) >whether they are defamatory, seems a moot point. You're correct--they WEREN'T rhetorical questions. They were completely straightforward questions: were they or weren't they examples of libel? I was being both logical--"if it's illegal, then..." and ignorant--"it isn't illegal, but you can sue...". > No one knows what >was in Mr. Wiener's mind at the time except for Mr. Wiener. Nothing definite was in Mr Wiener's mind--I was still rather new to the net, as is obvious from my laughable plea to the "powers that be"--other than the pious hope that the now original Rich Rosen would stick to my original words. Crafty boy--soon after that he developed his infamous inability to distinguish Gene and I (which eventually degenerated into the even more infamous "We are all Rich Rosen" motif). >What was interesting about the article (which I reproduce in part below) is >that Mr. Wiener seems to be asserting that Mr. Rosen ought to be >banished from the Net, or otherwise silenced, by the "powers that be". Seems? Tell me where. I referred to "this garbage": the three para- graphs I cited. I sent no e-mail to his sysadmin, there was no direct mention of Rich Rosen in my article--as a mathematician I believe that abstract questions are possible--and I dropped the matter at hand the moment that it was made clear that there was nothing remotely actionable. If I want to request something, Mr Berch, I will. The times that I have requested an account be closed are one: over the phone as a counter-suggestion to Laura, more for the amusement. Actually, Gene and I think his postings are wonderful--they've inspired us many times to hours of fun and intense laughter. Ayuck yuck yuck, Captain. I have once suggested (in e-mail to cbosgd, the upfeed) that a >site< be cut off for a week(?) or so--as a show of backbone muscle (something I've always advocated)--over someone I had never seen before nor since who post- ed directly to comp.risks. Mark said no, and that was that. >Given that Tim Maroney's was silenced at UNC and then apparently subsequently >attempted to silence Mr. Wiener, finding that Mr. Wiener called for >the silencing of Mr. Rosen is an interesting footnote indeed. Given that Timbo baldly asserted that my articles were in fact, no need to bother checking or asking anyone, slander, kept up a daily secret barrage to our sysadmin's mailbox, all filled with lies and horseshit left and right, threatened to harass my department chairman, threatened my sysadmin that his refusal to take the mighty Timmy seriously meant that he was going to make trouble for my sysadmin, and so on and so on--well, I don't see how you can even begin to compare our two actions. You as might as well mention as just an interesting footnote the time that I asked Foothead to leave me out of his anti-Koloc flames, and he said no, and I dropped the matter soon after. >Curiouser and curiouser. I'm mostly curious why the two seem remotely comparable. You know by now that I would have no qualms about mentioning Rich Rosen by name in a flame, so tell me why I removed such mention? Not that I think it fooled anyone, but it does rather pointedly weaken your finding that I was concerned with the person in general and not the very words I was quoting. When you read into my mathematical mind your legalistic interpretations, don't expect a bullseye. My original: >>I would like to ask the legal experts if the following would be grounds >>for libel/slander or the like out in the real world. (I am aware that >>electronic bulletin boards are questionable as evidence.) The statements >>are completely false and require an extremely twisted misreading of my >>postings. >> >>I would like to ask the powers that be if they plan to let this garbage >>continue. Money is spent transmitting this stuff. And if they are grounds >>for libel, then this user is repeatedly using the net for illegal activity. ---- Ken Hill writes: >Any possibility of some "guest" postings by weemba until he is back on >line full time? I am certainly looking forward to seeing what he has >to say about all this hooraw. Well, I'm doing fine, except I'm spending most of my time in Philadelphia, actually writing my thesis and earning money from a surprise job offer-- just in time too, since after two years of gainful unemployment, my life savings were running low. Even more interesting is the many falsehoods that have been posted in my absence. I did not lose my account. Part of the confusion is the fact that math grad accounts are being shuffled around extensively this fall, from brahms to bosco to violet to garnet to ???? Timbo had even been informed of this, in a Cc to a dozen or so r.a.comics readers, although we'll see later how this fact went right by him. HOWEVER, at the time I was getting into deep shit for breaking various department rules left and right. One of them was my repeatedly letting Michael Ellis use my account--over the years the department has been pretty mellow, so I didn't think his 2 AM xtreking and xconqing with the others was such a big deal, or my piles of "fun" software adventures with the system. I was unaware that a new order of kneebiting bureaucrats had taken over academic computing who were out to get everything spanking clean. My account >was< temporarily closed (~28 Aug) because of this. Compared to the dean who was forced to resign under extremely nasty threats--it seems he played fast and loose with the rules to in order to bring academic com- puting into the late '80s--my case was pretty trivial. The faculty com- mittee took me at my word when I told them Maroney is a complete idiot. The closure itself was sort of silly: I already had my airline ticket home for a period that covered the time involved, but they didn't bother turning the account on since they move kind of slowly. It also didn't work too well, since my primary account on the suns wasn't actually turned off until they figured out how to do it with the yp software. Here's Maroney's response (16 Aug) to my first ever article posted from violet: Matthew Wiener is using his account on your machine to carry out an illegal campaign of harrassment against me. His ability to do so on the machine brahms.berkeley.edu was suspended by the Math Dept. Please explain to me why you are allowing him to behave in this fashion. Truly mind-boggling are the assertions here. One article is a "campaign". It's illegal because... Uh, I never did know that there was a law against pointing out how stupid Tim Maroney's postings struck me. My ability to post from brahms was suspended by the Stat Dept, who were then fixing up the new networking. The list of his deficiencies seems endless. > I did not give permission for the articles which Matthew wrote to > be posted, and because of their harrassing nature, I would prefer > that they not be. [Tim Maroney] This one, we all know, is one his greatest. He >did< give permission, as if it were his in the first place, since they were in his e-mail!! Ayuck yuck yuck. I'm not surprised that Timbo expresses his greatest thanks to Rhonda. I'll mention some of the things that I called FACTS, and which ticks her off and that she just goes on about how they are nothing but personal opinions, were clarifications about who posted a certain proposal, who was in e-mail with the backbone about the accidental loss of moderation in a newsgroup during the name changeover, the great difficulty it took to convince the backbone to form said newsgroup in the first place. The Timzaroney approach all right. And her threat to SUE Mark Ethan Smith over the latter's suggest- ing that she and Bill Vajk are the same person. That's right--SUE. A real Timmy crybaby approach to handling net.problems. I mean ol' Richie mixed Gene and I up long ago, really throwing us for some interesting loops, but it never occurred to us that such was grounds for a LAWSUIT. Whoo-ee, a real Timbo soul-mate. Truly amusing are some other Timbo statements. He accused Gene of lying --one of his favorite accusations--about how "Captain Carnage" was what set him off. Gene and I only know what Laura told us: namely that you fucking EXPLODED when I called you that. And you want to know why? Be- cause it describes you to the T. I nailed you. Consider: you recently >asked< and >begged< in r.a.comics to be insulted, a truly Captain Carnage approach to life: Tim Maroney: "I'm still waiting for someone to have the guts to post a "net personality profile" on me...." Rob Wald: "Well, to sum it up simply, if rec.arts.comics were a DC series, you'd be a Manhunter." Tim Maroney: "I don't know what this means... Generally, insults the victim doesn't understand are a waste of good fun." Chris Jarocha-Ernst: "For the victim, maybe. I got a hearty chuckle out of it." Yes, I see you asserted that it takes guts to post a personality profile about you. And maybe it takes a good lawyer.... ---- Best of all I think is the following from the Maroney archives, which Gene apparently missed, dated 2 Aug 87: |I am getting very tired of seeing garbage like the following on the net. |The vicious attacks on my person that the Berkeley mathematics department |is permitting are clearly fooling other people. I do not have the time to |rebut the distortions of my views that Matthew Wiener and Gene Ward Smith |keep making, and which other people all across the country and the world |even then take as the gospel truth. The two act as if they're funny with |their name calling, and most net.readers are not willing to take the time |to analyze arguments intelligently and unemotionally. | |Like I said in my earlier e-mail to you, I can show in a court of law that |I am not stupid. Because of the slanderous efforts of the Brahms Gang, I |might have to go further and prove that I am not bigoted or ignorant either. |This is really too much! | |Tim Maroney |sun!hoptoad!tim | | Path: hoptoad!ptsfa!ihnp4!ihlpg!tan | From: tan@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Bill Tanenbaum) | Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.politics.misc | Subject: Re: An Interesting Few Messages on Hate Literature | Summary: Tim Maroney shows his bigotry, ignorance, and lack of brains in one quick posting. | Message-ID: <3563@ihlpg.ATT.COM> | Date: 31 Jul 87 19:52:26 GMT | References: <2564@hoptoad.uucp> | Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois | Lines: 23 | | I was going to write a long point by point rebuttal to Mr. Maroney's | diatribe but Matt Weiner beat me to it. Well done Matt! In one fell | swoop, Maroney shows that he: | | 1) Doesn't know the difference between Arabs and Muslims | 2) Doesn't know the difference between Orthodox Jewish | posters to Compuserve and the Israeli Government | 3) Doesn't understand that Theocratic Orthodox Jews are a tiny | minority, even in Israel | 4) Either doesn't understand the meaning of the word genocide | or deliberately misuses it | 5) Doesn't understand that criticising the practices or | doctrines of a religion is not in itself bigotry. | 6) Shows the same sort of bigotry against Judaism that Martillo | shows against Islam, but unlike Martillo, no documentation | or facts. | | How dare you accuse George Greene of intolerance! Look in the mirror, Tim. | | P. S. I will be on vacation until August 17, and won't be able to reply | to further postings until then. | -- | Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan | | Path: hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!rutgers!seismo!mcvax!enea!liuida!yngla | From: yngla@tragicomix.liu.se (Yngve Larsson) | Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers | Subject: Re: Dave Smeds (really: management vs. art) | Message-ID: <623@tragicomix.liu.se> | Date: 30 Jul 87 09:08:13 GMT | References: <464@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU> <2544@hoptoad.uucp> <8707281220.AA12134@brahms.Berkeley.EDU> | Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden | Lines: 15 | | In article <8707281220.AA12134@brahms.Berkeley.EDU> obnoxio@brahms.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes: | >In article <2544@hoptoad.uucp>, tim@hoptoad (Tim Maroney) writes his usual | >stupid drivel: | | I'm usually not very fond of obnoxio's napalming of the known universe, | but since I have read Tim Maroney's article (and suffered minor burns) | I actually fond obnoxio witty and to the point. | | Raising asbestos shield... | | | -- | Yngve Larsson UUCP: {seismo, mcvax}!enea!liuida!yla | Dept of CIS Arpa: YLA%IDA.LIU.SE@SEISMO.CSS.GOV | Linkoping University, Sweden Phone: +46-13-281949 Well, I really got to rush, I can't stay and polish this into anything funny--I think the horse's mouth does a good enough job, though. ucbvax!violet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 "Stop that Timmy! Don't shlup your soup all over the floor!"--Norman Dog