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From: maslak@sri-unix.ARPA (Valerie Maslak)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Responsibility for postings.
Message-ID: <8499@sri-unix.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 19-Oct-87 20:03:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.8499
Posted: Mon Oct 19 20:03:48 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Oct-87 23:28:56 EDT
References: <4611@videovax.Tek.COM> <2294@umn-cs.UUCP> <1606@dasys1.UUCP> <4626@videovax.Tek.COM> <168@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: maslak@sri-unix.UUCP (Valerie Maslak)
Organization: SRI, Menlo Park, CA.
Lines: 66
Summary: Chacun a son gout
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1200 misc.legal:3177

In article <168@ut-emx.UUCP> kraut@ut-emx.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes:
>It has been many days, probably several weeks, that I have been
>meaning to speak up in support of Larry Lippman in this (most
>unfortunate) unpleasantness that he finds himself in, simply to let
>him (and others) know that there are people on the net who think well
>of him and who will support him when attacked unfairly.
>
>       From Mark Smith, on the other hand, I have yet to see an
>article that would lead me to say anything similar.  Many have been
>distasteful and offensive (to me), demonstrating (to me) that it is not
>worth my time to read further what this person has to say.
>
>Consequently, I cannot say that I am fully informed (who can, really)

>on the details regarding the problem Larry seems to have with Mark (or
>anyone else) 

Well, everyone but me seems to have had their say on this subject
including those like our poster above who admit they don't know what
they're talking about...so now I'll have my say, to the powers that
be, so I beg your indulgence. But pray, Mr. Uhrig, how do you so
pontificate when you admit to being uninformed?

Not so long ago, I was the voice that proposed a soc.men group,
solicited and gathered votes for it, hoping that it would once again
make soc.women a place where reasonable discussion could take place.
Larry Lippman and his ilk (yes, his ilk, because the postings on
soc.women are recently more than 2-1 from men, not women) have made
that impossible.  You say, Mr. Uhrig, that Mr. Lippman finds himself
in some unpleasnatness? Au contraire, he instigated it.

Here's the truth. Larry inserted himself into a discussion of names
and gender in soc.women that was being carried out on a level that was
generally tolerable and interesting. He disregarded the "rules of etiquette"
in the group and generally made a nuisance of himself. When the rebuttals
to his messages began to indicate the level of anger and frustration that
he was arousing in Mark and other soc.women participants, he went crying home
to get his "big brother the attorney" to take up his fight for him.
Anyone who took the trouble to look into soc.women below the surface
of the last week would know that Larry's tactics have not been
appreciated by most of the regular posters there, men and women
alike. However, his nastiness has managed to be a coalescing force
that drove a core group of many of the soc.women regulars to a
woman-only mailing list; kill files and the "n" key weren't enough
anymore. I was one of those; I can't stand to read the group that I
worked very hard to protect.

Basically what Mr. Lippman has been doing is akin to walking into a black
neigborhood and yelling "Look at all the niggers" and then wondering
why he was clouted from behind with a baseball bat in a dark alley.
Mr. Lippmann, and Mr. Uhrig, may have enough tunnel vision that they
don't realize that their attitude and behavior has been at least as
objectionable to some of us, to whom soc.women was an important
resource, as Mark's has been to them. 

I don't care how wonderful Lippman has been in any other newsgroup,
Mr. Uhrig. In soc.women he was a boor and a bully. I wouldn't trade
one Mark Ethan Smith for 20 of him. Mark is a skillful debater, and
pulls no punches. His articles are often painful to read. But the
pain is from seeing the truth, naked, held up like a mirror.

So, net gods, lest you think that this is a tempest in a teapot,
it's not. But the issue is not whether Lippmann was libeled but
rather whether being an unconventional woman is net.death.

Valerie Maslak