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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!psu-cs!qiclab!leonard
From: leonard@qiclab.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Responsibility for postings.
Message-ID: <843@qiclab.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 22:14:02 EST
Article-I.D.: qiclab.843
Posted: Wed Oct 21 22:14:02 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 05:37:37 EST
References: <4611@videovax.Tek.COM> <2294@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Followup-To: misc.legal
Organization: Qic Laboratories, Portland, Oregon.
Lines: 80
Xref: utgpu news.admin:1085 misc.legal:2406

In article <8499@sri-unix.ARPA> maslak@sri-unix.UUCP (Valerie Maslak) writes:
<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.

I don't read soc.women, in fact I don't read _any_ of the soc groups. So
all I've seen of this war have been postings in news.admin, news.sys.admin,
news.misc, and misc.legal. 

From what has appeared in the _those_ groups, this war started due to Mark
accusing the sys admin at violet.berkeley.edu of _deliberately_ interfering
with Mark's ability to read and post from an account there. No "it looks
like" or "possibly". 

Larry and others pointed out that the maintenance of the news software on
that system was a rather low priority of a sysadmin who had a lot of other
higher priority things that _had_ to be done.

From Mark's own postings it appears that Mark just _assumed_ that the problem
was a deliberate attack.  I do not recall if Mark had attempted to contact
the sysadmin before posting the flame. I _do_ recall that Mark claimed that
the sysadmin was someone other than the real sysadmin (as I recall, the 
person Mark accused turned out to be the sysadmin of berkely.edu, which is
a different system)

Larry also pointed out that Mark's comments were slanderous. I'm not a 
lawyer, so I don't know if they really are or not, but the wording and
tone do _not_ belong in any of the news.* groups!

From the evidence _I_ have seen, it would appear that Mark is prone to
jumping to conclusions. And that Mark likes to flame. Neither of which 
belong in a posting to news.admin or the other _news_ groups involved.

Apparently Mark has been on the receiving end of a lot of discrimination.
This does not give Mark the right to assume _in a public message_ that a
problem is due to further discrimination. Making such assumptions shows
prejudice on _Mark's_ part.

Mark is free to believe anything the he wishes to about men and their
motives. Even specific men. Similarly, they can believe anything they
wish to about Mark. Neither side may act as if these prejudices are true
_without evidence_. Doing so is discrimination. Which I thought Mark
was against?
(to use races as you did in your example: I'm perfectly free to believe
that all blacks are criminals. I am _not_ free to act as if this were true.
Most especially, I am not free to assume that a _specific_ black is a
criminal, UNLESS I HAVE HARD EVIDENCE.)

Remember? "Innocent until proven guilty."

What Mark could have done (and _should_ have!) was post a message describing
the problem and stating that he couldn't contact the sysadmin. _Without_ the
conspiracy theory! The comments to the effect of "I'm mad, I paid good money
for this account and it isn't working" could even have been left in.  After
all, they are the truth!

(note that I am restricting this to misc.legal. This stuff never belonged
in news.admin in the first place.)


ps. before anyone tries to flame me for the opinion mentioned above with
regards to blacks, not that it was an example NOT MY BELIEFS!

-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]		...!tektronix!reed!qiclab!leonard
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."