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From: ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Defending Eric Mading
Message-ID: <7439@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 18:42:12 EST
Article-I.D.: eddie.7439
Posted: Wed Nov 18 18:42:12 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 10:49:56 EST
References: <1043@pbhyd.UUCP> <25092COK@PSUVMA> <6851@ut-ngp.UUCP> <7427@eddie.MIT.EDU> <1853@chinet.UUCP>
Reply-To: ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 36
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1393 news.sysadmin:463

In article <1853@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes:

>But harrassment and vicious personal attacks are not.  Being "offensive"
>isn't the issue.  Using group taste to regulate other people's behaviors by
>calling them "offensive" and prohibiting them IS a danger.  But that isn't
>what's under discussion here.  What is under discussion is the behavior of
>certain people that have perpetrated vicious personal attacks, harrassment,
>and fraud upon other people for their own jollies.  Society is NOT obligated
>to tolerate them.  They deserve what they get if their accounts are taken away.
>If they come back at you with more of the same for daring to document their
>behavior, then they deserve it doubly so.

One thing we are losing sight of here is that the net is not "the real 
world".  Saying something nasty about somebody else here is not the
same as harrassing them on the street, or threatening them by phone,
or hanging around outside their house.  You do not HAVE TO read the net.
You do not HAVE TO respond when someone baits you.  Thusfar, Usenet has
had no "test cases" regarding slander or libel, therefore right now, all
is fair game.  There are no rules. There are no guidelines.  And as far
as I can tell, at the first sign of a real "test case" the academic
sites and the backbones will pack it in.  Who in their right mind wants
to censor each and every article before it goes out because of a 
threat of lawsuit hanging over your head?

"Harrassment" and "personal attacks" on the net are a necessary evil if
we are to keep this an open and public forum.  Those wishing to change
it should decide who they want to have the ultimate authority to decide
what is and is not acceptable for posting here. 

By the way, Rhonda, *I* was talking about the Eric Madding incident.  It
seems that you are talking about something completely different.  My remarks
are meant to be taken solely in the context of posting obnoxious material,
not  net-fraud, which is something far more serious, but also leaves
little recourse available to the rest of the net.

Mikki Barry