Xref: utzoo soc.women:10149 soc.men:3039 news.admin:1772
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pacbell!att-ih!gargoyle!oddjob!matt
From: matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Stop calling me Fred)
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men,news.admin
Subject: Re: Warning: Offensive to techies
Message-ID: <14503@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 15 Mar 88 19:06:46 GMT
References: <7614@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Followup-To: soc.women
Distribution: na
Organization: Very Little
Lines: 47
Summary: Alternate Reality!

Mark E. Smith has lost an adherent.  I used to think Mark was an
abrasive person with some good points to make.  Now I think Mark is
living in some other world.

era1987@violet.berkeley.edu (Mark Ethan Smith) writes:
) Ever notice that in rec.humor you can avoid offensive postings
) because there is a warning in the header, but in soc.women there
) is no freedom of speech, ...

This is eiher a non-sequitur or a new meaning of "freedom of speech".
Whom exactly has been prevented from speaking freely in soc.women?

) ... and you cannot choose what you wish to read
) and avoid abusive postings, because the headers deliberately do not
) contain warnings?  Ever wonder why?

Doesn't selecting on the basis of author work?

) The answer is that the techies who wrote the usenet software, maintain
) it, are the majority of net readers, ...

You cannot possibly subscribe to the same reality that I do if you
think that the majority of net readers have helped to write or
maintain the usenet software.

) ... and are the only ones with the power to enforce standards, ...

NOBODY has the power to enforce standards, unless they can forbid
all usenet access to all violators.  For instance, if standards were
enforceable in news.admin, your article could not have been posted
there.

) ... are not willing to enforce any standards
) in noise groups, or to permit technical status to a group involving
) women or human rights.

Wake up - there are groups that have what you call "technical status"
and which do involve women; women who are unix-wizards, women who
study AI, women who use C, Prolog, or Lisp, and so on.

I think you are disgruntled because you didn't get to create the
newsgroups you wanted.  (I am one fascist repressive male pig-dog
taking time off from developing nuclear weapons who voted FOR one of
your two newsgroups.  What do you make of that?)  Why not do what
many others in your situation have done?  Create a mailing list.
________________________________________________________
Matt	     University		matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu
Crawford     of Chicago     {astrovax,ihnp4}!oddjob!matt