Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!jha
From: jha@its63b.ed.ac.uk (J Andrews)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: BSI Prolog terms of reference
Message-ID: <1194@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 22 Apr 88 10:25:47 GMT
References: <256@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk> <6960004@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM>
Reply-To: jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (J Andrews)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Edinburgh, U.K.
Lines: 36

In article <6960004@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM> fritz@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) writes:
 [on Chris Moss's comments about Richard O'Keefe]
>... I would hope you could look past
>his writing style and consider the issues he raises.  The responsibilities of
>your position on a standard-creating committee demand it.

     I don't think the responsibilities of his position really do
demand that Chris read and deal reasonably with unreasonable
articles.  I'm not questioning your criticism of Chris's suggestion
about Richard's motives, but I think an important thing to remember
is:

                        This Is Usenet.

     For all I know about Richard O'Keefe (which is less than I
should, judging by all the excellent things I see about him and by
him), he is a first-rate computer scientist from whom I could learn
a lot.  But that doesn't mean that I (or others) have to put up with
long, irritating articles from him on this anarchic, user-run public
network.  We don't do that on comp.lang.c, or soc.women, or
talk.bizarre even, so why should we do it on comp.lang.prolog?

     What I have come to do is, read his articles as far as I can,
and if one starts to get my blood pressure up too high (:-)), hit
'n'.  And that's cool.  But you seem to be saying that Chris Moss
should not be able to do the same, or to respond in kind.  I think
he should be able to do whatever he wants on this network, as long
as he doesn't, say, speak officially for BSI without their approval
(which I don't think he's ever claimed to be doing).

     Official discussions really have no place here.  But there are
unofficial rules of conduct, and everyone can promote them, with
their 'n' key fingers or their own articles.

--Jamie.
  jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk