Xref: utzoo news.admin:3089 misc.legal:5368 soc.women:12077
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!netsys!cucstud!c3pe!stein
From: stein@c3pe.UUCP (Mike Stein)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal,soc.women
Subject: Re: Proposed lawsuit
Summary: Who is this Usenet, anyway?
Message-ID: <3009@c3pe.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jul 88 19:01:33 GMT
References: <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: C3 Inc, Herndon, VA
Lines: 83


     I think Trish O Tuama has given a pretty clear explanation of the
scope of the EEO/AA laws.  Mark's only hope for success that I can see
is intentional infliction of emotional distress, though I think it's a
slim one.  (Mark, you know what *in forma pauperis* means; have you ever
heard *de minimis not curat lex*?  Yes, I know it doesn't seem *de minimis*
to you, but I think you have a tough row to hoe with a jury.)

     While I don't think Mark does (or should) have a hope of winning a
suit, nevertheless I think Mark does have a point of simple politeness:
If Mark likes being referred to as "he" and "him", why is it so important
to so many of you to insist on calling Mark "she" and "her" regardless of
the fact that it upsets Mark so?  I have a friend whose birth certificate
reads "Cynthia."  She hates both that and Cindy; those who would remain
friends with her call her "Cync."  Do any of you have names that you really
don't like?  There are rights which are not legally enforceable, but which
are nevertheless our due as members of society:  please, thank-you, and
other such things.  Yes, Mark's postings are often inflammatory and full
of name-calling, and I'll take special exception to Mark calling Michael
Berch a rapist - that's defamation of character, not just infliction
of emotional distress.  But for the rest of it, is that any reason to
respond in kind?  If you find Mark a pain, well, that's why God gave us
'n' keys and (for rn users) KILL files.  Of course, I'll say the same thing
to Mark:  though I support you on this narrow point, nevertheless your skin
is too thin.  You can call me anything, as they say, except late for dinner.
It's what you *are* that's really important, not what people say about you
(short of accusing you of crimes to cause the police to take you away and
things like that).  I don't see how anything said here damaged your ability
to gain employment, Mark, nor that anyone has accused you of a crime.

     Now, on the subject of kicking government sites off Usenet, Mark may
win this one without firing a shot.  I used to be sysadmin of dolqci (U. S.
Dept. of Labor, Unemployment Insurance Services).  The Powers That Be decided
that anything other than the comp.* groups plus a few random others (e.g.,
dc.general for announcements of user group meetings and the like) were not
proper use of government computer resources.  Thus soc.singles and misc.legal
were banished.  Of course, so was soc.women.  You may find this a Pyrrhic
victory, Mark.

     One thing that I remember is Mark's mutterings about a dark conspiracy
of sysadmins to torment him.  (There, I said it.  Hey, it didn't hurt!)  I
sent him an email note setting forth my position, but that was during the
Great Pseudo Hunt and may not have gotten through.  Basically, as sysadmin
I had many things to do, and policing the net was not one of them.  *Any*
news maintenance I did was an "own time" project, and since I was holding
down two jobs as it was (really - the RFP for the new contract said I was
doing one job plus a third of each of three others!), my goal was just
to keep anything from breaking, and let it go at that.  I had no time to
examine all postings for offensive language, or even to write a utility to
do so.  This is cross-posted to news.admin; I wonder how many of you
sysadmins out there are in the same boat as I was.

     But (as the summary line asks) who is Usenet anyway?  On whom would
any papers be served?  Yes, there are people who work to keep the net
going, but really it's a distributed, anarchic cooperative effort.  If
any site starts getting rude, neighboring sites may pull the plug, but
there's no Net.Police with power to *order* anyone to refuse feeds to 
violators (though there are some who may *suggest* that violations of
net.etiquette have occurred, and that doing something would be a *good
idea*, and who have been around long enough and selflessly done enough
for the net.community that their opinions on the subject may be worth an
extra moment of consideration).

     So let's stop goading Mark, and Mark, let's stop making shotgun ac-
cusations.  Furthermore, Mark, I propose that rather than getting your
revenge through our poor overburdened court system, you take very appro-
priate retaliatory action against those men who you claim torture you by
referring to you with the feminine pronoun just because you have two 'X'
chromosomes:  refer to them as "she" and "her" and see how they like it.
It may give you satisfaction, them an interesting lesson, and all of us
a very instructive experiment.  (I guess you'll have to refer to Trish 
with the masculine pronouns.)  Quite frankly, I personally think that "she"
and "her" just refer to "that person who is neither you nor I and has two
'X' chromosomes, breasts (usually, if not surgically removed) and a vagina."
I see no belittlement in that; it's just a statement of fact just as surely
as I have an 'XY' pair and a penis.  OK, so Mark feels differently; I'll
refrain from using "she" and "her" just as I call my friend "Cync" even
though I don't find anything wrong with "Cindy" or "Cynthia."  Now, children,
play nice, and no lawsuits.

- Mike Stein
{ uunet, decvax }!decuac!c3pe!stein
Disclaimer:  I don't even work here!