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From: ramsey@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ramsey W. Haddad)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc
Subject: Re: Procedure for rec.humor.funny debate
Message-ID: <6732@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 8 Feb 89 21:12:00 GMT
References: <2726@looking.UUCP> <7650@chinet.chi.il.us> <70453RWC102@PSUVM> <8662@mailgw.cc.umich.edu>
Reply-To: ramsey@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ramsey W. Haddad)
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Computer Science Department
Lines: 40

In article <8662@mailgw.cc.umich.edu> emv@mailgw.cc.umich.edu (Ed Vielmetti) writes:
>Computerworld Feb 6 p16 sez "Stanford scraps racist-labeled Unix joke service."
>The anti-funny squad is Ralph Gorin, director of academic information resources
>at Stanford, and Cliff Johnson, manager of capacity planning at the Stanford
>Data Center. The pro-funny squad is led by John McCarthy, professor of computer
>science, who is asking the U to restore the feed "in the tradition of academic
>freedom."

The rational they are spouting for the cutoff is the conjunction of
three issues:
 (1) The newsgroup serves no educational function.
 (2) At a time when the University is trying to reduce racial
friction, it does not want to allow its resources to be used for
racially offensive jokes.
 (3) The newsgroup does not in and of itself provide a forum where
issues about offensive jokes can be discussed.

We are still hopeful that we will be able to reverse this stupid
decision.  McCarthy already has over 100 signatures of protest and is
working within the system to have the decision overturned.

The cutoff only effects AIR managed computers (coursework and
administration).  Departmental computers are still receiving r.h.f.
Thus, I am reposting the group to a Stanford-wide newsgroup that
reaches the effected machines.  (I assume Brad knows about this, since
he has read/written a couple of messages on that bboard.  He has not
complained.  (Poor guy, he has two major fights on his hand at the
same time.))  There has been no apparent attempt by the administration
to cut off the reposted messages.

Incidentally, it looks like Gorin is just being the loyal soldier:
taking the spear in the chest and giving his boss (Robert Street)
plausible deniability.

Another interesting aspect: the cutoff was not triggered by a
complaint from a Stanford reader of the group.  Rather, someone (who
opposes the cutoff) merely pointed out the original r.h.f controversy
as a topic of conversation.  Things mushroomed.
-- 
Ramsey W Haddad