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From: richmond@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond)
Newsgroups: news.misc,rec.humor.d,news.admin
Subject: Re: Expansion of rec.humor.funny to other networks
Keywords: Brad Templetons latest scheme
Message-ID: <9773@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 12 Mar 89 03:33:11 GMT
References: <439@corpane.UUCP> <3100@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: richmond@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 64

I would oppose the appointment of Matt Crawford as moderator, given his
stated position to take no account of the potential offensiveness of
submissions.

If you'd like to read an excellent statement of why he should be more careful,
look at the recent posting (in alt.hypertext, of all places) of the system
manager who is cutting rec.humor (not clear whether he includes rec.humor.
funny, too) because of offensivess.

Note also that Stanford has cut rec.humor.funny (and I've never had any
contact with them: they did this of their own volition.)

There is a whole lot to discuss on the freedom of speech issue -- and
I've had my say, and don't plan on starting up again, except to remind
you all that while freedom of speech is an important right, freedom
from fear and discrimination is also a basic right.  When more than
one right is at play, trade-offs have to be made between them.

The choice is not easy, and I recall when I had a tough choice.  I was
the editor of my departmental journal at the London School of Economics,
where I was an undergraduate.  A white South African student submitted
a paper for publication which was, to say the least, controversial.  It
painted a very unfavourable picture of Black parts of town in 
Johannesburg.

Now, I disliked this paper a great deal, but decided it should be 
published, since it met the normal standards of academic publications,
and -- though it certainly presented a white view -- was not racist.
I decided to invite a Black African to submit a reply.

What happened was that a whole bunch of students went to the Department
Head to protest, and I got a whole bunch of flak.  In a meeting with the
Head, I said that although I did not like the piece, we should try to 
learn more about the problems of South Africa, and the views of whites,
however unpleasant, should be included as a way of understanding the
conflicts of South African society.  I told him I would have had no
hesitation in rejecting the article if there had been the slightest
racial slur in it.

I then went ahead, and sent the copy to the printers.  Without telling me,
a bunch of the protestors were authorized by the department head to
black out passages they found offensive with ink.  They did this to all
copies except one box which I had luckily removed from storage.  It
took a long time for the heat to die down from that episode.

Now, racist humour is an entirely different matter.  Where the intent is
to insult someone because of their race, stricter judgement is demanded.
I'll stop here, and direct your attention to the entry in alt.hypertext.

On a pragmatic basis, you should all consider the future of the 
rec.humor.funny newsgroup.  Given that Stanford has already pulled
the plug, and the alt.hypertext poster has done so as well, it seems likely
that a policy of allowing unrestrained offensive material will simply
lead to more sites cutting the newsgroup out.

What we need is someone with a keen sense of humour, but also a sense of
perspective.

Jonathan Richmond


ps: Please don't take this as another opportunity to start a flame war.
Think through this whole business carefully and rationally, and please
try to cool and polite when replying.