Re: [ga] This is so sad !!

[Joe Baptista <baptista@pccf.net>]

Try to stay on top of the issues here Kelsey.  This has nothing to do with
usenet, or filters or lists - and everything to do with order in the
general assembly.  Order where power belongs to the majority - and not the
minority - order to accomplish work - and get rid of the trashy illegal
activities advocated by the Names Council.

Regards
Joe

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Joe Kelsey wrote:

> Mikki Barry writes:
>  > While I totally agree with the fact that harald and roberto have 
>  > offered constructive solutions, I have a problem with anything that 
>  > cuts out voices of others, as insane or unwanted as they might be.  I 
>  > personally use Eudora filters and refrain from responding to those 
>  > that DO get through.
> 
> I find this attitude, as exhibited here by Mikki and earlier by Karl
> completely naive.  You have obviously never spent time in the wilds of
> Usenet, a cooperative anarchy in action.  Usenet is, of course, the
> ultimate open, chaotic public forum.  In response to the general chaos
> present on most Usenet newsgroups (which are quite different beasts than
> a mailing list in spite of the fact that many people experience Usenet
> through gatewayed mailing lists), the participants have come up with
> many ways to constrain public behavior.  You have mentioned one of them,
> the newsreader filter, carried over from news readers into mail
> readers.  Simple filtering is never the complete answer, as you have
> seen.  Disruptive people seem to spend their entire days looking for
> ways to annoy and pester those who strive to ignore them.  They do so by
> running rogue cancel bots to remove legimate posts, or masquerade as
> other users to inject their unwanted content in spite of the best
> filters.
> 
> Ultimately, Usenet users and administrators have to face the fact that
> Usenet exists as a cooperative anachary and anyone can choose to carry
> or not carry news messages from anywhere since you are using your
> personal computing resources to carry the news groups.  Therefore, your
> decision to carry or not carry news is a completely personal decision
> and the fact that you choose to ignore someone has nothing to do with
> free speech.
> 
> The same arguments apply to mailing lists.  Participation in a mailing
> list is not now and never has been a free speech issue.  Each mailing
> list is founded to discuss a particular subject.  The operators and
> users of the mailing list set it up for a particular purpose and have
> every right to limit participation by those who choose to ignore the
> mailing list topic and spew their personal filth in a unwanted area.
> Removing disruptive persons from a mailing list in no way "cuts out the
> voice of others".  They have every right to participate in the list by
> discussing the list topic.  If they want to set up their own list to
> discuss their own topic, they are perfectly free to do so.
> 
> Please spend the time to think about this realistically.  You choose to
> use a mail filter to "cut out the voice of others".  This still means
> that these others have already imposed themselves on you since you have
> to first consume your own personal or corporate resources to receive and
> store their unwanted postings before you happen to run your mail client
> and automatically delete their messages.  The fact that you did not
> personally see these messages does not mean that you did not spend
> precious resources storing their messages.
> 
> The rest of us are saying that we already consume enough network
> bandwidth and computer resources on messages that we want to see and
> choose to impose that same filtering that you already use at the mailing
> list source where it prevents any down stream sites from expending
> resources on unwanted traffic.
> 
> Once again, this is not about placing any sort of limits on anyones
> speech and it is not about any restriction of "inclusiveness".  The
> presence of disruptive, off-topic posts serves to drive away the
> productive participants and creates a divisive atmosphere which is
> certainly not my definition of "inclusive".
> 
> /Joe
>