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		+++	 MAIL 3: pburo -> psb
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ate: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:56:43 -0700
From: Aaron McKee <amckee@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
To: "Partha S. Banerjee,,," <psb@ucsee.eecs.berkeley.edu>
CC: politburo@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [CSUA] To the Stalin/Soda Mausoleum
No offense, psb, but are you a current Cal student? If not, then we welcome 
your friendly *suggestions*, but you're stepping a bit out of line with 
your post below. As someone who should know the CSUA better than your 
message implies, you should know that our responsibility is to CURRENT 
students. We value and appreciate the community of alumni that have been a 
part of our past, and will be our peers in the (near) future, but make no 
mistake where our focus is.
As part of this focus, our server infrastructure is also intended for the 
exclusive use of CURRENT Cal students. That alumni accounts even exist on 
our server is a clear violation of the department's policies, we've just 
been ... selectively forgetful ... in implementing their mandatory account 
expiration policies. Do not confuse generosity and a desire to do good by 
our alumni with a responsibility to them, to maintain services for them, or 
to put up with them when they're acting grossly out of line - however we 
choose to define that. We would happily sorry 100 alumni accounts if it 
meant that even ONE additional current student would be able to make better 
use of our servers or be more comfortable on our servers. Our charter and 
focus obviously and clearly demand this, regardless of the respect and 
feelings we may have for many of the alumni.
More straight forwardly, Soda and its services exist at the sheer 
discretion of the Politburo and the current term vice president. If he 
wants to switch to Windows XP, the alumni don't really have much of a say 
in the matter. If he decides that only the bourne shell will be supported, 
that's his choice. God knows, if the choice is just to either modify or 
eliminate some non-mission critical service - that's clearly, inarguably at 
his full discretion. Neither he, nor the politburo, need to justify these 
decisions to anyone other than current students. (who, for the record, 
largely don't use the MOTD) In fact, we're failing in our job if we DON'T 
make changes that we feel are in their best interest.
We try to be considerate of services people value, and in this matter I 
personally proposed that we let the alumni decide how they wished us to 
implement this in the most palatable fashion they could devise, but making 
people who are not CSUA members happy, with services intended exclusively 
for CSUA members, is just not our job. Hell, I'll be the first to admit 
that if this thing is going to cause us this much grief, it's *especially* 
motivation to nuke it. It's just not worth it and this whole issue is 
distracting and detracting us from what we really should be focusing on.
So yes, there was a consensus that the MOTD - as it stands - is a 
liability. We voted to change it. I don't think I've ever seen votes 
attributed in the minutes in any of the years that I've read them. It's 
moot, anyways, once quorum is reached - which it was. But if you want a 
target to flame, go ahead and pick me. I happened to have three other 
people that agreed with me, but I'm the one that likes confrontation the 
most and has the least qualm with being singled out.
If you disagree with our policies, we welcome your feedback, and we 
certainly welcome you re-enrolling and voting against us if you're a 
student, but you really should keep a bit of perspective on why our 
organization exists. You, of all people, should know this. We are the ones 
who have sworn a duty to serve current students, we are the ones who were 
chartered to represent their interests, and we are the ones responsible for 
trying to provide the best environment we can for them. The culture here 
has changed a lot since you were a student, in many ways I would agree are 
for the worse, and the environment you're used to simply no longer exists.
As a warning, though, the csua@csua mailing list goes out to over 3500 
members. Your behavior here clearly constitutes 'being a hoser' by misusing 
this resource to spam thousands of people. This ain't a hippy commune and 
you're not entitled to abuse our services under some patently false belief 
that you're entitled to free speech using our resources. If you want a 
soapbox, then you can bitch to the MOTD. If you want to have a constructive 
opinion heard and taken seriously, you can email politburo - preferably 
once you've cooled off enough to make a rational argument. I mean, 
seriously, wtf is with that block quote? You don't seriously think that the 
CSUA constitution and governing policy is subject to the full scrutiny of 
contract law and the US governing regulations, do you?
Aaron
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		+++  MAIL 5: psb -> pburo, reply to MAIL 3
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From: psb@ucsee
To: politburo
You dont sign this mail "csua president" but i assume this is an
official reply rather than a personal one. 
In that case i would consider it my perogative to make any
parts of this public.
I am a University of California staff person. Under the constitution
link to from your web page:
  A. Active Membership
  Any currently registered undergraduate student of the University of
  California at Berkeley is eligible for active membership in the CSUA.
  
  B. Associate Membership
  Any student, staff, faculty member of the University of California at
  Berkeley or former active member may hold associate membership in the CSUA.
  
  C. Criteria
  Only currently registered students, faculty and staff may be active
  members in a registered student organization. Only active members may
  vote or hold office.
So under C. Criteria "only current ... staff may be active memebers"
so it seems to be I can not only vote, but can hold office. 
[The above is poorly phrased, but in general you have to be permissive
when not vague.]
>> As a warning, though, the csua@csua mailing list goes out to over 3500 
>> members. Your behavior here clearly constitutes 'being a hoser' by misusing 
>> this resource to spam thousands of people. This ain't a hippy commune and 
>> you're not entitled to abuse our services under some patently false belief 
>>
Suggesting this is abuse is ridiculous. I certainly think the CSUA
can restrict posting to large mailing lists to say the politburo
or politburo approved messages [although there is an interesting case
that would suggest otherwise. PGE was sued by a company that wanted to
put its own inserts into PGE mailed envelopes as long as it would not
incrase PGEs mailing costs ... PGE being a regulated monopoly had some
special obligations say IBM would not]. However, in this case I should
have gotten an "unauthorized poster bounce". Only if i did something
like forge a mail header or say went into soda:/var/mail and did a 
"mail *" could you construe i was taking elaborate pains to circumvent
a desired and reasonable restriction. Surely you realize when free speech
cases are argued the speech with the absolute highest protection is 
speech concerning the political process. It is much harder to ban somebody
from saying "bring the troops home" than "drink coca cola" or "i love
britney spears."
>> CSUA constitution and governing policy is subject to the full scrutiny of 
>> contract law and the US governing regulations, do you?
>>
what do you suggest does govern here?
i am not sure i really brough up any points of contract law. 
or if i did, it was by way of analogy. as somebody suggests in
the anonymity-on-the-internet decision, "here is what some smart
people think". arent you the ones with the view "we need to act 
because of potential liability under external corpuses of law"?
  Some of the lyrics were considered highly dangerous, especially those
  of their most notorious song, "F*ck Tha Police." It resulted in Milt
  Ahlerich, an assistant director of the FBI, sending a letter to
  Ruthless Records and its parent company Priority, advising the rappers
  that the law enforcement took "exception to such action (fucking the
  police)." The FBI's letter only served to draw more publicity to the
  group.
					      --psb
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