From: rone@nunki.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri)
Newsgroups: alt.good.news,alt.censorship,alt.prose.d
Subject: Re: No more short stories from rauser@sfu.ca
Date: 31 Jul 1992 01:56:01 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: nunki.usc.edu

In article <1992Jul29.122103.8154@ornl.gov> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>Please accept my apologies, readers, for continuing this non-good-news
>discussion here.  This is my final word on this topic in this forum.  I'll be
>happy to correspond by e-mail with anyone wanting to continue the debate.

Too late, buddy.  This one's going to alt.censorship to see what the people
here think of your tricks.

>In article <1992Jul29.000843.25215@reed.edu>, kuch@reed.edu (Jerry Kuch) writes:
>>In article <l7biv7INNd0@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes:
>>>Well Gee, you sure are a wet blanket. I suppose using your "k" 
>>>key was just to much work for you, huh? You must be pretty
>>>pleased with yourself. Guess things are kind of slow in support
>>>over there.
>I'm ORNL's new admin, so I'm responsible for ensuring that the groups we carry
>are appropriate.  Several of Rauser's stories contained material that was
>definitely not acceptable, e.g., the recent rape scene in "Danielle".  So I
>was faced with either ceasing to carry the group, removing the unacceptable
>material, or stopping the material from being posted in the first place.

Ooooo.  So you chose having a 'good news' group free of stories, rather than
eliminate the group totally?  EXCUSE ME.  Is this thing on? *taps Dave's 
forehead*  This is USENET.  WHat's more, it's an alt group.  It is NOT your
group.  It may carry itself in a loose democracy.  If the a.g.n people think
that Rich's stories are ruining their days (yeah, like people ONLY read a.g.n
to brighten their days), then you have a legitimate reason.  Otherwise, just
because you believe ORNL is too sensitive to stand such things as teenage rape
you have absolutely no grounds to mail SFU's administrators.

BTW does your site carry the alt.sex hierarchy? alt.binaries.pictures.erotica?
If you do, you're a hypocrite.  If you don't, that's your privilege, but you
can't "protect" ORNL from reading whatever groups they want.

>I felt we had as much right to carry the group as the next site, that the
>material was clearly inappropriate for the group, and, since there was only
>one "offender", I decided to try to get him to stop.  I pointed out to him
>that his stories were not "good news", being works of fiction, and that there
>were other newsgroups where they would be appropriate.  He refused to stop, so
>I appealed to the news/mail admins at his site.  They forward my complaint to
>him, and he then volunteered to cease posting stories here.

He 'volunteered'?  You slime.

>Yes, I could have used my "k" key.  But the point is that I and the readers
>of alt.good.news shouldn't have to do that.  The reason we have different
>newsgroups on different topics is so we don't have to weed through stuff we
>aren't interested in.

The POINT of 'k', 'K', and '' are that if there's something on the group
that you don't want to see, you can eliminate.  How did you get to be admin
of ORNL and not know how to handle USENET?

>>The funny thing is that I've seen some people post to this group that they
>>actually enjoyed Rauser's stories.
>I really have no problem with his stories, per se.  They simply don't belong
>here, though.

Who are YOU to decide this?  Let me repeat: there is a loose democracy in de-
ciding what belongs here and what doesn't.

>>It disturbs me that the administration
>>at SFU would be so pinheaded as to crack down on him for his stories.
>It disturbs me that you're so eager to label them pinheads, especially
>considering they were only doing their jobs, not cracking down on him.

They only did their jobs like any other admins would because they always do
that when they receive 'distressing' email from censors like you.  Sysadmins
are easily scared.  Examples: my own, you, SFU's.

>>It's not like he was riddling USENET with commercial announcements or hate
>>propaganda or something.
>That's like saying a thief isn't murderer.  So what?  Was what he was doing
>right?  Is a story a about a girl getting raped by two drunk guys, poisoning
>one of them, and being killed by cops good news?  Is a story about a prisoner
>being tortured and executed good news?

I think so.  It's good news that society is out there, and someone cares enough
to write good literature on it.  And i think the rest of the readers agree. At
least, they haven't disagreed.

>>Don't like it, don't read it.  Kill files were made for a reason.
>If everyone followed this silly line of reasoning, we'd have a mess of
>ill-defined, incoherent newsgroups.  

We HAVE a mess of ill-defined, incoherent newsgroups (eg, alt.butt-keg.marma-
lade)  What's your point?

>Why would we even need multiple
>newsgroups?  We could just have one big newsgroup, and everyone could skip
>what they didn't want to read.  The net would be less informative and useful
>for the great majority of participants.

What planet did YOU come from, anyways?  alt.good.news is an "alt" group. if
you don't want to carry it, don't.  Don't enforce your censorship on us.
Enforce it on ORNL, that's your jurisdiction.

>Call me a net.cop if you want, but that's the way it is.

Is not.  I'd mail your sysadmin, but since you ARE the sysadmin, i hope that
somehow your employers catch wind of this.

Ron Echeverri
5150
net.cop, my ass