From: c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Hasan B Mutlu
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:38:11 GMT
Organization: Delco Electronics Corp.

In article <1992Aug31.165155.15517@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay) writes:
>Hmm... seems to me that the net is chock-full of commercial sites, and that
>complaints are rare... ignoring the major commercial sites (Telebit,
>Adaptec, etc.), there are probably a few thousand consultancies making
>direct commercial use of the net - primarily for technical support.. then,
>of course, we have the newprod newsgroups.... did I mention SCO providing
>(albeit "unofficially") end-user support via the net?

I am making the dinstiction between e-mail based support, product
announcement type groups, informal user group support from the net in
all the comp.sys.blah groups, etc., to outright commercialization. SCO
or Zeos are on the net. Zeos's or SCO's postings stay in their
hierarcy (which I can easily not carry. And they are all to make 
money or sell a product, for which the rest of the net may be interested.
I have received many a lead from the net regarding software, and have sent
many a lead to other netters.

>What's wrong with headhunters, anyway? Speaking as the sysadmin for a system
>through which one such firm obtains a feed, I'd have to say that their use
>of the net is responsible, and that they provide a useful service
>(information on how to obtain visas, etc.) at no cost to users.

I don't want to get into a war on this; back in the mid to late 80's 
there were streams of headhunter postings, all the 'blind' variety, i.e.
where no company names or sufficient details were posted. If a 
company wants someone and puts an ad on the net detailing what the 
position involves, etc. that's fine. If a headhunter floods the net with
blind ads, using $20/month to reach 2,000,000 people, that's not
right in MY book. Again, there's a fine line there.

>I think the real issue here is whether or not someone respects UseNet
>"convention" and history enough to watch crossposts, avoid email bombing
>runs, whatever. Mutlu is a prime example of abuse on a massive scale.

Yes. 

>Users like Mutlu can be dealt with in a variety of means, all of which have
>been in evidence on the net. First and foremost among them is the KILL file,

Not always; I read and send lots of news thru a public access site or two, 
and they run WAFFLE, or Whatever, which does not support kill files; in
other cases kill files exist but users don't know about them. 

>Third, the tried and true action of mailing all Mutlu's posts back to him,
>which is thoughtless at best, since (1) it will bounce, and (2) it would
>punish the sysadmin even if it didn't by flooding his storage with garbage
>he most certainly does not deserve.

That won't go far; As John Palmer said, anadolu has not been fed thru
michigan.com since Aug 4. Yet just today I got my Recommended Daily 
Allowance (RDA) of Mutlu's, all dated 4-5 days old, posted thru 
Bezerkeley. 

>In terms of education wrt his material, I suspect it long ago ceased to
>educate anyone to anything other than the reality that Mutlu is no doubt an
>embarrassment to Turks, and a raving nut case at best; i.e. he seems to
>deliberately discredit his "cause" by the very method he selected to
>propogate it.

No disagreement there. On the other hand, if we consider the requirements 
of his 'campaign' and the personal sacrifices he has endured (canned
accounts, money, ridicule, professional image (I can imagine Hasan 
submitting an article for publication and the referrees are devotees of
soc.culture.europe, for instance :-) ^ 2), I find it very hard to believe
that he's an individual doing it out of love for the 'motherland'. If
the T* government has bankrolled professors of history at various 
universities in the US, $20 a month to run anadolu is money for paperclips.

>As a collective enterprise, I don't think we have any real choice except to
>tolerate him while teaching folks how to expunge him from their virtual news
>... KILL files, redirection of replies, removal of inappropriate newsgroups
>from replies, etc.

I've tried to debate Mutley once on a non-historical issue, namely, the
comparison of living standards between countries X and Y. Since I only
posted thru Berkeley and did not know how to cross post thru there, I posted
all my articles on ONE group and he in 10-12. This has been observed from
others also...

Anyhow; If only we could make sure the folks at Berkeley understood what
is going on (I don't think they do as Mutlus keep rolling in daily, 
although dated 4-5 days in the past) maybe we'd have a chance to end this.

Thank you for your comments,

Spiros



-- 
Spiros Triantafyllopoulos                    c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com
Software Technology, Delco Electronics       striantafyll@kosds1.gm.hac.com
GM Hughes Electronics, Kokomo, IN 46904      [A Different Kind of Disclaimer]
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