HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: clayh@uum1.mn.org (Clayton Haapala)
Subject: Re: [news.admin.policy]  Re: (repost) Serdar Argic FAQ - everything you didn't want to know, but he replied anyway
Organization: UNIX Users of Minnesota
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:01:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.114135.22082@hellgate.utah.edu> galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu writes:
>In article <C0938E.rz@cs.uiuc.edu> others wrote:

>>But this will disassociate mn.org from anatolia, which would be a Very
>>Good Thing (tm) for mn.org.
>>

>I have no idea what sort of posts anatolia was making that resulted in
>mailbombs, but dropping a site or even a user because of mailbombs sets
>a bad precedent.  It says that if you don't like what someone says, send
>them a few 20 meg mail messages, and they will never be heard from again.
>If people are going to send big mailbombs, it makes sense to not have
>an email address.

I KNEW it would be tough to get out of this with a white hat!

Anatolia was dropped from MN.Org for a number of reasons, among which was the
impact of the Argic posts on MN.Org, which is a collection of independent
sites, not an organization such as "ibm.com" with a single party line or
point of view.  Not everybody in the world knows that, and there was
a great deal of "guilt by association".  Dropping the site was the right
thing to do because of the nature of this organization.  At another type
of organization, it may not be an option.  UUNet may be that other
type of organization, in fact.

I did go after several mailbombers -- I have no sense of humor about such
a practice.

As to dropping a site just because it attracts a few mailbombs, I have 
thought of an analogy:

Several people decide to get together to buy a boat.  All they can afford
is a canoe.  Another wishes to join the boat cooperative, and the people
say, "Sure. You just need to bring a paddle, and be willing to help portage."
The new guy brings his paddle and portages with the best of them, but every
couple of days he brings a pack with him that swamps the canoe.

The moral is that the new guy needs to find a group with a bigger boat.  The
canoe folks just cannot afford to keep him. 

You will note that, with today's posts to soc.culture.younameit by Argic, that
anatolia is still alive and well, though no longer associated with MN.Org
by the PATH header.

Regards,

-- 
Clayton Haapala (clayh@uum1.mn.org)
Mail Admin for MN.Org
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
From: billd@cray.com (Bill Davidson)
Subject: Re: Australia gets it right
Organization: Cray Research Superservers Inc., San Diego CA, USA
Distribution: alt.censorship
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 21:53:57 GMT

In article <3403@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> joemays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Joseph F. Mays) writes:
[really Dennett Jaques writes:]
>I have been to America several times and the archaic censorship
>laws there amase me. The general rule in Australia is that most
>viewers are intelligent enough to decide whether or not they find
>a program offensive. If so they switch to another station.

So?  This has been re-hashed a many thousands of times in various
groups on the net.  What I'd like to see are ways to change things here
rather than continually bitching about the silliness.

I've personally wasted vast amounts of time and energy arguing with
these mind control proponents and I've come to the conclusion that
arguing with a wall is probably just as productive (though I suspect
less fun).

BTW kudo's to Los Angeles's KTLA channel 5 for not cutting a scene from
the 1970 movie "The Cheyenne Social Club".  This scene featured a woman
wearing a top which was completely transparent and it was shown at
around noon last Sunday.  I suspect they got quite a few calls.

--Bill
-- 
People in the computer industry use the word "user",
which to them means "idiot".  -- Dave Barry
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.feminism
From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Subject: Re: soc.feminism editorial policy (was Re: I can't believe it!)
Followup-To: alt.censorship,alt.feminism,soc.feminism
Organization: Syracuse University, CIS Dept.
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 13:41:27 EST

The following is a mini-critique of soc.feminism editorial.  To save space,
I am not including most of the text of the policy.  The full text of the policy
is available in a previous post.

Please note that my comments are based upon the policy, itself.  I cannot
comment on the actual *implementation* of the policy, as I do not read
soc.feminsim.


>  History of soc.feminism
>    
>    This group was formed in late 1989.  There was considerable
>    debate over the subject matter of the group, who would be allowed
>    to post, who would moderate, and what the name of the group would
>    be.  There was a large contingent of people who were afraid that
>    the purpose of soc.feminism would be to provide a women-only
>    feminist-supportive environment, and they ensured that the charter
>    of soc.feminism would allow pro-feminist and anti-feminist views,
>    and be open to both women and men.  In the end, four moderators
>    were selected to moderate the group.



My primary concern about the stated editorial policy is simply that it
is extremely subjective.  It would seem to me that many of the standards
would require super-human power to be enforced in any kind of even or
balanced manner.

The policy regarding discussion of homosexuality would appear to be
particularly problematic, in that it seems very susceptible to viewpoint
discrimination--if it is not explictly that.

That is, it would appear that while articles on some aspects of lesbianism or
homosexuality would be deemed acceptable, arguments in response to those
articles could easily be classified as "anti-gay rhetoric" or as "calm and
reasoned arguments against homosexuality," and therefore, be prohibited.



With regard to Thomas' rejected post, I cannot determine what basis was used
to determine that it was "unsuitable."  Perhaps a soc.feminism moderator
would like to expound on that.


I'd be interested in hearing from people who think that moderation offers
a benefit for a newsgroup like soc.feminism, just what benefits they see,
and whether they believe that those benefits cannot be achieved by other,
less restrictive, means (for example, via kill files).

I'd also be interested in finding out whether this type of editorial policy
is typical of moderated newsgroups.


-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
From: slt22@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: I can't believe it!
Date: 6 Jan 93 14:48:03 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

     Get this, I was reading alt.feminism to see what the women were 
squaking about and I came across a conversation about pornography.
See, I don't mind pornography.  Hell, I even have a few mags.  
They were saying that pornography was hurting the female spirit and 
bitching about some other things about it.  My argument was that if you
ban pornography just because you don't like it then you might as well
ban nature shows on TV and magazines like National Geographic.  We, as 
humans, seem to get this god-complex that everything that is so-called
"Immoral" should be banned.  How far is this going to go?
     Anyway, I send in my side of the story to the newsgroup and logout
(it was late at night).  Yesterday I come back to the lab here and get on
the newsgroup to see if I had started anything or to see if any followups
were made.  Something odd happened.  I didn't see my post.  "Now that's
kind of odd," I said to myself.  I thought that maybe it didn't get through.
     But today, I log in and find that I had a new mail message.  Low and
behold it was my post.  The response was "I found your letter to be 
unsuitable for soc.feminism."  This surprised the hell out of me.  Talk
about a censor!   I wrote a letter back to the moderator, who's name is 
Cindy, and told her that this shows me how transparent feminism is.  They
only want to hear their side of the story and no other.  Now I ask you, 
is this a free country or what?  
     We should learn to be more open minded and to stop trying to force
"morals" on everyone.  As soon as one thing is banned, someone will find
something else to complain about.  Pretty soon that will be banned.
Besides, what someone calls "moral", someone else might consider it 
offending and "immoral".  I think that it is time that the B.S. stopped
and reinstate some freedom back in society without bans or complaints.
You know what I mean?
                                          -Thomas
From: richardg@idca.tds.philips.nl (Richard Grear)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Australia gets it right
Date: 11 Jan 93 11:36:49 GMT
Reply-To: richardg@nofssrv.syssup.tds.philips.nl (Richard Grear)
Distribution: alt.censorship
Disclaimer: This is not necessarily the opinion of anyone else

In <1993Jan8.215357.28453@equalizer.cray.com> billd@cray.com (Bill Davidson) writes:

>In article <3403@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> joemays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Joseph F. Mays) writes:
>[really Dennett Jaques writes:]
>>I have been to America several times and the archaic censorship
>>laws there amase me. The general rule in Australia is that most
>>viewers are intelligent enough to decide whether or not they find
>>a program offensive. If so they switch to another station.

>So?  This has been re-hashed a many thousands of times in various
>groups on the net.  What I'd like to see are ways to change things here
>rather than continually bitching about the silliness.

>I've personally wasted vast amounts of time and energy arguing with
>these mind control proponents and I've come to the conclusion that
>arguing with a wall is probably just as productive (though I suspect
>less fun).

>BTW kudo's to Los Angeles's KTLA channel 5 for not cutting a scene from
>the 1970 movie "The Cheyenne Social Club".  This scene featured a woman
>wearing a top which was completely transparent and it was shown at
>around noon last Sunday.  I suspect they got quite a few calls.

Now that you have a president who openly admits to having committed adultary 
AND having posessed weed, I'd say you were getting close to the starting blocks.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In antici........                                                  ......pation
                         richardg@nofssrv.syssup.tds.philips.nl                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In antici........                                                  ......pation
                         richardg@nofssrv.syssup.tds.philips.nl                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.indian
From: bbs-aphelps@jwt.UUCP (Austin Phelps)
Subject: Re: [soc.culture.indian] DEADLINE TO STOP OBSCENE POSTINGS!
Reply-To: bbs-aphelps@jwt.UUCP
Organization: The Matrix
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:40:34 GMT

aa@iti.org (Aayush Asthana) writes:

> This has set a precedent; not sure if this is the beginning of a
> whole new set of problems..

One problem is that a email messages can be changed at will by anyone who 
knows how to say anything they wish (doesn't matter if it legal or 
illegal)

Austin C. Phelps            pick a address: bbs-aphelps@jwt.UUCP
-> Tf3 <- elsewhere                         aphelps@vicstoy.oau.org
"Let history never forget the name          tf3@delphi.com
Apple II Forever! Alliance C373   Enterprise   AAWO 3303
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,talk.politics.misc,alt.privacy,alt.sex
From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: What is this, "alt.stupid.idiot.conspiracies"?
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:53:53 GMT

	Question:  Why are all of these stupid "evil conspiracy" 
	posts being crossposted to:

	alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.
+      individualism,alt.censorship,misc.headlines,soc.culture.usa,misc.
+      activism.progressive

	When alt.conspiracy.stupid would do just fine?


-- 
      Blaming "society" for your problems is like blaming clouds for rain.
 ---  boycott == coercion == censorship == closed mindedness == cowardice  ---
	      "Psalms 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."  
		Shepherds are for sheep.   -----      Pain teaches.
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.feminism
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: CHARISMA
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1993 17:58:35 -0800

        Censorship is often the result of charismatic minorities taking
advantage of the democratic system by forming lobby groups designed to
influence legislation. This avenue is easily exploited by more extreme
organizations (ie: fringe religious groups) because the opinions of their
members are obviously influenced by the leaders of these organizations. Also
the more extreme or vocal groups will attract media coverage. Press, be it
good or bad, will still raise public awareness. So why do so few people have
so much impact?.......Motivation. Lots of people complain about censorship in
music, films, print etc. but before you complain, ask yourself, what have I
done?
From: Chuck.Lavazzi@launchpad.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Re: I can't believe it!
Date: 6 Jan 93 22:53:54 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <1993Jan6.144803.62497@cc.usu.edu> slt22@cc.usu.edu writes:
[He sends a post to soc.feminism about pornography and it doesn't show up]
>     But today, I log in and find that I had a new mail message.  Low and
>behold it was my post.  The response was "I found your letter to be 
>unsuitable for soc.feminism."  This surprised the hell out of me.  Talk
>about a censor!   I wrote a letter back to the moderator, who's name is 
>Cindy, and told her that this shows me how transparent feminism is.  They
>only want to hear their side of the story and no other.  Now I ask you, 
>is this a free country or what?  
	Sure it is.  What does that have to do with a moderated newsgroup?
If you want to take the attitude that moderated newsgroups are inherently
bad, then I'd recommend you not bother posting to them.  If, on the other hand,
you feel the moderator was unreasonable and are asking for feedback on this
topic, why not post your article here and see what the rest of us think?
I expect that articles might be rejected from soc.feminism on style as well as
content (e.g. abusive or insulting articles would probably be rejected
regardless of content).  In any case, in a moderated newsgroup, the moderator's
word is law, as I understand it.  You pays your money and you takes your
chances.
	Rejection of your article, in short, doesn't necessarily show "how
transparent feminism is".  It *might* show how "PC" the moderator is or it
*might* show how abusive your posting style is, among other things; kind of
hard to tell without knowing the style and content of the article in
question.

>     We should learn to be more open minded and to stop trying to force
>"morals" on everyone.  As soon as one thing is banned, someone will find
>something else to complain about.  Pretty soon that will be banned.
>Besides, what someone calls "moral", someone else might consider it 
>offending and "immoral".  I think that it is time that the B.S. stopped
>and reinstate some freedom back in society without bans or complaints.
>You know what I mean?
	Sure.  It's a point that has been made here often.  But moderating a
newsgroup isn't really forcing anything on anyone, IMHO.

Chuck
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Xref: sparky alt.censorship:9833 soc.culture.indian:42919
From: Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: [news.admin.policy]  Re: (repost) Serdar Argic FAQ - everything you didn't want to know, but he replied anyway
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:48:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.C0E6tC.5Cq.2
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon Univ, Nectar Project

cza@troy.cc.bellcore.com writes:
   First of all, all commercially operated mail delivery
   systems do not charge for mail received but mail sent.

False statement.  CompuSwerve customers can now choose a couple of
different schemes by which they are charged, and at least one of those
results in mail received from the Internet being charged to the
recipient.

There are other examples.

   If this sensible rule applies to all networks

It does not.
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,news.admin.policy
From: clay@haapi.mn.org (Clayton Haapala)
Subject: Re: [news.admin.policy] Re: (repost) Serdar Argic FAQ - everything you didn't want to know, but he replied anyway
Organization: Haapi's Hangout
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:23:05 GMT

I think I have the attributions correct here...

In article <kbibb.726200150@maui> kbibb@maui.qualcomm.com (Ken Bibb) writes:
>In <1993Jan4.225100.22213@walter.bellcore.com> cza@troy.cc.bellcore.com () writes:
>
>>This case has very unique characteristic and will be
>>very problematic repercussion for mn.org in the future.  Because
>>the user who is being thrown off from mn.org did not even use
>>the mn.org facilities (systems/resources) for the postings.   
>>A couple of yahoos traced the path and incited the others willfully to 
>>mailbomb the site.  So, what kind of a case that is brought together 
>

And, exactly as I was going to put it, Ken says:
>Have you been following this thread for long?  You don't sound like
>it.  I suggest you go back about a month and pick up the thread from
>the beginning.  Considering the extremely bad publicity that Mutlu
>was creating for mn.org, the amount of downtime that he was generating,
>and the amount of resources required to transfer his mail, his presence
>was beyond the capabilities of a hobbyist to handle and should move
>on to a commercial feed.
>

For those who have been reading this thread with both eyes open, A
major consideration was the bad publicity to mn.org and other
unrelated folks, considering the makeup of this organization.  Not just
the mailbombs.

As to capacity limits, yes, of course we'd like to be bigger.  We have
had to ask a member site to halt a mailing list they were operating
because of the traffic and admin headaches it was generating (it was
moved to a news group later, actually).  We didn't want to do that,
either, but had to.  But that was strictly an internal matter -- the
site wasn't generating universal angst on the Net.

This issue has generated some good discussion, and I appreciate the
supportive and constructive comments I have gotten, including
recommendations for guidelines and usage policies.

Clayton Haapala, mailadm@mn.org
-- 
Clay Haapala				"Behold the Holy Pogo Stick"
clay@haapi.mn.org
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.feminism
From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Subject: soc.feminism editorial policy (was Re: I can't believe it!)
Organization: Syracuse University, CIS Dept.
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 12:56:55 EST


The newsgroup list has been expanded to include soc.feminism and alt.feminism.

With Thomas' permission, here is the text of his rejected post to soc.feminsim.
(Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the post/thread to which this responded.)


>     Reading this conversation has pushed me to say what I feel.  I live
>in good 'ol Utah where they violate my rights by making pornography
>unavailable.  Then, upon flipping through the stations, I find a nature
>show with two animals expressing themselves if you catch my drift.  What
>I want to know is.. What is the goddamn dif.?  There is none.  Mankind
>has this idea that it's some kind of god-like beings.  Everyone is trying
>to run everyone else's lives.  We are just animals same as any other creature
>on this earth.  You can't push what you call morals on other people because
>what is moral to you might be offending to someone else.  Sure, I admit that
>I own a few porn mags.  I enjoy them.  Beautiful women and great articles.
>It's my choice to buy them.  Now if you're offended, you might as well
>get rid of your TV or your "Trials of Life" video collection.
>              That's just what I think.  No offense meant.
>                                         -Thomas


One moderator's response (soc.feminsim has several moderators) was simply:


>I find your article unsuitable for soc.feminism.



I will post a copy of the soc.feminism editorial policy, separately.



-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
From: joemays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Joseph F. Mays)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Australia gets it right
Date: 7 Jan 93 15:06:43 GMT
Distribution: alt.censorship
Organization: Dept. of CS Ball State University Muncie IN

This was in rec.nude.  I thought it might be of minor interest here,
but I didn't cross-post it because the rec.nude people are a fairly
tight group and wouldn't be interested in a censorship discussion
being carried on in their space.  The thing I'm wondering about is if
anyone has any idea about what sort of cultural differences make it
possible for attitudes such as those displayed in the following post to
prevail in Australia, but to die such a miserable death here.

Joe
-----------------------------------------------------
Here in Australia, watching TV any night of the week, you
would be hard pressed to find a show that did not have
nudity. It appears (full frontal male and female) in
everthing - Movies (Australian and O.S that are
NOT censored for TV), Soap Operas, Serials and even
commercial advertisements (tits and bums mainly in the adds).

We even have a weekly hour long program called S.E.X that is
extremely explicit - showing many close ups of male and female genitals
even in aroused states. Naturally there are lots of wowsers who
write in to the Networks and complain - but mostly they are ignored.

I have been to America several times and the archaic censorship
laws there amase me. The general rule in Australia is that most
viewers are intelligent enough to decide whether or not they find
a program offensive. If so they switch to another station.





  Cheers.

  Dennett Jaques.

             _________________________________________________________________

   ,-_|\     Senior Network Analyst     E-mail: dennett@blimey.csd.unsw.edu.au
  /     \    The University of N.S.W    Phone:  +61 2 697-2324
  \_,-._* <- Sydney, AUSTRALIA          FAX:    +61 2 662-8665
       v                                Harley: 93 FXDWG
             _________________________________________________________________

                         When I want my employers opinion,
                               I'll give it to them.


Xref: sparky alt.censorship:9826 news.admin.policy:1045