From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.flame
Distribution: world
Organization:  One of these days for sure
X-News: HERMES MMAIL 1.04 Rev. Sep  5 1992
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
	<H.ea.q7Y1HKnayk6@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca>
	<1992Nov15.121625.11038@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
	<H.ea.XemlKcz4uRo@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca>
	<1992Nov16.035415.15980@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 21:01:08 -0800

In <1992Nov16.035415.15980@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) writes:

>jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) writes:
<in response to>

>>>No, it isn't. But to justify ostracization from a vote because of that
>>>frustration isn't exactly fair. 

>>	And to demand that the rights of people who can't even be bothered
>>to inform themselves of how the network they're using are being violated
>>isn't. "Help, help, I'm being oppressed"

>(Again I repeat myself) It's not like they had an option of whether or
>not to be bothered. You are lumping those who are ignorant of their
>ignorance (the unwillingly ignorant) into the same class as those who
>are willingly ignorant. 
>They ARE being oppressed. Especially if they would have gotten involved,
>had they known.

	But they are being oppressed by the people who let them loose on
the network without any help. And they're also being oppressed by people
like you, who knew enough about the workings of the net to understand
that a rename vote was going on, but assumed you didn't have to point it
out to anyuone in rec.music.synth because you thought they would already
know. In otherwords, you're quilty of the same arrogance and elitism you
accuse the "news.groups cabal" of. Even more as you followed, and even
contributed to, the discussion in news.groups, and didn't see a large
representation from the more vocal posters in r.m.s, you still didn't
think it worth mentioning in r.m.s. 
	And, elitist that you are, you're going to complicate things even
further by dividing the network by refusing to honour the vote, just
because you, and a mailbox full of namless supporters don't like the results.

>>	Which attempt? The attempt to communicate something complicated in a 
>>way even the greenest newbie can understand. If you're talking about the
>>guidelines, as written, they did a fairly good job for me. As the only
>>other poster supporting you with any volume in this thread obviously 
>>hasn't read them, it's hard to tell in his case.

>Given the actual percentage of people who read news.groups as people who
>read the rest of the net...I'd say that they were unclear to 80% of the
>people out there. (I'm ballparking, but you can go and see the latest
>arbitron report to verify)

	That's assuming a direct relationship between news.groups readers,
and people who have read the newuser documentation, As they're also
posted to several other groups, this would be difficult to back up.

>>	Now you're contradicting yourself again. First Jay and his cabal are
>>oppressing the "little guy" on Usenet by requiring that they have a
>>clue, now you're claining that he'd oppose requiring clues. 

>Makes sense to me. 8)

	It would.

>>>On USENET we learn to filter out unwanted or unneeded information. So
>>>if you ask: "What standard does the first time user use to determine need?"
>>>you can't possibly get anything remotely looking like those Guidelines. 

>>	It's funny then how well they have worked for those who have taken the
>>time to read them. 

>But those aren't a good sample. Those people are used to ferreting out 
>data from obscure documentation. How many people have read them and had
>them NOT work for them? You don't know that one...do you?

	No, and neither do you. What's your point?  Anyone who had read
them would at least know where to go to ask for help. Besides, the above
description fits anyone who's used a computer.

	Did you take a special course in setting up straw men? As
another poster pointed out, those who read the guidelines don't tend to
make the obvious mistakes, thus they don't stand out as obvbiously as
those who have. Your recent post from the user who was upset at the
arogance of people trying to rename the "bboard" was a classic example
of those who haven't, who usualy show it in their postings  unless
they're just being willfully annoying, like people who play childish
games with follow-ups and cross-posts. I really like how, when someone
pointed out you were helping move readers out of rec.music.synth by
cross posting all your articles there, you changed your crossposts to
the music-makers group. I thought you didn't carry that one?  

-- 
                    John Henders              " Read the guideline, Luke"
           Just another elitist Usenet user        Obi Wan Spaf