From: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Hasan B Mutlu
Date: 31 Aug 92 16:51:55 GMT
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA

In article <1992Aug31.042627.1038@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> by403@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos) writes:

>I agree. But again, tolerating abuse only invites more abuse. The net dealt
>with headhunters, cancel bombers, "make $1000/day fast", etc. Why not now?

>Then you're opening up the net for commercial use. Today the headhunters,
>tomorrow the Hair Club For Men, Monday the Juicer guy, and so on. Why
>not create com.headhunters, com.slimy-products, com.hair-club-for-men ???

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?

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 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.

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,
which, while failing to reduce bandwidth to a significant degree at least
can have the affect of silencing him in selected groups, thus reducing
responses to his drivel to a lower level. Second is the tactic of bringing
pressure to bear on sysadmins, but that's rather like throwing the baby out
with the bathwater, isn't it? (It also bears the stigmata of all such
weapons, in that it may end up pointing in your direction in due course...)

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.

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.

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.

-- 
| "The floors  of Sobibor's gas chambers were  constructed to tilt, like the
| body of a dump truck, so that stacks of corpses slid out smoothly." [Abram
| L. Sachar.  The Redemption of the Unwanted.  New York: St. Martin's/Marek,
| 1983. p. 43]    == The Old Frog's Almanac == Vancouver Island == CANADA ==