From: dgilbert@gamiga.uucp (dgilbert)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:15:18 GMT
Organization: TheHd:s/.organization
In-reply-to: visser@convex.com's message of Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:02:50 GMT
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Serdar Argic (was Re: Meanwhile, back at news.admin.policy)
Reply-To: dgilbert%gamiga@dweomer.org
 <1992Dec15.172414.2032@afterlife.ncsc.mil> 
 <visser.724483820@convex.convex.com> <1gnbq0INN6d3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> 
 <visser.724532570@convex.convex.com>
Distribution: world

	Since this is the only newsgroup I'm receiving right now, and I
desparately need a study break... I might as well post.

>>>>> On Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:02:50 GMT, visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) said:

In article <visser.724483820@convex.convex.com>, visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) writes:
Lance2> He has managed to do a great deal of damage to soc.history and
Lance2> soc.culture.europe as groups by his postings.  There is
Lance2> nothing than can be done about it though.

Lance> 	The chain by which he gets on the net is:

	zuma.uucp->anatolia.uucp->uunet

Lance> 	UUNET does not care about anything except the blood money they
Lance> get 	for pumping his racism out on the net.  There is no way to
Lance> pressure 	them that I can think of.

	I don't know if I would support the idea of simply cutting him
off.  He is obviously paying (or someone is paying) good money for
access... but even if the connection were free (say from my machine),
I don't know that I would want to cut him off.  If someone thinks
something, no matter how revolting it is to you, doesn't he have the
right to say it?

Lance> 	There was an arguement about rules in news.admin a while back
Lance> and the consensus was that his postings did not exactly break
Lance> any rules.  The biggest problem is that there is no way to know
Lance> IF zuma.uucp (Argic's home machine) is real without access to
Lance> anatolia.uucp.  And based on current information, the sysadmin
Lance> has to be given the benifit of the doubt as to its existance.
Lance> There is nothing in the rules that says you can't have a
Lance> news-but-no-mail uucp gateway between one machine and the net.

	Maybe this is the point that we're all skirting around.  I have
been (lately) fooling around with CNews... and adding it to my system.
Somewhere in the CNews documentation, I remember reading that it was
thought that news volume was doubling every 6 to 8 months.  I don't
know the exact figure, and it doesn't matter.

	Fact is there are very few controls on UsNet --- which is both an
advantage and a disadvantage.  One of the few controls in place on
UsNet is the great tradition of the flame.  If sites can become a news
but no mail site, then this very powerful control is lost.

	The ability to flame is very desireable.  One of its best features
is that it does not limit free speech.  Without this tool, members of
a newsgroup can practically be held captive by the postings of a
single person.  Maybe a mail address *should* be a prerequisite to
posting articles in a newsgroup.

Lance> 	The people pretending to be Argic did make exactly one
Lance> concession in the past year.  They set the followup line to
Lance> force all responses to soc.culture.turkish.

	I would think this to be rather insignificant.  With traffic
growing the way it is, this is bound to happen ever increasingly.
Maybe it is time to start requiring just a little responsibility from
the people who post.  Let's start with leaving a valid address.

Dave.



--
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|David Gilbert, University Of Guelph, Ontario | Two things can only be     |
|Preferred : dweomer.org!gamiga!dgilbert      |  equal if and only if they |
|Possible  : dgilbert@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca|   are precisely opposite.  |
---------------------------------------------------------GLO----------------
Xref: sparky news.admin.policy:783 alt.censorship:9633 alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3744