From: c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Hasan B Mutlu
Date: 28 Aug 92 21:18:23 GMT
Organization: Delco Electronics Corp.

In article <1992Aug28.184706.1950@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>Anyone thinking of revoking his posting privs better think long and
>hard about the standard used to determine whether net.access should
>be denied, and where that comes from.

Glad you asked. 

The Litmus Test would be whether the net is used to exchange information,
opinions, ideas, methods, jokes, etc (all acceptable methods) or whether
it is used as a media to (to use one of my favorite phrases here)
'further one's cause'. 

Here's the difference. The exchange of information, etc is and has been 
the foundation of the net. Nobody has complained about the posting of
volumes and volumes of data in, say, alt.fractals, comp.binaries.*, or
rec.jokes. 

Using the net to 'further one's cause' is different. The person doing the
postings does not use the net as an information exchange media; had 
Mr. (?) Mutlu been using it as such, he would have bothered maybe once
or twice to comment on the substance of what others write, instead of
resorting to attacks on others' personalities, names, religions, countries,
races, etc. Information exchange on the net involves LISTENING skills
as well as POSTING skills. And, above all, it assumes a two way street
in communications. How can anyone two-way-communicate with someone who
ridicules anyone disagreeing with him, refuses personal mail, and on top
of all that, posts from non-existing hosts thru UC Berkeley's posting
service? 

It is this lack of two way communication in good faith that essentially
distinguishes Mr. Mutlu from the rest of, ah, let's say, spirited
high volume usenet posters of times gone. In his best of times, Mr.
Mutlu accounts for half or more the volume in soc.culture.you-name-it,
talk-politics.you-name-it, and soc.history. 

The net did not tolerate headhunters for a good reason; the net did
not tolerate the b-cpu revisionists for equally good reason. Can you
see an analogy there? Fair and simple, it is only a fact that Mr.
Mutlu is using the net and his (let's say) $20/month in dues to his
news feed to reach an audience of over 2,000,000 people CHEAP.

It's that simple. $20 a month buys less than a hundrend postage stamps
for a direct mail campaign, and virtually no time in radio/TV/print.
$20 a month buys 2,000,000 readers world wide also. It's THAT simple.

>Personally, if he is posting news and not screwing up the flow of it,
>he's fine by me. IF I get wind of the fact that he is being denied
>news access simply because he's posted lots of articles...I will grant
>him access. 

If that is the case, I am sure all the pro-[life|choice], [pro|anti]-gun,
[pro|anti]-everything people would all line up to pay their $20/month
to newsfeeds and flood the net, all 'furthering their causes'. I bet
if the political parties did the same it would all be fine with you too.

Please don't misunderstand me. Free Speech is fine and we're all for
it.  But 600 KB of messages filled with personal insults a week, along
with posts to irrelevant groups, and coupled with little
accountability and lack of two way communications are the things we
(I) object to. Not the individual, whom I find entertaining at times
and annoying at best.

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]
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal.computing