From: glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: RightBrain Software to Ship Source Code
Date: 8 Apr 92 04:14:31 GMT
Reply-To: glenn@rightbrain.com

moose@svcdudes.com writes
> In article <1992Apr1.181021.20488@cs.yale.edu>  
nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu  
> (Nathan F. Janette) writes:
> > This posting does not belong in this group.  Glenn, you are
> > violating the the only newsgroup policing mechanism - trust -
> > when you post these marketing announcements in this group.
> 
> And its in RTF. Glenn, could you think of anything else to cause
> more flames???

First, nothing "causes" flames other than idiocy.  People who flame
on the net do so in order to see their words and opinions sent throughout
the world, because it's fun and thrilling.  There's otherwise no
earthly reason to flame on the net rather than through Email.  So I
dispute the basic point, but I'm already digressing.

Second, Nathan Janette is the only person who has ever made it
permanently into my Kill file without my having occasional pangs of
conscience that maybe there was something interesting being said that
I missed.

Third, my feeling is that if informational posts about products cause
flames, so be it.  Considering that 80% of this newsgroup is devoted to
one of the following (totally useless, inappropriate, or inflammatory)
discussions, I don't feel the least bit bad about it:

	1.  Ross Perot for president
	2.  SIMM questions (almost always answered in the FAQ)
	3.  College Student Ideas for NeXT's Marketing Plan
	4.  Flames
	5.  Rumors about NeXT hardware
	6.  Flames
	7.  Rumors about Atari, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, etc.
	8.  Neuron technical support
	9.  Rumors about Lotus
	10. News about lousy Campus NeXT dealers

I'd like to point out that the recent (modest) discussion about how to set
your shell prompt to display the current directory (including disclaimers
about how this was the inappropriate newsgroup, but by the way, here's
how I do it), was 13006 bytes.  My posting, including both the RTF
garbage and the plain-text version of it, was 13961 bytes.

I'd also like to point out that Chris MacAskill's sound file, for which
nobody flamed him (as being both RTF and inappropriate) was just short
of 100000 bytes.

So I ask you, which is more useful and appropriate:  a question about
UNIX prompts that has been answered a thousand times in unix-wizards
over the last fifteen years, a sound file from a ShareWare game that
says "hahahaha", or a product announcement for NeXT software?

The answer, of course, is none of them.  Usenet is Usenet, and there will
always be abuses, detractors, fanatical believers, obsessionists, and
personalities of various sorts that come and go.  One posting of the
full-color TIFF file of Rafael's Madonna dwarfs everything I've ever
posted to this newsgroup in the entire time I've been posting to it.
So if you must flame me, flame me on some basis other than bandwidth
and appropriateness, because I don't even hear those arguments any more.

I've been doing Usenet for almost fourteen years, and the only rules
that I still have left are these:

	1.  "If what you are going to post is actual information
	that is likely to be useful or interesting to a reasonable
	cross-section of the people who read this newsgoup, post it."

	2.  "If what you are about to post is funny and short, and
	you think that some of the jaded, tired, folks who see way
	too much information every day might forgive you for posting
	it, then you shouldn't feel too bad about it, unless it's
	a "hahahahaha" sound file.

So anyway, flame me if you must, but you're wasting bandwidth by flaming
me.  If you really believed what you say, you'd send me Email.  If you
just like to see your postings on the net and be known for having politically
correct opinions, then you post them instead.  Sean Fagan catches a lot
of flack, and I disagree with most things he's ever thought in his entire
life, but at least he understands some things about the net, and he flames
me through Email, as it should be.

I work very hard and I take this all very seriously, and every know and
then I get torqued out of shape by people flaming me.  Rarely, but it does
happen.  Please, if you're going to flame, at least have some semblance of
a reasonable argument, and at least do a good job of flaming me.  Boring
flames are the most heinous waste of bandwidth there is.

Almost everybody I know that finds out that I (still) actively read the net
asks me "why?!"  Indeed, I ask myself that.  The real reason is that
occasionally Andrew Stone posts, and he is one of the greatest humans
ever invented, and I don't want to miss anything that he posts.

--
 Glenn Reid        		NeXTmail: glenn@rightbrain.com
 RightBrain Software		415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
 Palo Alto, California		Font Hotline: 800-525-FONT

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc