From: johndoe@samadams.inmet (johndoe)
Subject: Re: Cooper - Ohio St - Chris Stassen
Reply-To: johndoe@inmet.com (Bus error - core dumped)
Organization: Intermetrics, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:10:24 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.234317.9845@alc.com> stassen@alc.com (Chris Stassen) writes:
   James Fehrenbacher has apparently decided to take our little feud public.
   I believe it is "a private little war" -- and completely irrelevant to
   the group -- so this will be my only posted comment on the matter.

   James writes:
   > Beware! Big Brother Chris is watching you.

   James is mad because I forwarded his "Cooper is a pussy" comments on to
   John Cooper.  James posted the message -- meaning that he intentionally
   distributed it to tens of thousands of sites all over the continent and
   dozens of copies are probably sitting on Ohio State computers at this
   very moment.  James should not be surprised, let alone angry, that a
   copy of this posting could end up in the hands of *any* given person
   (including the target of his remarks).

   The net is a big place and all of these public figures have friends and
   relatives.  It is rather stupid to give worldwide distribution to a
   statement that you don't want a given person to "hear."  If James can't
   handle the fact that his comments might end up in John Cooper's hands,
   then he shouldn't have posted them.  This is simple common sense -- as
   well as very basic "NETiquette."

   I passed this advice on to Mr. Fehrenbacher, and his response was to cry
   "censorship."  I heartily disagree; I have taken no steps to limit James'
   net privileges.  And even despite James' violations of NETiquette (such
   as posting Email without the author's permission) I won't take such steps
   in the future.  I firmly believe that jerks will weed themselves out of
   the net population without my help -- I've seen a lot of them come and
   go in my years here.  The issue is not "censorship," but rather James'
   unwillingness to accept the responsibility that comes with the privilege
   of writing for worldwide consumption.

i reposted the whole article because of my vehement support of its sentiment.

i wholeheartedly agree with mr. stassen.  it is certainly possible (though i
don't know how likely) that john cooper or friends or relatives had already
seen the posting before chris stassen forwarded the posting.  when using
most usenet newsreaders, there are usually one or more questions to the
effect of 'usenet is a big thing that costs lots of money, and your posting
will possibly be seen by many; are you sure you want to do this?'  mr.
fehrenbacher apparently said yes to this, and now is crying foul, even
though he has nothing to complain about.

another poster (whose post i haven't included) said that mr. fehrenbacher
could take legal action against mr. stassen for forwarding his mail without
permission.  this may or may not be true, but the fact is, mr. stassen
didn't forward private mail sent to him, but a public declaration.
furthermore, mr. fehrenbacher would have no grounds for complaining about
such an occurance of forwarding private mail, even if he had such private
mail privileges violated, since he himself posted private mail that mr.
stassen had sent to him.

   --
   Chris Stassen			408-943-0630		stassen@alc.com

-johndoe

back to your regularly scheduled discussions of college football.