Re: Free and Cruel and Proud

[Desi The Three-Armed Wonder Comic <jondr@sco.COM>]

I am not barger@ils.nwu.EDU.  I didn't say:
>Nobody doubts, right, that mailing lists have the right to kick out
>assholes?  So why are moderated newsgroups any different?

I doubt.  Very much so, in fact.

In the six years I've been an active netter, I've never yet run into a
mailing list where the membership at large so strenuously objected to a
member that the general consensus was to oust him or her.

Assuming you were so outraged by a writer that you wanted to ignore his or
her blatherings, there are many ways to achieve this that don't infringe on
the poster's right to free speech.  There are many flavors of kill file, for
instance.  Our mailer can destroy a message from a certain person (or with a
certain subject) before it ever reaches your inbox.  Most of the popular
newsreaders support kill files as well.  If you only read love-hounds on the
digest and haven't got an undigestifier/filter program, then you should look
a little harder or write one yourself.  They're not very complex, generally.

>I'd like to see an agreement where if someone is rude, everybody notices,
>nobody clogs the airwaves arguing that they have a right to do that,
>somebody (anybody!) clues them in and if they keep it up, you figure
>they're emotionally retarded and leave them high and dry to work it out
>with the folks who can eyeball them face to face... YOU DON'T KISS YOUR
>COMMUNITY GOODBYE AND HIDE OUT FOR THE REST OF FOREVER.
>
>You kick em off.  *Until they come clean*, is all.

You're one step away from being a total fascist, you know that?  Suppression
is never the answer, no matter how appalling the speech in question.

Ignore 'em.  That's my take.  You don't like Stev0?  Put him in your
killfile.  Your hysterical rants are quickly moving you towards mine, and
that takes a lot of doing.  In fact, you will be the first individual ever to
wind up there, which should make you feel Kinda Special.  However, you have
not to my knowledge ever posted anything worth reading to love-hounds.  I'm
sure many people feel the same way about me, but they have the same option
of putting me in their kill files.  In fact, I'd probably consider it a
measure of success.

>(There's no way in hell Kate would have written "Up yours, ugly!" is there?
> That picture disc, was it official?)

This pretty much says it all: you are unwilling to imagine that this image
you have of Kate as a fairy goddess might be flawed, and that just possibly
Kate does the same stuff we all do, including get pimples and go to the
bathroom.  It was official, actually.  (Whether or not Kate wrote the
message is a fit subject for debate, however.)  But c'mon, she likes the
Young Ones and had no problem appearing in a live forum where they pretended
to be boffing her in the closet (using Neil as a contraceptive, no less).
Just because there's no room for sweat and shit in your universe doesn't
mean the rest of us can't wallow in the muck that makes us human.

-- 
Jon Drukman (finely honed machine)              uunet!sco!jondr   jondr@sco.com
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Annihilating Rhythm