Newsgroup Nazi

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that John Fields <jfields@austininstrum
ents.com> wrote (in <tevl31d7hifd06bbarahutdhrnc1k8afiq@4ax.com&gt about
'Newsgroup Nazi', on Fri, 18 Mar 2005:

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:18:21 -0800, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the
Dark Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote:


"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message
news18k31l32kn6ueeeujh6s2s8bdkgj4vv7d@4ax.com...

---
Yeah, goos idea. That makes it _really_ convenient for whoever's
pushing you into the oven.

Is that 'goos idea' a Freudian slip??

---
Just a trypo, AFAIK...

What would it refer to if it was Freudian?

Well, you might well push a goose into the oven. Alternatively, someone
might goose YOU, so that you projected yourself into the oven.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:14:49 -0600, John Fields wrote:

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:18:21 -0800, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark
Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote:


"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message
news18k31l32kn6ueeeujh6s2s8bdkgj4vv7d@4ax.com...

---
Yeah, goos idea. That makes it _really_ convenient for whoever's
pushing you into the oven.

Is that 'goos idea' a Freudian slip??

---
Just a trypo, AFAIK...

What would it refer to if it was Freudian?

I got "goose step"...

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:29:20 -0600, John Fields
<jfields@austininstruments.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:26:16 +1100, Franc Zabkar
fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 10:12:12 -0600, John Fields
jfields@austininstruments.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

Notice that Ippolito took it upon _himself_ to stop a legal
transmission which I'm paying good money to supposedly be able to do.

What do y'all think about that?

I have no problem with that, it just sounds like a bit of friendly
advice to me.

---
Friendly advice is one thing, blocking a legitimate post is quite
another.
---

He's merely restating accepted Usenet practice.

---
No, accepted Usenet practice is _not_ cancelling a post because of a
breach of netiquette.
---

BTW, it's also considered bad netiquette to crosspost excessively (I had to
resend this message because of "non-existent newsgroups").

---
Just because your ISP doesn't carry sbcglobal.help.tech.newsgroups
doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That's not the point. If you had crossposted to 100 newsgroups, then
nearly everybody who responded to your message (who was an Agent user)
would have had their reply bounce.

If I were testing my Usenet access, I'd just send a regular message,
or reply to an existing thread. If the message doesn't appear in my
normal newsfeed, then I'd look for it at Google Groups. BTW, I don't
necessarily agree with all the netiquette guidelines, but I observe
them anyway. I reckon if I can annoy the least number of people my
life will be a lot easier.

---
Yeah, goos idea. That makes it _really_ convenient for whoever's
pushing you into the oven.

Standards exist for a good reason. For example, I like to drive on the
left side of the road, but when I visit the USA I defer to local
custom. Sometimes there really is no room for individual expression
....

BTW, you are not alone with your NG problems. Many years ago I was
with an ISP called OneNet. NoneNet had not allocated enough disc
capacity to their Usenet service, which meant that more often than not
I was unable to post messages. When my posts did go through, they were
not being relayed to the wider Internet, which meant that only other
NoneNet users were seeing them. A visit to the Usenet archives at
DejaNews confirmed my suspicions.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:39:13 +0000 (GMT), Tony Williams
<tonyw@ledelec.demon.co.uk> put finger to keyboard and composed:

In order for your ISP
to know that it was a test post they must have
examined the *content* of the post.

This is a dangerous thing for an ISP to do, because
all posts they propagate may reasonably be assumed
to have been seen by them and they are satisfied
that no posts have an illegal content. Therefore
they lay themselves open to prosecution if a post
is subsequently the cause of legal action.

My ISP makes a big fuss about never looking at the
content of a post. In this way they maintain their
status as a common carrier (like the post office).

I would like to see *all* ISPs filter content that contains spam,
racial vilification, malware, binary attachments (in non-binary NGs),
and other inappropriate content. If the law needs to be rewritten for
modern times, then so be it.

BTW, John, it appears that your newsgroup access is working. It's a
shame we aren't discussing something more pertinent. ;-)


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Tony Williams]

In article <7ltl31t60hddss5lt842dhhtsidf4pfgn7@4ax.com>,
John Fields <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:39:13 +0000 (GMT), Tony Williams
tonyw@ledelec.demon.co.uk> wrote:
You missed something though John. Your post was
entitled 'Short message'. In order for your ISP
to know that it was a test post they must have
examined the *content* of the post.

Actually, that was a second post which I sent which I knew
wouldn't be cancelled, because the subject wasn't "test". The
first post, which _did_ have "test" as the subject was the one
that was cancelled.

They were probably ok to remark on it then.

......... In this case however, since I've paid to use their
Usenet server(s) and have committed no illegal acts with respect
to that usage, theft of service would seem to me to be the cause
for legal action.

Third party cancellation is a very sensitive subject on
usenet, as you can see from your own reaction to it.
They should never be issued lightly, even by an ISP.

Whether they were right to cancel the post depends on the
AUP you agreed to, and/or the Charters of all the groups
you crossposted to.

You'll get nowhere legally. Just vote with your feet.

--
Tony Williams.

 

[Ban]

John Fields wrote:

Yeah, goos idea. That makes it _really_ convenient for whoever's
pushing you into the oven.

Is that 'goos idea' a Freudian slip??

---
Just a trypo, AFAIK...

What would it refer to if it was Freudian?

I got "goose step"...

---
That would be closer to Hitler than to Freud, no?

Strange, but both were Austrian. As is Schwarzenegger.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Ban" <bansuri@web.de> wrote in message
news:CTW_d.674742$b5.30645166@news3.tin.it...

John Fields wrote:
Yeah, goos idea. That makes it _really_ convenient for
whoever's
pushing you into the oven.

Is that 'goos idea' a Freudian slip??

---
Just a trypo, AFAIK...

What would it refer to if it was Freudian?

I got "goose step"...

---
That would be closer to Hitler than to Freud, no?

Strange, but both were Austrian. As is Schwarzenegger.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

Hey, Ban, I thought about you the other day. I had to go in an office
and pick up a Dell PC to repair - had lines across the screen. I didn't
notice anything when I picked it up, and I got it back to the shop and
swapped the MoBo. I got it running, but it locked up halfway thru the
boot-up several times. I finally found that the CPU was overheating, so
I reinstalled the heatsink. The rubber pad wasn't fully seated onto the
CPU and it overheated. I got that fixed, let it run over the weekend
and Monday morning it was still behaving itself. I took it back over to
the office and reinstalled it, and got thru and looked up, and lo and
behold, I saw on the wall this copy of a famous painting, with
"Bordighera - Claude Monet" underneath it. Click on the picture for a
larger view.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tamsquare-oil-painting/oilpainborcl.html

Kind of weird, like.. Of course that may have been painted a hundred
years ago.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:13:46 -0700, Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 08:44:11 +1100, Franc Zabkar
fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:39:13 +0000 (GMT), Tony Williams
tonyw@ledelec.demon.co.uk> put finger to keyboard and composed:

In order for your ISP
to know that it was a test post they must have
examined the *content* of the post.

This is a dangerous thing for an ISP to do, because
all posts they propagate may reasonably be assumed
to have been seen by them and they are satisfied
that no posts have an illegal content. Therefore
they lay themselves open to prosecution if a post
is subsequently the cause of legal action.

My ISP makes a big fuss about never looking at the
content of a post. In this way they maintain their
status as a common carrier (like the post office).

I would like to see *all* ISPs filter content that contains spam,
racial vilification, malware, binary attachments (in non-binary NGs),
and other inappropriate content. If the law needs to be rewritten for
modern times, then so be it.

BTW, John, it appears that your newsgroup access is working. It's a
shame we aren't discussing something more pertinent. ;-)


- Franc Zabkar

We have true freedom of speech in this country, so any blocking or
censoring anything other than advertising is guaranteed to get you
sued.

I beg to differ. What you have in your country is a litigious society,
as do we, but you do not have true freedom of speech. Otherwise, why
would someone like Michael Moore need to go to the BBC before he could
tell Americans "The Awful Truth"? The fact is, even though your
constitution grants you certain rights, a dissenting voice is rarely
given the opportunity to be heard.

Your "inappropriate content" may be my tasty morsel. We've had
several court rulings here which say you have no legal protection
against being offended.

We have laws against inciting violence and racial hatred, for example.
I would think such legislation should be a basic requirement of any
civilised jurisdiction.

About the only "content" laws that hold up against challenge are those
that limit what minors may be exposed to.

...Jim Thompson

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:51:09 -0600, John Fields
<jfields@austininstruments.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 08:44:11 +1100, Franc Zabkar
fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:39:13 +0000 (GMT), Tony Williams
tonyw@ledelec.demon.co.uk> put finger to keyboard and composed:

In order for your ISP
to know that it was a test post they must have
examined the *content* of the post.

This is a dangerous thing for an ISP to do, because
all posts they propagate may reasonably be assumed
to have been seen by them and they are satisfied
that no posts have an illegal content. Therefore
they lay themselves open to prosecution if a post
is subsequently the cause of legal action.

My ISP makes a big fuss about never looking at the
content of a post. In this way they maintain their
status as a common carrier (like the post office).

I would like to see *all* ISPs filter content that contains spam,
racial vilification, malware, binary attachments (in non-binary NGs),
and other inappropriate content. If the law needs to be rewritten for
modern times, then so be it.

---
IMO, if there's any legislation to be enacted, it should penalize the
perpetrators, not the ISP's. After all, they're just providing access
to the network and can't be made responsible for the idiocy of some of
its users. To legislate against them would be to find a company
providing public transportation an accessory to murder because someone
took the bus to a liquor store and then robbed and killed the owner of
the store.

I agree with you in principle, although I don't think ISPs should be
absolved completely. For example, they should not be allowed to turn a
blind eye to illegal activity, eg anonymous spam remailing. My own ISP
offers a spam filtering service which I find extremely beneficial as
it traps a lot of malware. Optusnet also combats bulk emailers by
limiting the number of emails a user can transmit at any one time. My
email client has a "mood watch" feature which flags incoming and
outgoing messages that may have objectionable content. Some ISPs also
have this feature. On one occasion I emailed a particular ISP to
complain about a user who was using their facilities to vilify others,
but my email was rejected because the ISP's email server decided that
the quoted abuse was too objectionable for their own employees to
read. I had to misspell the offending words to bypass this filter.

BTW, John, it appears that your newsgroup access is working. It's a
shame we aren't discussing something more pertinent. ;-)

---
It's working because I blew off Prodigy and their provincial bullshit
and hooked up with Giganews.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:16:10 +1100, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:13:46 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

We have true freedom of speech in this country, so any blocking or
censoring anything other than advertising is guaranteed to get you
sued.

I beg to differ. What you have in your country is a litigious society,
as do we, but you do not have true freedom of speech. Otherwise, why
would someone like Michael Moore need to go to the BBC before he could
tell Americans "The Awful Truth"? The fact is, even though your
constitution grants you certain rights, a dissenting voice is rarely
given the opportunity to be heard.

---
We have true freedom of speech, but there is no requirement placed on
the media to broadcast speech they choose not to.
---

Your "inappropriate content" may be my tasty morsel. We've had
several court rulings here which say you have no legal protection
against being offended.

We have laws against inciting violence and racial hatred, for example.
I would think such legislation should be a basic requirement of any
civilised jurisdiction.

---
We have similar legislation, but it's a shame that either of our
"civilized" societies should have the need for that kind of
legislation.

--
John Fields

 

[Ban]

Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover" wrote:

I saw on the wall
this copy of a famous painting, with "Bordighera - Claude Monet"
underneath it. Click on the picture for a larger view.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tamsquare-oil-painting/oilpainborcl.html

Kind of weird, like.. Of course that may have been painted a hundred
years ago.

I think it was painted in 1884, when Monet was on a 2-year vacation. He
painted 36 pictures during that time. Bordighera is one of the most famous
sea-baths in Italy, Queen Margherita had her summer residence here. You
still find the view of Monet unaltered, tho the city has been growing into
the lower parts, which in those times were covered with orange and lemon
trees. Now there are around 12000 inhabitants, most of which only come in
the holidays.
The Côte d'Azur has been an inspiring area for many painters: Picasso, Miro
and Chagall lived in Nice, just 30 mls away. And we have the famous film
festival in Cannes and of course the Formula 1 race in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
This country can be seen from here just across the bay.
If anyone wants to visit this area, just drop me a mail, maybe we can
meet for a glass of wine.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:33:24 -0600, John Fields wrote:

Ok, but that's wildly different from singling out one post and refusing to
broadcast it because of one individual's objection to the contents of the
subject line.

And worse, what if it's a "real" post, but mentions test equipment in
the subject line? Do they dump that one too?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[John Fields]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:58:15 GMT, Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:33:24 -0600, John Fields wrote:

Ok, but that's wildly different from singling out one post and refusing to
broadcast it because of one individual's objection to the contents of the
subject line.

And worse, what if it's a "real" post, but mentions test equipment in
the subject line? Do they dump that one too?

---
From the email I got, I got the sense that my post had been read by a
human and then blocked but, for sure, I don't know.

An interesting aside to all of this is that there seems to be no
traffic _at all_ on the NG from which I posted the test message,
news://sbcglobal.help.tech.newsgroups

nor even a machine-generated acknowledgement of a complaint I posted
to abuse@prodigy.com

--
John Fields

 

[Steven]

"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message
news:c5bp31ltsb1lcgk88a7l784ci68ee8llk5@4ax.com...

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:16:10 +1100, Franc Zabkar
fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:13:46 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

We have true freedom of speech in this country, so any blocking or
censoring anything other than advertising is guaranteed to get you
sued.

I beg to differ. What you have in your country is a litigious society,
as do we, but you do not have true freedom of speech. Otherwise, why
would someone like Michael Moore need to go to the BBC before he could
tell Americans "The Awful Truth"? The fact is, even though your
constitution grants you certain rights, a dissenting voice is rarely
given the opportunity to be heard.

---
We have true freedom of speech, but there is no requirement placed on
the media to broadcast speech they choose not to.
---


Your "inappropriate content" may be my tasty morsel. We've had
several court rulings here which say you have no legal protection
against being offended.

We have laws against inciting violence and racial hatred, for example.
I would think such legislation should be a basic requirement of any
civilised jurisdiction.

---
We have similar legislation, but it's a shame that either of our
"civilized" societies should have the need for that kind of
legislation.

--
John Fields

You're doing a great deal of arguing about the American way with an
Australian. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and neither do any of their
newsgroups lately. After all that savage crap I took in one of those groups
when Afghanistan hit the fan and having seen more than a few current trolls
that make ours look rather weak, arguing socialism vs. whatever we call our
system really invites your exposure to sour grapes. You can't win that
argument, and it involves two alien societies who can't cross very well, or
at least a subsection of it. Spare yourself, or resign to face many of these
threads, to your pain and woe and utter dismay.