mykle@netcom.com (prince of tildes) writes: In article <29i3mm$7aj@fitz.TC.Cornell.EDU> seth@alchemy.TN.Cornell.EDU (Seth Cohn) writes: >I don't want to fight nor to flame, I just want good posting practices >from the worst offenders to date. you still here? arga arga arga arga arga arga hate hate hate hate fear pain piss ping yell yell kill hate bile anger fuck off go away! i cherish every single john_-_winston posting as i would my own fresh-born child! i employ a team of crack sculptors to etch his every word in stone above the doorways of important public buildings, at my own expense. but if you take up any more of my precious disk space with your inane blather i will first sue you, then kill you, then sue your next of kin, and then automatically_-_reverse_-_retroactively_-_moderate you! jeezus christ, why is usenet suddenly swarming with newbish hall monitors? i've been reading netnews for seven years now and only in 1993 have i met people who actually use terms like "net police", "usenet death penalty" and "rules for posting content" with anything but the most contemptuous irony. now there are people demanding their RIGHTS as usenet CITIZENS, and asking where the NETWORK POLICE STATION is so they can make a citizen's arrest for indecent exposure of the mind. doesn't anybody know their history? dig the following: usenet news is voluntarily stored by news admins across the country. news admins carry only those news groups and news articles that they choose. john_-_winston is not forcing anything on anybody. usenet posters have only the rights granted them by their sysadmins, plus the rights granted them by the constitution of their chosen country. dig the following: in the great hall of usenet posters, john_-_winston is an also_-_ran in the category of bulk posting. whether you count sheer disk space (in which case any .sources or .binaries poster dwarfs him) or only words in english (in which case, check out any newsgroup that receives an anthologized mailing list), your complaints only underscore how ignorant you are of usenet's appreciable and easily-investigated history. dig also the following: if you are unable to harness the incredible power of the computer in front of you, it is *your fault*. the tools available to avoid john_-_winston's postings are astoundingly vast. he always posts from the same host, and is easily killfile'd by anybody who knows what they are doing. other techniques include not reading newsgroups he posts in, not reading news, not using computers, and encasing your head in an ingot of Devcon(R) Titanium Putty(TM), which you'll find is non_-_toxic and idea_-_proof up to 5000 degrees centigrade. dig most importantly this: the world around you is full of ideas, and god gave you the power to ignore them. if you are offended by someone's usenet postings, that is TOO BAD FOR YOU. because everybody in my country is guaranteed the *right* to offend you, through freedom of speech and of the press. because offending you is *good* for you, you thick-headed flinching retrograde cybercensor. the only defense you are allowed from ideas in my country is ignorance. so ignore *harder*, or else open your mind. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, i'm madder than a stuck pig in a piercing parlor! -mykle- p.s. i just thought you should know that when the news software tells you "this could cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars," it's meant figuratively. -- thank you for not shoplifting