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- Xref: sparky alt.feminism:6534 soc.men:21800 soc.women:21908
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!caen!nic.umass.edu!m2c!crackers!jjmhome!smds!rh
- From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
- Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men,soc.women
- Subject: Re: Living in a State of Siege
- Message-ID: <1992Dec24.081739.21838@smds.com>
- Date: 24 Dec 92 08:17:39 GMT
- References: <1992Dec22.155536.13131@ll.mit.edu> <MUFFY.92Dec22131202@remarque.berkeley.edu> <1992Dec23.070715.10499@smds.com> <MUFFY.92Dec23072842@remarque.berkeley.edu>
- Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
- Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.
- Lines: 72
-
- In article <MUFFY.92Dec23072842@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
- >In article <1992Dec23.070715.10499@smds.com> rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
- >
- > We don't get alt.feminism -- the only reason I saw this article was that
- > it was cross-posted to soc.men and soc.women which we do get. I will
- > refrain from making the obvious cheap shots. However I suspect that some
- > will miss the point so I will spell it out. If you, muffy, cross post
- > then people will respond to your postings in the group that you cross
- > post to. It scarcely makes sense for you to complain about cross posting
- > when you regularly do it yourself.
-
- >You don't seem to understand.
-
- Oh, I rather think that I do. Quite well, as a matter of fact.
-
- >I have *never* explicitly cross-posted an
- >article to soc.men. I have followed up to many such articles, since
- >every new thread seems to be cross-posted. Once a thread is
- >cross-posted, I do not know which group the person I am responding to is
- >reading, so I do not change the Newsgroups: line, since there would be
- >no point in responding to someone who will not receive the response.
-
- Which means you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Of
- course it really doesn't matter what you or I do, because the usenet
- population is what it is and our actions won't impact prevailing practice.
-
- However your rationale is a cop out. You can edit the newsgroups line;
- you can even change the title if it doesn't match the thread. It is a
- courtesy to do so. I do it regularly, even though many me that I am not
- a particularly courteous person.
-
- Re your point about responding to someone who won't receive the response:
- So what. Your words and mine are not engraved in gold. It doesn't really
- matter whether you respond or not. Your criteria and mine for fools
- may differ, but rest assured, the supply of fools and would be fool-killers
- is nearly endless. Your response is not needed; those to whom it is
- addressed will almost certainly reject it out of hand (they are fools,
- after all) and there will be no shortage of standard bearers to pick
- up the fallen flag.
-
- It is a dis-service to groups which are the targets of cross threading
- to continue the cross posting when your response and your focus is within
- a particular group. If you are not interested in a group then don't
- post to it. Or do, if you want to anyway, or if you just don't care.
- It's a free usenet after all.
-
- >My exhortation was to the people who *begin* the threads cross-posted. I
- >realize that I did not make that clear, but it did seem obvious to me at
- >the time - you certainly seem to understand this concept, but you do not
- >seem to have thought out the consequences of the idea that "people will
- >respond to your postings in the group that you cross-post to."
-
- Has any one told you you're cute when you're being patronizing?
-
- Actually, the original posters are only nominally at fault -- I
- except the twits who post something to every newsgroup under the
- sun. Quite often the original posting that started the thread was
- relevant to the cited groups. [Quick -- what did the original
- posting in this thread say?] The problem is in the follow-ups.
- People have all sorts of hot buttons that induce them to inflict their
- deathless prose upon the net. Their hot buttons set off other hot
- buttons and the whole thing quickly evolves into a rattle of knee
- jerk responses. It's chaos theory in action with plenty of strange
- attractors.
-
- Anyway, no I didn't catch that you meant your exhortation to apply
- to the originators of threads.
- --
- Richard Harter: SMDS Inc. Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398
- US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742. Fax: 508-369-8272
- In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
- Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
-