🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <64lf5j$sot$0@207.14.113.2> Chris Caputo wrote:

>I have asked for and received permission from the "Follower of the Clawed
>Albino <afn23950@afn.org>" to post the contents of our recent
>correspondence.  This is long, but may be of interest and might shed light
>on Altopia's position with regard to this discussion. 

You inferred that permission was granted.

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>
>Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:20:38 -0800 (PST)
>From: Chris Caputo <ccaputo@alt.net>
>To: Follower of the Clawed Albino <afn23950@afn.org>
>Subject: Re: Question for you

>The NNTP-Posting-Host: header is not added to posts from direct customers
>of Altopia because we see that as a violation of the customer's privacy.
>We are the customer's admins and so complaints about their activities
>should come only to us.

Does Altopia add any indicia that can be used to determine that Altopia
is _the_ responsible party to which any complaints should be directed
to?

If someone wishes to register a complaint with Altopia, should
<ccaputo@alt.net> be used?

>Would you be happier if we had an NNTP-Posting-Host: like
> 
>   NNTP-Posting-Host: news.alt.net

Is this a rhetorical question?

>so that you would know for sure that the posts were made from our service? 
>This is apparently acceptable for Usenet II, but I am curious as to
>whether you think it would be adequate.  This would avoid any confusion
>caused by Path: pre-loading.

Why does path pre-loading cause confusion?  I thought you said that you
were _the_ responsible party to which complaints could be directed?
Maybe the best procedure would be to contact all sites in the Path, any
one of which could have not included an NNTP-Posting-Host or pre-loaded
portions of the Path.

>We research complaints and handle them as we believe appropriate.  We
>generally do not respond to complainers because it is usually none of
>their business how we handle the complaint.

It seems that much of the problem could have been alleviated by
Altopia using an autoresponder to acknowledge receipt of complaints.

>In your case you were not responded to for a number of reasons.:
>
> 1) Your definition of abuse was vastly different than ours and so it
>    appeared that it would have been futile for us to engage in a
>    discussion with you. 

There would have been no reason to engage in a discussion.  You could
have simply responded that (1) yes, the posts in question originated
from Altopia, and that you were responsible party for complaints; and
(2) no, you did not think that the postings were within your definition
of abuse.

> 2) When you started threatening legal action, we definitely were not
>    going to respond, because after that point we have to treat things as
>    if they will end up in court.  Correspondence at that point would have
>    been pre-trial discovery and that would not be appropriate without the
>    presence of our corporate attorney. 

This seems to be retrospective justification.  Even then you could have
indicated a decision to not "continue" correspondence for that reason.

> 3) It is difficult to take seriously correspondence from someone with the
>    name "Follower of the Clawed Albino".  If this is your real name, I
>    apologize but please try to understand our position. 

This seems to be retrospective justification.  Even so, you could have
indicated that this was the basis by which you chose not to respond.

> 4) Once you started sending multiple messages per day, from our
>    perspective you appeared to be unstable and irrational.  The tone of
>    your phone calls reaffirmed this suspicion.  This may not be the
>    case, but it seemed likely to us that you would take our responses and
>    spread them around Usenet or in court, out of context. 

Again this is retrospective justification.  In effect, you are saying
that you did not respond initially in anticipation of multiple messages
being sent later.  In part, your not initially responding resulted in
additional messages being sent. 

A simple autoresponder message such as:

   We have received your e-mail.  Receipt does not indicate:

   1) that Altopia believes the noted behaviour is abuse;
   2) that Altopia believes the noted behaviour is not abuse;
   3) that Altopia is the responsible party for complaints;
   4) that Altopia is not the responsible party for complaints;
   5) that Altopia has taken action;
   6) that Altopia has not taken action;
   7) that Altopia will take action;
   8) that Altopia will not take action;
   9) that Altopia wants additional information;
  10) that Altopia does not want additional information;
  11) that Altopia will respond further;
  12) that Altopia will not respond further;
  13) that Altopia thinks you have a funny name;
  14) that Altopia does not think you have a funny name;
  15) that Altopia takes your name into account when responding; or
  16) that Altopia does not take your name into account when responding.
  
could have helped to clarify the issues.

-- 
Jim Riley