🚀 go-pugleaf

Cyronwode <cyronwode@aol.com> wrote:
>mtepper@panix.com (Michele Tepper) wrote: 
>
>Pretending that words (presented electronically from an unseen person) are
>analogous to physical threats (like guns and hand grenades) is sloppy
>thinking that can lead to no productive results. 

Words that threaten legal and media action against the recipient are as 
real as physical threats, and perhaps more dangerous.

Since you *still* haven't gotten it, I'm not going to waste my time 
attempting to reformulate what has already been so eloquently said by 
others.  I'm just going to repeat what Tim Pierce said, since he 
said it so well (and, unsurprisingly, so tersely):


-----begin included message-----
In article <4602l7$ahr@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Cyronwode <cyronwode@aol.com> wrote:

>I did
>nothing to close down that gateway,

That is not correct.

Your presumptuousness and selfishness contributed to the
increasing difficulties that Fletcher Mattox experienced running
his gateway.  Your eagerness to bring legal claims of
discrimination against the University of Texas, however
groundless, added weight to the burden he already carried.  Your
threats of negative media exposure reduced his incentive to
continue providing this service -- for anyone.  Your
vindictiveness has brought about the egalitarian atmosphere that
you so desperately wanted; does that please you?

You are certainly not to shoulder complete blame for the
deactivation of the utexas gateway.  Fletcher made that decision
on his own, and anyone here must recognize that it was the result
of many, many incidents over the last several years.  However, the
fact that you are not solely responsible for this action does not
absolve you.  It is quite obvious that you "did something" that
partially had the effect of destroying the system.

Even more galling, however: despite your halfhearted apologies for
acting rashly, you do not seem to comprehend just how destructive
it is to treat volunteered, shared resources as a *right*.  You do
not seem to recognize the long-term, irreversible damage of acting
as though such services as these *belong* to you in some way.
Attempting to bluster or bluff those who give freely of their
resources into kowtowing to your imagined authority only hurts us
all in the end, and even after this very graphic demonstration of
Usenet politics you seem not to have learned the lesson at its
core.

I am quite firmly in Russ Allbery's camp on this one.  If history
remembers you as the person who killed the cs.utexas.edu gateway,
it will be exactly what you deserve.

-----End included message-----

For those who already have clues and do not need to be force-fed them, my 
apologies for the repetititition.


-- 
Michele Tepper          "Willful ignorance, that's my motto."
mtepper@panix.com                          -- Harry Teasley