What's up with this group lately?

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Peter,

A lack of a response in this group does not always indicate an acceptance
of a presented view.

Sure. But IMHO there are some views that should elicit a responce from a
majority of the group here in order to save its civility.

Internet civility.

A new oxymoron?

"Allen" wrote in message
t...

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
Recently, Thomas Borchert posted:

Genocide and lynching is openly advocated here
with only a trace of opposition,

As there are many participants from the US, it should be understood that
we have no basic quarrel with genocide or lynching...

Neil

I am not sure what you mean here Neil but I for one DO have a problem with
genocide and lynching!

Don't worry, Neil was being ironic. He objects just as you and I do.

--Gary

Recently, Allen posted:

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
Recently, Thomas Borchert posted:

Genocide and lynching is openly advocated here
with only a trace of opposition,

As there are many participants from the US, it should be understood
that we have no basic quarrel with genocide or lynching...

Neil

I am not sure what you mean here Neil but I for one DO have a problem
with genocide and lynching!

As do I, but as a citizen of a country that has lynched many people (even
within my lifetime) and does nothing in the face of on-going genocide in
various parts of the world, I am forced to recognize the truth about our
cultural values.

Neil

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:50:59 +0100, Thomas Borchert wrote in :

A lack of a response in this group does not always indicate an acceptance
of a presented view.

Sure. But IMHO there are some views that should elicit a responce from a
majority of the group here in order to save its civility.

Flaming trolls tends to breed more trolls and flames.

Great article here, with links to others:

http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/crackpot.html

Marty
--
The Big-8 hierarchies (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk)
are under new management. See http://www.big-8.org for details.

Blanche wrote:
I've noticed an increase in spam email, too. An order of magnitude!
Altho I've got 2 or 3 spam filters on my email (depending on the
address) that send the spam to /dev/null, I always check the count,
just out of curiousity. "debora????" has been incredibly prolific
trying to push scam stocks the past week or so.

Monday morning I had over 150 spam email (fortunately, sent to /dev/null)
Even then, 3-5 still got thru 3 layers of filters!


Think Cloudmark. When I get the occasional spam, I block it. Cloudmark reports
back to its server and that spammer gets blocked from *all* user's inboxes.
Since I've signed up, I get on average 6 spam mails a day; at least 5 of the 6
are properly identified as spam and maybe 1 message a day slips though. As for
the hundreds of spam messages the average user seems to get every day, I don't
even download them... I assume because of the Cloudmark database.

This was the only filter I found that was able to nuke those sneaky little gifs
that sell Viagra, etc. Now my only message rules are those distributing my
email to various folders.

As an added plus, I don't get phishing messages any more, either.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

"Judah" wrote in message
. ..
Is it just me, or is there a full moon out or something?!?!

In all fairness, I have to admit that it was Mike's torrent of vapid
personal taunts that seems to have ignited (or at least accelerated) the
current firestorm. Such posts discredit him and his cause, and I wish he'd
cut it out or join the other side.

But regardless of the trigger, the recent squabbles and insults are in a
completely different moral universe from Grumman's advocacy of the literal
extermination of Muslims, and his threat to lynch US Muslims himself with
his "truck and chain".

More than anything else in this conversation, Grumman's remarks (and the
various reactions and non-reactions to them) reveal the true nature of this
country's cultural divide.

--Gary

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:50:59 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote in :

A lack of a response in this group does not always indicate an
acceptance
of a presented view.

Sure. But IMHO there are some views that should elicit a responce from a
majority of the group here in order to save its civility.

Flaming trolls tends to breed more trolls and flames.

It depends. When the group is invaded by a random outsider who makes a
provocative post, silence may indeed be appropriate. (For instance, the
Belfort ravings are universally ignored, and properly so.)

But when a bona fide member of the group advocates exterminating Muslims and
threatens to lynch them, it is unconscionable for people participating in
that conversation to let the remarks pass.

--Gary

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:39:14 -0500, "Gary Drescher" wrote in
:

... But when a bona fide member of the group advocates exterminating Muslims and
threatens to lynch them, it is unconscionable for people participating in
that conversation to let the remarks pass.

If you feel you have to respond, perhaps you could
use one of the flags to show that you understand
that the material quoted and the reply itself
are off-topic (OT), politics (POL), or otherwise
a part of thread drift (META).

As a general rule, one person's "mission posting"
is another person's troll.

Marty
--
The Big-8 hierarchies (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk)
are under new management. See http://www.big-8.org for details.

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
. ..
[...]
But when a bona fide member of the group advocates exterminating Muslims
and threatens to lynch them, it is unconscionable for people participating
in that conversation to let the remarks pass.

"Participating" being a key point. I don't think that's what Thomas was
saying...he seems to expect each and every newsgroup participant who sees an
abominable statement like that to respond with a disagreement.

I agree that if you are in a discussion and let something like that just go
unanswered, that's tacit approval. But for someone not engaged in the
discussion at hand (and this includes even if they are engaged in some other
portion of the thread...we've had two, three, sometimes more levels of
bifurcation in a single thread and it's unreasonable to expect everyone
participating in one branch to monitor and/or respond to other branches), I
don't see any reason to expect a response.

Pete

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
. ..
[...]
More than anything else in this conversation, Grumman's remarks (and the
various reactions and non-reactions to them) reveal the true nature of
this country's cultural divide.

Ironically, they don't seem to help reveal the true nature of the "enemy's"
cultural divide. People such as him don't seem to recognize that the exact
same variation in values exists in other countries and cultures. That it's
simply not true that every Muslim is out for blood, just as it's not true
that every American is out for blood.

It's like the dog barking at the mirror, who just doesn't get that the fear
and aggression he's seeing is just himself.

Pete