From: "Paul H. Merrill" <paulmerrill@acm.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 05:03:48 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:
In-Reply-To: <199809270531.HAA09168@replay.com>
Message-ID: <360E36C5.33C7DFDC@acm.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Anonymous wrote:
> 
> Paul H. Merrill wrote:
> 
> > <<Heavily snipped to allow for those who don't like it otherwise.>>
> 
> Yeah, if you quote back over a hundred lines after adding 6, 8, or
> whatever it happened to be.
> 
Comment on this comes later.

> > > About a week ago somebody posted a copy or parts of most AOL
> > > postings which were sent here in the last months. Merrill ignores the part
> > > about how the posts were classified
> >
> > I read his classification criteria closely, and read the results of the
> > classification process.
> > > and sends back some vague flame accusing
> > > the author of classing posts he disagreed with as "clueless" then he quotes
> > > the entire thing back to the list.
> > >
> > Then commented that he had not followed his own criteria.
> 
> And where did he not? A few could be debated. The rest were either written
> so badly that they were incomprehensible, were off-topic, or didn't
> include quoted material in a reply/followup. He also stated that he was
> counting postings which used that '<< >>' scheme as automatically bad,
> which is understandable. Either way, he seemed to be trying to show the
> statistics. Pull one or two postings off of one side and put them on the
> other and the statistics are still pretty bad for AOL.
>
1.  There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. 
2.  So if the quoted material is included it's bad and if it is not
included it's bad. I think I see the general idea.  Use the rules
appropriate for complaining about whoever you want to complain about.
3.  And what I said was along the lines of most were justified, but some
showed his lack of clues.  Merely being incomprehensible to a person
means little if the person is a little clue-shy.  Badly written is a bad
thing.

> > > I don't know which is worse. At least the people flaming the AOL wimps are
> > > funny.
> >
> > If funny is all you want, may I recommend rec.humor.funny and, in case
> > you are up on no current events but Clinton, rec.humor.funny.reruns.
> 
> No, I want a Cypherpunks list which discusses political issues,
> cryptography, and things related to that. Since this is the Cypherpunks
> list, we aren't going to censor on the basis of content or origin point.
>
And the general degradation of our society to the level that taking the
moral ground is something to be ridiculed is not a political issue?
 
> If all you want to do is defend AOL and their ilk, may I recommend
> comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy and alt.aol-sucks.
> 
I'll pass, thanks anyway.

> > And to the brilliant person seeking muff diving pics, gee send a real
> > address and we'll see what we can do.  (At least he didn't want it for
> > pre-muff variety.)
> 
> Muff diving pics? Do we want to know? Serious questions.

That comment was in reference to two private (and anonymous)posts
purporting to be AOL weenies seeking such things.