From: "Paul H. Merrill" <paulmerrill@acm.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 13:36:51 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:
In-Reply-To: <bef845b0ecca21ff8860c404f6d17a10@anonymous>
Message-ID: <360EAEAA.DC9178BA@acm.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Anonymous lo14 wrote:
> 
> Paul H. Merrill wrote:
> 
> >1.  There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
> 
> Nice cliche. Unfortunately, it doesn't say anything at all.
> 
More formally, numbers and subtext that sound like statistical
terminology but do not follow proper statistical procedures concerning
sampling of the population and non-biased criteria can be formulated to
say whatever one wshed to be said.  The "statistics" in this case are of
that nature.  (That is the techie translation of the quote given above.)

> >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.
> 
> You got it half right. If quoted material is included, it's good. If no
> quoted material is included, it's bad. If quoted material is included but it
> uses the '<< >>' style, it's bad. If a few hundred lines are quoted and six
> added, it's bad. This was explained to you twice; once in the post you're
> responding to, and once in that posting with the AOL quotes. You're
> conveniently ignoring that and you're playing dumb with regard to network
> etiquette. Maybe you aren't just pretending.
> 
Precisely what part of the "statistician's" garbage Should Have Been
Included?  It held no structure to be subdivided, nor did it have
immensely valuable protions to be directly commented upon.  In point of
fact, the total quote methodology was used in "protest" of his
classifying non-quotes as clueless.  The appropriate proportion to be
quoted is a matter of taste and understandability.

> AOL users originally didn't quote at all, they claimed because of software
> constraints. AOL users complained and used the fact that their ISP was lame
> as an excuse for not getting another one. Other net users complained. AOL
> responded by using the '<< >>' quoting style, which was effectively giving
> the rest of the net the bird.
> 
In actuallity, AOL EMail allows for either quoting style to be used.

> If AOL didn't cater to every moron out there, and if AOL didn't keep running
> stupid ads with claims like "AOL is the Internet!", and if AOL wasn't
> sending things like requests for Real Player all over the net, and if AOL
> didn't do things to deliberately piss everyone else off, they'd have a much
> better reputation. Maybe the first two can be written off as simple
> marketting, and maybe the third can be written off as the results of that
> marketting, but there is no excuse for the fourth. All four of those are
> what gets AOL flamed, kill filed, ignored, insulted, and shunned.
> 
And I suppose that it would be appropriate for me to take out my feeling
for everyting that anyone running or using an anonymous remailer does on
anyone who uses, runs, or support anonymous remailers?

> >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.
> 
> There were one or two which may have been questionable. The rest of them
> fell into his criteria quite well. That's unless you want to claim that
> requests for stickers, CDs, and the rest actually express some subtle
> political point other than to say "I'm a moron." I ensure you, if "We're
> morons" was the point the AOL posters in question were trying to make, their
> message came through quite well. Maybe "you got it?" was actually a secret
> code.
> 
I repeat:And what I said was along the lines of most were justified, but
some
         showed his lack of clues.
We both said the same thing, except you said questionable and I said
showed lack of clues.

> >> > > 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?
> 
> I was refering to the spam from AOL, Sixdegrees, the "child molestor"
> spammers, and their like. The responses to that, including your's, are
> political speech like you describe. What you're being ridiculed for is,
> almost without fail, defending every AOL weenie and spam site which comes
> onto this list.
> 
I have never defended a spam site to my knowledge.  sixdegrees was not
spam.  It was a requested service.  It's just that the requester was not
authorized to make the request.  My commentary amounted to attack the
offending party, not the other offended parties.

> The child molestor spammers may be able to claim that it isn't their fault
> because they're using lame software, but if they use swiss cheese they
> shouldn't be surprised when the holes are exploited. I'm not saying it's
> very ethical to exploit them, but it isn't surprising.
> 
Actually, the baby porn I referred to was purportedly posted by Timothy
C May.

> Paul, with regard to the rest of this, it's obvious that you're either
> trolling or are yourself severely clue-shy, and you aren't worth a response
> anymore. Your #2 is proof enough of that. #3 is pretty good evidence too.

Actually, neither.  I don't like lies and I don't like seeing the wrong
people get battered for wrongdoings.  I do find it mildly amusing that
noone posted anything to the jerk that signed up as Joe Cypherpunk. 
(That one definitely lives under a bridge.)

PHM