Re: Is this paleoanthropology?
p3voices (p3voices@earthlink.net)
Wed, 17 Jul 1996 00:19:36 -0400
>Mike Muller <muller@flmhh.ufl.edu> writes:
>Why is this news group debating Atlantis, Life after Death, and Lucifer.
>It is a waste of time and space to respond to such nonsense. Also it
>keeps active paleoanthropologists and and other interested parties from
>engaging in debate. Why check into this group just to read the drivel
>that has been currently posted. Can't we elevate the discussions here and look at controversial issues with scientific basis and not just wild
spectulation?
*********************
This drivel can be a problem!
Not suggesting that anyone actually follow through with this, as it is
poor netiquette, but a drivel problem occured in another newsgroup
(rec.humor) and here's how it was dealt with. I thought some of you may
find this interesting and humorous.
Titled "A modest proposal":
The orignal author was chucksz@ultranet.com:
Those of us who read rec.humor for the jokes are getting elbowed out by a
bunch of Bozos who cross post to this newsgroup even though what they're
saying has nothing to do with humor. You've seen the stuff "The US
sucks," "Ten reasons why..." We are also seeing a lot more anonymous
cross postings by people who are too cowardly to be held accountable for
what they say. I have an idea that might help to put a stop to this.
One strategy for getting rid of insect pests is to release a large number
of sterile male insects into the population. The females mate with them
but will not produce offspring - and then die. Over a number of
generations, the insect population can be brought under control. It's my
position that these cross-posters are like insects who are taking more
and more space in rec.humor, causing the rest of us to sort through more
and more crap to find - well - humor.
Here's the idea. When you see a massive cross post list at the beginning
of a flame - like this one
alt.sex.pictures,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.hornyrob,alt.nuke.the.USA,
alt.tasteless.jokes,alt.nuke.europe,eunet.jokes,rec.humor,alt.2600,alt.26
00.warez,alt.warez,alt.binaries.pictures.girls,alt.sex.pictures.female,al
t.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,alt
.binaries.warez.mac.req,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female,alt.bin
aries.pictures.erotica.teen.female.masturbation,alt.sex,alt.sex.stories,a
lt.sex.stories.incest,alt.sex.stories.hetero,alt.binaries
reply to it. Say something funny, stupid, outrageous, short, long -
whatever. One technique is to copy someone elses post from a few days
before that you've observed got a lot of replys. Don't worry, the flame
artists will be too stupid to notice. Now, submit your post with one
little twist - delete rec.humor from the newsgroup list. Let your post
go everywhere - except here. When the flamers pick up your post - they
will take time to reply (time that they would have spent cluttering up
rec.humor - see the analogy with the sterile male insect release?)
without bothering to check the newsgroup list, thus sending their crap
everywhere but here. The followup replys will not go to rec.humor either
because those who would follow up such drivel are also too stupid to
notice.
If everyone made two or three such posts a day (make ten or more if you
can) we would cause these idiots to spend time replying to us (in
newsgroups we don't read) and not cluttering up rec.humor with their
twaddle. If you get some nasty e-mail, ignore it. Don't reply. Think
of it as the buzzing of insects that are annoyed because their ability to
dominate is being threatened.
I know the self-appointed net bandwidth police are saying "What if
everybody did that? Wouldn't we just have more clutter?" Let's hope
everyone does it - in this newsgroup as well as in others. Think of the
outcome if people in this and other newsgroups posted this way and
deleted their favorite groups from the list. Our problem has been that
people have been adding newsgroups to their postings. This is your
chance to subvert that process by subtracting them - and it can work.
There will be those who do try to re-insert rec.humor into their lists,
especially when they discover what you're doing. That's OK. Keep on
making posts with rec.humor deleted. If the number of posts with deleted
newsgroups exceeds the number of posts with rec.humor added, we will win.
Eventually, the cross posters will forget we're doing this (they are
pretty stupid, you know). Eternal vigilance is the price of humor. :-)
Well, that's it. I hope you will consider helping out in this worthy
cause. rec.humor is not always funny and it's sometimes even a little
sick. But as long as most of the posters are trying to be funny we'll
have a better chance of having a few laughs. That is, after all, the
point.
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