response 110 of 157:

Sep 11 01:13 UTC 2000

Re #100:  My goodness, Sindi.  Have you forgotten all the twit filter
items I posted?  At least twice, I gave complete instructions for rolling
your own twit filter that removes responses from people you consider to
be not worth your attention.  Here it is again.

To make a twit filter, create a file (called "twit" in this example, though
you could call it anything you want).  If you want to get rid of responses
by willard, twinkie and slynne, put the following lines in the file "twit":

/^#.*(slynne)/,/^$/d
/^#.*(twinkie)/,/^$/d
/^#.*(willard)/,/^$/d           (you get the idea)

Then alter your pager setting.  If your pager setting is currently
"more", then change it to "sed -f twit | more".  This activates the
twit filter.  To deactivate it, change your pager back to just "more".
To make it start up that way, put the following line in your .cfonce file:

def pager "sed -f twit | more"

The next step is to have a simple twitlist without all the sed command
stuff and expand it automatically, and beyond that to have an option to
auto-forget new items by people in the twitlist.  This is enough to
"scratch my itch", though.  For now.

response 112 of 157:

Sep 11 02:24 UTC 2000

I'm rather curious about the apparent obsession some Grexers have with me.

If memory serves, I entered maybe 10 items in Agora. Given the proposed 2/day
rule, that would put me at one business week...in a conference that spans
months.

More importantly, the bulk of my posts have been serious responses, albeit,
in a format which is apparently foreign to many of Agora's participants. In
a Grexian scale...these three paragraphs should have take up several kilobytes
of text. Let's just pretend that some of us are able to make a point, without
pontificating ad nauseum.

Moving on...

A restraining order is a rather intriguing notion, although, I don't believe
the State of Michigan could really issue one in this case. After all, a
restraining order prevents a person from coming within a certain distance from
another person, and bans communication via postal mail and telephone. (I know
this, because I was going to get a restraining order against someone.) None
of thses things would prevent someone from accessing Grex -- so long as they
can get on the net without a POTS line.

As far as a lawsuit goes...exactly who would be suing? Cyberspace
Communications? Wouldn't you need to take a vote on that? And more
importantly...could you get a vote on that?

Let's assume that you could.

What would be the basis of the lawsuit? Violating nonexistent rules? Not being
nice? Entering "too many" items or responses, when there's no set baseline?

And let's not forget exactly who you're suing. Off the top of my head, I can
say that I'm 95% certain that jp2 and willard are both in high-level network
engineer-type positions. (I happen to be, as well) Do you honestly think that
we (collectively) couldn't "out-lawyer" Grex? Just thinking about it is
laughable. Oh sure, you could set up a "Grex Legal Fund", but my gues is that
most Grexers would rather see that money go towards more useful things.

But I digress. As interesting as this may be...I think I should point out that
this post would have been at least 50kb in 4 different posts, if I were a
"Real Grexer" ;-)

response 114 of 157:

Sep 11 03:17 UTC 2000

I must have missed the twit filter explanation because I have not been reading
much of agora recently due to all the meaningless (to me, anyway) new items.
I appreciate the authors of some of these starting them with 'An item in
which' as I immediately delete all of these.  Could someone write a program
to automatically forget items with a certain phrase in their title, or
responses with words from a list specified by the user?  I agree that some
of the m-netters occasionally post interesting responses and not all of them
are trying to be annoying and it is probably a small number of people giving
m-net a bad name.  Would those people who like posting items and responses
of the sort that are annoying many grexers possibly agree to keep them
confined in a smaller number of items?  Or maybe a different conference
designed specifically for people to tease each other in?  

response 116 of 157:

Sep 11 04:06 UTC 2000

re #113: Would that be the stalking law recently held unconstitutional in
         federal court, for being so broad that it could be applied to
         infringe on a defendant's First Amendment rights? I can see the
         argument now....

         "Your honor, we need a restraining order to keep these people from
         posting their comments on our bbs."

         "Tell me about your BBS."

         "It is an open system, in which we encourage the free exchange of
         ideas. An uncensored, albeit not necessarily unexpurgated, exchange.
         It's sort of like Hyde Park, in electronic format."

         "And you want a restraining order against people who are using
         your system as an open forum, as you intend it to be used?"

         "Yes, your honor. But only to stop a form of speech we disagree
         with."

         "So you want an order, restraining individuals from making future
         expressions of their thoughts, on the basis that you don't agree
         with their content? A prior restraint, if you will?"

         "Exactly, your honor."

You know what is toxic to the likes of willard and jp2? Being ignored. You
know what makes them thrive, like dandelions in a manure heap? Attention.
How about you stop fertilizing them?

I told somebody a while back that I owed Grexers an apology, for all the
times Iampooned them for dreading the day when M-Net collapsed, and all of
the M-Netters would come over and ruin their wonderful community. Sorry -
the Grex/M-Netter thing is much older than what may have popped up five or
so months ago. You've been dreading this for years. And, to some extent, you
were right. The drek of M-Net has discovered that they get more fertilizer
here than back home, so they stay.

It isn't really M-Netters. It's a couple of small minds with too much time
on their hands. Ignore them, as hard as that may be, and they'll get bored.

response 118 of 157:

Sep 11 12:40 UTC 2000

112: The cost of mounting even a barely adequate defense would put you 
in the poorhouse, "high-level network engineer-type positions" and 
all.  (Although it is nice to know that there'd be a pot of gold there, 
however little it might've dwindled to by the time Judgment Day was 
reached.  Thanks for that info.)  

Anyway, I'm not saying it would be a good idea or that I would ever get 
involved in it myself, just that you never know what's going to make an 
attorney's eyes light up.  I probably know more attorneys than you know 
people; believe me, it's worth asking about.  Just a suggestion.

response 120 of 157:

Sep 11 15:24 UTC 2000

You missed the point, but (again!) what else is new.  

I'm glad you "mnetters" are all enjoying my posts, and I wish you'd 
just accept that and let go of all the hostility and anger.  It's all 
just pixels on a screen.  And if the Grex folks happen to mention you, 
jamie, willard, etc., when they talk to their attorney -- just because, 
you know, they're going to be there anyway -- looks like all you need 
is a sane judge so what's the big deal?

response 122 of 157:

Sep 11 15:31 UTC 2000

I can't believe this conversation is still taking place.  Suing people 
because you won't type "forget" or install a twit filter?  So are we 
going to sue every person who irritates us at work, school, home, 
downtown, etc?

response 126 of 157:

Sep 11 17:05 UTC 2000

Re #124 - for the sake of argument only:  You're on a Michigan BBS.  It 
would be like committing a crime in another state and being tried for 
it there.  I think.  I really don't care, so I don't care if I'm wrong 
either.  =)

response 128 of 157:

Sep 11 18:10 UTC 2000

#127: Good call.

response 130 of 157:

Sep 11 19:11 UTC 2000

I didn't say I agreed with it.  =)  I still think this is stupid.

And, as with most of Richard's completely asinine ideas, he bows out 
after the first few responses and leaves us all to argue.  

response 132 of 157:

Sep 11 19:18 UTC 2000

I think Richard was trying to come up with a solution to a problem that manyof
us agree exists, but did not think it all the way through.  Unlike a few other
people who have been posting on grex, he is well intentioned.  If nothing
else, he started an interesting conversation.