response 26 of 43:

Jul 17 14:01 UTC 1996

Right.  Only filters that filter out *everyone* can be allowed!

response 28 of 43:

Jul 18 02:02 UTC 1996

Re ignoring twits:  That works fine if you get everyone to play along.  But,
say there are 30 people in party, plus a twit.  If 29 of them ignore the twit
and one of them pays attention to the twit, that's enough to fuel the twit
to keep on going.  It's different from the conferences where usually a few
on-topic responses direct attention away from a twittish response.

response 30 of 43:

Jul 18 08:54 UTC 1996

ummmm, there is no pancake so thin that it has only one side ...
  
ok?
  
now i'm gonna go back over the above, and previous elsewhere, and try to
figger out just where the confusion *seems* to reside. i would suspect,
particularily given the contemporaneous series of thoughts, that there
is, indeed, no logical inconsistency . but, hey, i might be wrong.
  
i am cetainly willing to go look. And whilest i'm at it .... would you
please re-read the same stuff and see if you can identify the logical
*con*sistency - - you just might.

response 32 of 43:

Jul 18 15:46 UTC 1996

Not confused, Carson, ignorant and misinformed.  =}  Thanks for informing me.

Toasty, no logical inconsistency in your arguments, just an ethical one.  You
have no problem with filters.  Therefore you recognize there are times when
it is appropriate to be anti-social.  You hve problems with a specific type
of filters.  You would like to dictate for other people what are and are not
appropriate kinds of anti-social behavior.

Grex currently has:
-- mail filters which block mail from certain handles (without telling said
users their mail isn't getting through)
-- Party filters which prevent statements and noises from specified users from
appearing on the screen.
-- I'm told, but I'm not certain, cf filters which work the same way.
SO you approve of .nowrite filters, which would extend all of these.  Groovy.
  
So you approve of not talking to people you don't want to talk to.
So what if I don't want to talk to strangers?
In your view, a wit is someone who says annoying and irritating things.
(er twit)
(the line works with "wit" for other users, but you do have a sense of humor
=} )
In my view, a twit is someone who sends me a random tel that says Hi! How are
you today! when I haven't the foggiest who they are.  I go to Party to meet
people... if I'm not in Party, I'm not in the mood to meet new people.  If
people haven't found party, their loss...
So in a way, a.yeswrite is just another form of twit filter.
(for me... for others, whose .ysewrite files I wouldn't be in, it's a
clique-forming method, but then, i don't want to be sociable to people who
form cliques...)

response 34 of 43:

Jul 18 20:42 UTC 1996

In fact, we'd pretty much have to give up on Unix shell access to prevent mail
filtering of that type.  And it really wouldn't be hard, if anyone wanted to,
to write a filter that would skip conference responces that *didn't* come from
a list; I presume the same goes for party, but closed channels makes it
unnecessary if someone wants to do it, right?

But basically your tty is not your own; we provide only an all-on/all-off
toggle for write/chat/talk, which are far more intrusive than mail.

response 36 of 43:

Jul 19 14:32 UTC 1996

Um, TS, you were the one who introduced the term "anti-social" into the
discussion of .yeswrite/.nowrite, saying that the proposal to allow that
filtering was anti-social.  I may see some consistency on your part that
brighn misses, but I also see some major inconsistency.  I think you'd do well
to try explaining what you think is different about the two cases rather than
just saying that you're consistent & that everyone should see that, if you
expect to convince anyone.

response 38 of 43:

Jul 19 18:30 UTC 1996

Look, y'all - let's not get into an Mnut-dilemma here: it gets old fast..

Tsty was (somewhere back there) adamant that the .deny file almost 
acceptable, since it was viewable as a typical filter and grex has 
assorted filters available (I wish someone would post what and where and 
why).

Tsty was also adamant that .allow files where the work of the devil, and 
would ruin grex - or something equally exaggerated.

The fact is that if you have certain pests you want to ignore, .deny is 
sufficient to the task. ANOTHER fact is that if you are only willing to 
accept tel/write/talk/whatever from a small circle of users, then .deny 
is not enough, but .allow IS suitable to the task.

Believe It Or Not, there are plenty of RL/RW comparisons to both 
situations and they are both valid. It doesn't matter one iota if some 
user objects to the idea, since the idea is:

        1) Perfectly Valid;
        2) Directly comparable to RL "rights";
        3) Available to be either:
                A) USED or
                B) NOT USED.

I use my answering machine for precisely the same thing, and I can always 
turn on the ringer and turn off the anwer - if I expect a call or want to 
talk with someone in the immediate future.

The current setup is more akin to either plugging or unplugging the phone 
and it's a pain in the tukus.

'Nuf said, EOF

response 40 of 43:

Jul 19 21:13 UTC 1996

Fine, there is a simple solution to dial-in twits...

Get a single caller-ID modem and modify 'login' to look at a "suspect 
list" file: if the user is staff-suspected of being a twit of any strip, 
they can try to get a caller's phone number and if the number is not 
returned, just dump it off..

Is it "descrimination"? Absolutely. So what? If things have gone to the 
point where the staff are getting complaints, then it is a staff 
preogative to deal with the 'twit'. At _some_ point, I imagine the fuzz 
or feds would be called in, at least on some of these twits

response 42 of 43:

Jul 20 09:02 UTC 1996

well, an obnoxious user on dial-ins and an obnoxious user on telnet still
equates to "an obnoxious user." 
  
as much as i still *love* #20 <chelsea>, not everyone can pull that off.
  
[aside: serendipity here - whilst creating this response i utilized #20
        on 4 separate logins .... amazzzzzzzzing results]
  
but anyway ...
  
i've done my research, it's in a new item (shortly) and it's a specific
response to #27.
  
that having been cleared up, i sincerely appreciate that there was found
to be no logical inconsistancy.
  
oh, and i *do* stand corrected (before entering the new item) that brighn
was the 'only person using it,' <antisocial>. he was not, see the new item.
  
as for "what to do?" allow me to repeat myself, "let's go in itty-bitty steps."