Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 21:10:54 -0600
From: kasparek-AT-tezcat.com (K. Rengren)
Subject: Re: Never Again...


Hi all -

Okay. So, I am normally not the type to pipe up on subject matter of this
sort, but I think that there is a point that everyone is missing here.  I'm
breaking my own self-imposed rule on posting about matters unrelated to a
given group's charter, but I think it has to be said, so please forgive
this rant.

I make no claim in support or opposition to the content of this letter.As a
person deeply involved in multicultural projects in general and Yiddish
culture in particular, I am deeply opposed to fascism, racism, and its
resurgence and continuance in this world. As an artist and an arts
advocate, I am also absolutely committed to freedom of speech and
information, no matter how personally repulsive I may find a type of speech
to be. However, the letter that we are all debating about is not about any
of those things. It is a classic example of spam.

Spam is the junk mail of the Internet world. (It is named after the Monty
Python song featuring spam everywhere. )In its more noxious form, it is
represented by pyramid schemes, "make money fast" letters, and "Dial 809
now or we'll take you to court" missives that arrive unsolicited in your
email inbox or that clutter Usenet newsgroups as off-topic posts. Most
folks realize that this is obnoxious, and either ignore them or forward
them to their ISP -- as they should. However, another kind of spam - one
that does not attempt to swindle people's money but is almost as costly to
the Internet community in terms of time, wasted machine space, and
generally making the Internet a less useful place to be - is the "urban
legend" variety of spam, wherein the recipient is asked to send email, or
pass something on, or otherwise participate in a chain letter. Often these
things are spread by well-meaning folks who would NEVER send a chain letter
via postal mail to their friends. Sometimes they begin as a legitimate
cause, but after several hundred generations of forwarding, they are no
longer pertinent - twisted from their original cause, the expiry date cut
off, or otherwise altered - and they circulate through the ether with a
life of their own, debated and passed along by people who didn't get the
same petition a year ago.

But the fact is this: there is no petition against a neo-nazi group. Sesame
Street is in no danger of being shut down. The Neiman-Marcus cookie recipie
AND the Good Times Virus have been debunked as well-documented urban myth.
And Little Timmy's dying wish was NOT to start the world's largest Internet
chain letter, and even if it was there would be no way for him to witness
its length.

It might seem like a victimless crime, sure, but spam of this sort is
actually a huge problem on the Internet.  Inappropriate posting is a bad
thing. When a letter like that gets sent to a group like this, the host of
the group has to send it out thousands of times - a pretty big load on the
machines in charge, believe it or not. Then it gets proliferated to other
newsgroups, and email addresses - in turn clogging up servers all over the
place. One letter may not seem like much, but the fact is that each letter
spawns hundreds more, and there are hundreds of these to begin with. In
short, it is a huge drain on the resources of every ISP out there. ISP
administrators tear their hair out over this kind of thing. It slows
machines, fills up phone lines, makes tech support people harried and
crabby, raises staff, equipment and line costs, and often triggers crashes
- all of which is translated in service price to you the consumer. More
importantly, it makes the Internet in general a congested place full of
mail and posts irrelevant to the designated subject matter of Usenet groups
and mailing lists - turning a lot of people to the belief that the Internet
isn't worth wading through all the crap out there.

And worst of all, it is useless. The vote on the neo-nazi newsgroup was
never intended to determine whether or not people DIDN'T want such a group
on the Net. It was a vote to determine if anybody DID want it. If anyone
did, it was going to be created -- even if 10 people voted "yes" and the
rest of the world sent in their protest. The petition was in vain.
Furthermore, the vote was over a year ago. The server that tabulated the
votes has been so inundated with these bogus petitions that to this day
they recieve thousands of petitions daily, and they have had to devote a
single machine (worth upwards of $10,000) to take the email petitions and
DUMP THEM IN THE VIRTUAL TRASH UNREAD. This newsgroup, my favorite mailing
list and generally a great place, has generated nineteen messages in two
days on this subject. No doubt this debate has sent hundreds more of these
messages straight into the bit bucket, and clogged up a lot of machines
that could otherwise be processing useful information in the process.

The Internet is a wonderful thing because there is so much information we
can access so quickly. To keep it beautiful, it needs to be kept useful -
not the waste of time and resources that so many people have come to
percieve in it.

Thanks, flame me freely but from now on I'll be talking puppets only,

Kristen "will expound on shadow puppets and Netiquette for food" Rengren




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