Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 16:50:45 -0500 From: Laurence Berland <stuyman@confusion.net> To: "J. Seth Henry" <jshenry@net-noise.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Pornography on Yahoo Message-ID: <3AD774B5.9DD232BD@confusion.net> References: <EBEDLIEDDOIIJDGEKFFDAECDCBAA.jshenry@net-noise.com>
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The reply I sent to the other person who wrote an email to questions on
this issue, which I sent backchannel, went something like this.
Ethicalmind,
You are probably going to get many angry, unreasoned reply to
this
email. Please ignore them. Instead, please consider the reasoned
explanation I am going to give you below.
Consider these simple facts:
1. You and others who agree with you have every write to protest
pornography, but you must recognize that a significant portion of people
neither consider pornography immoral nor have anything against it.
2. FreeBSD is a computer operating system. In laymans terms, this
means it simply loads programs into the computer. A better known
operating system is Windows. You loaded your mail program (in this case
AOL) using windows. FreeBSD, Microsoft, etc, cannot control the content
of your email, or the web pages you browse. They do not endorse the
contents of these correspondence either.
3. Yahoo! uses FreeBSD on its computer. Yahoo! is a very busy internet
site, so we tell people they run FreeBSD to indicate to them how well
FreeBSD works. FreeBSD is not a Yahoo! business partner or the like.
4. Many Pornographic sites run the Windows operating system. Do you
blame Microsoft for this? I don't think a company can reasonably be
expected to tell people what they can and can't do with their computers.
5. The email you sent went to the address
"freebsd-questions@freebsd.org". This address is actually a mailing
list that many volunteers are subscribed to. People trying to do things
like send email or browse the web with FreeBSD send their questions to
this list, and the volunteers help them get up and running. These
people, such as myself, have no power to tell FreeBSD, Inc what to do
with their software, which is free for all to use anyway.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I'm sure you and your
colleagues will see that no matter how noble you believe your cause to
be, this is not the place to send your protests. You will be expending
energy on an activity that is directed at people who cannot do anything,
whether they agree with you or not.
If you have further questions about the relationship between FreeBSD,
Yahoo!, and the freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list, please feel
free to email me and I'll be happy to explain.
Thanks for your time.
Laurence Berland
If we only send emails that are reasoned and logical, and not emotional,
these people will probably stop...
L:
"J. Seth Henry" wrote:
>
> You know, I've seen at least 20 posts now spewing vitriol at the poor moron
> who had the temerity to stand up for something she believes in. While I
> agree, her post was seriously off-topic, and completely brain dead - BUT SO
> WERE THE REPLIES!!! Come on folks, we have wasted (at least) 20x the
> bandwidth the original poster did - so why don't we just let it go?
>
> Also, I would like to point out that we don't see this much vitriol when a
> commercial spammer posts something. I find *that* easily as irritating and
> offensive as a knuckleheaded soap-box post from a religious zealot. BTW, for
> the atheists in the room, a recent court decision held that atheism is, in
> fact, a form of religion. I, for one, find the atheists soap box just as
> grinding and irritating as everyone else's soap box. That said, why don't we
> lay off the atheists, Christians, Quakers - and who knows who else - and get
> back to the business of learning about FreeBSD? (if the offended parties
> aren't atheists - my bad, but whatever you are, enough's enough...)
>
> As an aside, I would ask why this lady deserves more abuse than any other
> spammer or huckster. Why don't we blast them all equally for wasting our
> time? Just a thought...
>
> Seth Henry
> jshenry@net-noise.com
>
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--
Laurence Berland
Intern, Flooz.com
Northwestern '04
stuyman@confusion.net
http://www.isp.northwestern.edu/~laurence
"The world has turned and left me here"
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