X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,9c46bf1057de06a5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public From: kenter@cs.utwente.nl (Arjan Kenter) Subject: Re: Complaint about (unintentional?) abuse of usenet by your dept. (fwd) Date: 1997/10/07 Message-ID: <61dir8$qgi$1@pandora.cs.utwente.nl>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 278521276 References: X-Server-Date: 7 Oct 1997 15:00:56 GMT Distribution: world To: Patrick Craig Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art In article , Patrick Craig writes: |> >From: "fwiese" [ snip ] |> >Would you be so kind to inform the responsible person that in alt.ascii-art |> >(in fact: in the majority of newsgroups) posting binaries is considered to |> >be *abuse*? |> > |> >Kind regards, |> >Mic Barendsz |> |> |> "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." |> |> |> My name is Patrick Craig, and I am a teaching assistant at Wright State |> University in the CS205 class. My views are _not_ those of Wright State |> University. I take it that absolutely none of you have ever been first |> time usenet posters? Or have ever made a mistake in your lives? Of course, as I suggested a couple of months ago when we had an earlier storm of "CP2" posts, it would be much politer to create a newsgroup at your own university, dedicated to this sort of exercises. At my university there are a number of courses with newsgroups of their own where students can practise. For a CS (I take it that's Computer Science) class this should not be too difficult to arrange. |> Our students are human beings, and we're doing the best we can to get them |> to post the correct attachment formats to the correct newsgroups. |> Occasionally they will make a mistake, however, and that's human nature. |> The so-called "abuse" _is_ unintentional, and it upsets me to think that |> you people would try to take it any other way. It is only natural for people to make mistakes while they are learning (and occasionally afterwards too, I admit). That is enough reason to give them a place of their own for practising, since you know /beforehand/ that they will annoy people and, being polite, you would like to prevent that, wouldn't you? Btw, the annoyance is not just with the formats. Also posts that make it here in the beloved ASCII format are never anything more than repeats of recent posts. If you want your students to become Respected Netizens (note mildly ironic use of capitals... I have a hunch I have to stay very explicit in everything I write here) you might as well ask them to show some creativity. After all, that IS what this newsgroup is all about. |> If you're looking to vent anger, why don't you take it to professional |> counseling? A more constructive response to this problem would have been |> to offer to give us a hand with showing our students netiquette standards. Of course, Internet instructors ought to be the first to know and show Netiquette to their students. |> I want to thank you all for making the world a more bitter place. You're welcome. You seem to be doing a good job at it yourself, too. -- ^^ ir. H.J.H.N. Kenter oo ) kenter@cs.utwente.nl University of Twente =x= \ tel. +31 53 4894099 Tele-Informatics & Open Systems | \ tfx. +31 53 4893247 P.O. Box 217 7500 AE Enschede /|__ \ The Netherlands (____)_/ http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~kenter/ Famous last words: Segmentation Fault (core dumped)