Re: Delphi Vogons

[CUTjefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

First I would like to apologize to everyone for the length of this
post but I am replying to Rubywand's 231 line post and I have cut as
much as I could and tried to keep my responses short.

On Sat, 23 May 1998 18:29:30 -0500, Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>
wrote:

>     This is a bit of a distortion of the truth, is it not? What

Not at all.

>happened is that a Delphi user asked how to reach Asimov. He/she
>received the typical Asimov-hater responses from the resident Vogons and
>seemed 'put down' and disappointed. SiFan simply provided the current
>Asimov URL (i.e. answered the user's question); whereupon he/she was
>attacked.
>
>     After a string of attack messages, SiFan posted a final, polite
>message acknowledging the end of the discussion. Perhaps you never had a
>chance to read the message because the forum managers chose to preserve
>all of the Asimov attack postings-- many of which included threats, name
>calling, and/or accusations of "piracy"--  and to delete the message
>from SiFan.
>
>     SiFan then posted a response to a message from the Delphi forum
>manager-- the one announcing that the thread dealing with the Asimov
>question would be hidden-- in the "From the Staff" thread. The SiFan
>message ended with a question: 'Do you fear that A2-Delphi users can not
>make up their own minds about what is true and what is not. Or, do you
>fear that they can?' 

The way I saw it happen, and I read the forums on Delphi at least once
a day, is that someone asked for the URL for Asimov.  Three or four
people responded telling the user, not in the nicest way but not
overboard rudeness, that discussions of that particular site were not
appropriate on Delphi and warning the user that it contained pirated
software.  The original poster took the tone of those messages as
personal attacks and responded in kind.   The next several messages
were all the parties involved getting things straightened out and
apologizing for unintentionally posting messages that could be
construed as personal attacks.

Then SIFAN arrives giving the URL as well as a couple of kilobytes of
information that many people had already posted earlier in the thread
that it was inappropriate and not welcome.  Having been using the
internet for the past 8 years, it looked just like a troll for flames
from someone who knew exactly what reaction s/he would get.

The moderators stepped in saying, again, that this was an
inappropriate discussion for the forum and warned people that if it
continued the thread would be ended by the staff.  The thread
continued and SIFAN came back with the quote you posted in the last
paragraph above.  Which is a really stupid question because everyone
with a brain knows that making copyrighted software available in any
way shape or form is against the law.  Delphi needs to protect itself
from law suits and criminal charges so any messages or files that
contain anything to do with any form of illegal activity must not be
made available on the system.  That is what the staff is there to do,
make sure this type of stuff isn't on the system so that Delphi cannot
be held liable.

Then the moderator came back and said, okay, that's it.  People did
not let the thread die on its own so it is now time to delete it.
Which is exactly what he is supposed to do.  However, he may not have
said it in the nicest way but this subject is years old and I'm sure
he's getting tired of having to deal with it every time it crops up.
Cut him some slack, he is only human and can have a bad day just like
the rest of us.

For your information, this is the "nastiest" I've seen any messages on
Delphi but they are only candle flames compared to the 5 alarm fires
we have here in csa2.

>> I'm not even sure that she has left yet
>> because I've seen some messages from her after she said she would no
>> longer be there.  By the way, she had cancelled her Compuserve account
>> just before appearing on Delphi.
>
>     Perhaps she hoped to find an on-line service dedicated to the Apple
>II which was not run by nitwits.

So now you think both Compuserve and Delphi are run by nitwits?  What
does that make the participants in csa2?  After all, we are the ones
who "run" csa2 and look at the mess we have here.  :-/

>> She now has her own web page and a
>> mailing list but I don't have the information handy.  I can get it if
>> anyone wants it.
>
>     If you like; but, you may wish to avoid referring too many users to
>Beverly. She may not be especially pleased with the way her response to
>a SiFan message was handled.

Huh?  Do you mean having her message deleted from a thread that was
publically stated would be deleted?  How could anyone not be pleased
when what they were told would happen happenned?

>     Although SiFan messages to "From the Staff" were being deleted by
>the Vogons as quickly as they could find a staff member who is also a
>reader, some A2-Delphi users did read them and responded. So long as the
>response was negative, it was preserved.

I'm not sure what you mean by the negative responses being preserved.
However, what did you think would happen after the moderator told
everyone that messages to that thread were to be immediately deleted?
Of course those messages were deleted.  Do you think the moderators
were bluffing?

> Here is a SiFan response (19 May 1998) to one such message:

I've cut a lot of this stuff but there is a few things I wanted to
respond to.

>The UTTER person is the one calling names. He admits to being rude and
>says it is "too bad". Evidently, he believes that it is okay to suppress
>discussion when his position is shown to be flawed.

What evidence was there that he wanted to suppress the discussion
because his position was flawed.  Answer: none.  This comes out of
nowhere.  However, you will note that suppression of the discussion
came after a warning to stop the discussion and a message saying that
the discussion would be deleted.

>The odd thing about the response of the manager of this little piece of
>Delphi is that it came after participants had agreed to end the
>discussion.

If this were true, why did SIFAN post this message in that thread?
Doesn't this continue the discussion, rather than end it?

>I would suggest that most of the users here are here because of the
>benefits of action Taken by the staff relating to this thread
>....
><<
>
>This seems very unlikely. Most users welcome a discussion of important
>Apple II issues. Relatively few persons truly enjoy being 'protected'
>from the truth.

This is very likely.  Many people prefer to read messages which are
free of the crud that plagues usenet.  That is why they are using a
message area on an online service.  The moderators are not protecting
them from the truth, just saving them a lot of disruption and
unpleasantness.

By the way, I have been reading the Delphi forums since October last
year and this is the first time I have seen the staff take any sort of
moderating action.

>>>
>Don't like it? LEAVE!!!!! 
><<
>
>After numerous 'please join Delphi' postings to comp.sys.apple2, it
>seemed only fair to explore this new A2 nook of the internet. It is a
>bit of an adventure.

Certainly you can join in on discussions on Delphi but you have to
follow the rules.  There are rules to be followed, unlike csa2 which
is a free for all.

If the staff and users say that a subject is inappropriate then you
should stop that discussion dead and not continue to post questions
about why people want it stopped.  If you really don't understand why
then you can take it to e-mail and people will explain it to you as
they already know why it is inappropriate.

If you don't agree with the rules, you are free to leave but they
certainly aren't that restrictive.

>A2 Delphi has potential. It should be possible for Apple II users to
>cooperate, work to develop, and to benefit from all such resources.

I agree with this statement but it needs some clarification.  It
should be possible for Apple II users to cooperate, work to develop
and to benefit from all legal resources.  It would makes things much
easier on us all if it were not possible to use illegal resources.

>     Of course, the SiFan response was deleted from the message base.
>Unfortunately for the Vogons, it was not deleted quickly enough. Beverly
>responded (5/19/98) ...

This is exactly what they said they would do so I don't find this
surprising at all.

>> Most users welcome a discussion of important Apple issues. 
>
>I have to agree. I think that a great opportunity was missed to 
>possibly work something out, and clean things up. 
>
>We could use some sort of "Web compliance" committee or person. 

So what Beverly seems to be saying is that we should form a Web
Compliance Committee and make all the Apple II resources on the net do
things legally.  Note that in her second sentence she mentions working
something out or cleaning things up.  You do realize this would mean
shutting down asimov or at least removing 95+% of its contents.

By the way, I did see most if not all of the messages you have been
quoting.

>     SiFan's response to Beverly was, naturally, deleted.

Again, this doesn't surprise me as that is what the staff said they
would do.

>     Perhaps you can explain why the thread, as of today, is shown as
>having 105 messages when the one positive response is message 106? Why
>is it necessary to dig through the message base in order to read
>Beverly's message and why is it denoted "106 of 105"?

I'm not sure as I haven't looked to see how many messages are in that
thread.  It could be something to do with counting from 0 instead of
1.  Delphi has some strange numbering schemes due to people deleting
their own messages or replies to their messages and the staff having
to do things in the background.  It is quite common to see things like
"number of message 781, highest read 777, no new messages" when it
looks like there should be four new ones.

>> By the way, did you get yourself an account or are you just relying on
>> hearsay?
>
>     Are you kidding?

No, I was totally serious.  It seems you have read the entire thread
which means you must have an account.  From the way you talk here I
always figured you wouldn't touch even a free web account with a ten
foot pole.  So I was genuinely puzzled when you started talking about
messages on a service that you didn't seem to have any interest in.

Now you've demonstrated intimate knowledge of at least one thread on
Delphi so I'm now even more curious.  Do you have a Delphi account
now?

=== I've had enough SPAM.  Cut the obvious from my address to email me. ===
         Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University on Delphi