Soque (Enjoque) Pupette wrote:

If I travel outside the bounds of my provider's TOS I *should* get
booted -- regardless who reports me or if my provider notices it
himself. ...

Someone that gets booted from a series of providers for deliberate
abuse and/or TOS violations over the course of a five year flameware
is a nutcase, too. Net-abuse and/or TOS violations are *not* justified
by being on the right side of an argument.

While I can see that there's an ethical or principled aspect to this, the
brass tacks of the matter are that there are enforcable rules which the user
can choose to abide by, or transgress. It's simply about accepting your
provider's TOS, and then choosing whether or not to abide by them.


I think such a community should be self policing. Meaning: They should
take a stand against the injustices by a rogue netkkkop in their
midst, ...

It seems to me that, complaints about supposed TOS transgressions can go one
of two ways...

If they're upheld, then the transgressor got what they deserved, insofar as
they accepted the provider's TOS when they signed up. While I might not
agree with netcopping, I don't see how a netcop in this situation could be
described as a 'rogue'.

If they aren't upheld, then there was no transgression, and the alleged
transgressor doesn't get booted. While the person who filed the complaint
might be described as a 'rogue netcop', their complaints don't actually have
any effect, so there's nothing to get annoyed about - no injustice.

In other words, there's no such thing as a 'rogue' netcop in the sense that
such a netcop can bring about an unjust booting. There are only netcops, and
people who pester service providers with frivolous complaints.


... thereby quelling the need for a loud and boisterous protest of
those injustices. If they don't, they're complicit in the injustice by
allowing it to fester.

I put it to you that there was no injustice. He either stepped over the mark
and got what was coming to him (by whatever facilitation), or he didn't step
over the mark and his account remained intact.

I don't subscribe to the view that not taking a stand means that those on
the sidelines are suddenly complicit. To argue that is to presuppose that
they have the same opinion on the matter as the noise-makers, and are
sufficiently motivated to take action. I see no evidence is support of those
presuppositions.


It may look like a thrashing, it may be called a thrashing, it's
actually a protest by folks that oppose rogue netkkkoping.

It's a brow-beating - an attempt to coerce people to carry out certain
actions by making so much noise that their normal activities within the
group are curtailed. Those who undertake this might fervently believe that
they're in the right, but those on the receiving end will never do what they
ask - precisely *because* they're being brow-beaten into doing so.

The epistolary equivalent of fascism doesn't convince, but cogent argument
and solid evidence might. That said, I think you'll find that most people in
here simply don't give a **** about whether Neal managed to get himself
netcopped. He looks after his vessel, and the sailors here respect him for
that. He starts a lot of sailing debate, which others may agree or disagree
with, but most will give him credit for doing so. He's also a distasteful
troll who, amongst other things, has posted very thinly veiled implications
that he's a paedophile. Watching him get booted, most people will see the
latter being hoisted by his own petard - not surprised, no sympathy, got
what he asked for, etc.


Frankly, I've never been fond of the "We'll turn your group into a
smoking crater" troll. But, I realize it's a troll. It's designed to
provoke an emotional reaction by kicking the natural (and powerful)
instinct of self-preservation.

Quite. However, there's a rather large difference between preserving
oneself, and preserving some newsgroup where a bunch of sailors get together
to have a laugh and shoot the breeze.

One has to appreciate that self-preservation is part and parcel of the very
activity that sailors undertake. By and large, sailing is a safe activity -
provided you don't make mistakes. If you do make a mistake, it can become
dangerous, sometimes to the point where your entire modus operandi is geared
around keeping yourself alive. Every sailor knows that, when it all goes
pear-shaped, you can't step out of the boat and walk home.

To suppose that noising up the bar is going to invoke some sort of instinct
for 'self preservation', to the extent that the incumbents will bay for the
blood of one half of what amounts to some petty feud, is so wide of the
mark, it's not even in the same regatta.

Nobody cares about Neal getting booted, either recently, or in the past, and
nobody cares whether Katy netcopped him for his latest infraction, or for
any of his previous ones. It's their petty little feud. It's just another
sideshow in the on-going ****-takes, debates, and arguments that make up the
mileu of this group. Just a pair of regulars having yet another stupid spat
in a corner of the bar. Nobody cares about it, other than the protagonists
themselves and a bunch of noise-makers who think they've got a campaign to
fight.


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com/FiatPandaRally/index.htm
www.wally.myby.co.uk