Path: dp-news.maxwell.syr.edu!spool.maxwell.syr.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!area.cu.mi.it!news.newsland.it!eleonora.aioe.org!emma.aioe.org!aioe.org!not-for-mail From: Mark Johnson <102334.12@compuserve.com> Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: We have a troll Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:37:29 -0800 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <1140914839.469604.254000@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> <1140988441.214787.7630@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1141255650.764250.148930@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com> <1141257105.752850.92120@t39g2000cwt.googlegroups.com> Reply-To: 102334.12@compuserve.com NNTP-Posting-Host: fUebBytuhiFdRr2mupZ9uw.user.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.640 Xref: dp-news.maxwell.syr.edu comp.databases.theory:37149 "-CELKO-" wrote: >Someone sent me an email to remind me that Fabian was the 2-nd most >blocked Compuserve member. The way they did it in the old days was >you got blocked when a forum manager got (> n) complaints ("we are >tried of Mr. X's crap!!""), something out of place for the forum topic >("Antique furniture dealers must accept Jesus Christ s their >savior!!"), or something illegal ("I have kiddie porn and dope for >sale!"). To be clear, I used to suggest your name here, and elsewhere, because I was impressed by the clarity, and even levity, in your writing from an earlier edition of your SQL for Smarties. I also purchased your book on Hierarchies. My opinion on that hasn't changed. And I have read Pascal's dismissal of your efforts. And I didn't think it was necessarily warranted. But given this, in this thread, I have to wonder if you are misrepresenting him? Was the Compu$erve matter a case of his behaving unreasonably, or of those who disagreed with him behaving so with the support of the forum moderators? This is an old story on Usenet and web forums, maybe even the old e-mail lists. Free speech isn't tolerated when it runs afoul of some trendy opinion held by moderators, or some clique. If you say, give me an example, I can give you several just from the single libertarian (or whatever) forum called, Free Republic. Inbetween 'pledge drives', they would unceremoniously toss so many subscribers for saying the wrong thing by the standard of whatever moderator that month or year, who supported some rude clique, and however politely the offending opinion was stated, that entire sites and boards have been created from those tossed for various religious and political causes. I wonder if it was simply the same with Compu$erve, back when?