Computers and Academic Freedom News
Summary of "Dear SysAdmin, Punish your user for what he said!"
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Summary of "Dear SysAdmin, Punish your user for what he said!"
Message-ID: <1993May1.212614.4915@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 21:26:14 GMT
"Dear SysAdmin, Punish your user for what he said!"
During the week of April 12, 1993, I asked academic system admins how
they responded to above question. This article summaries who was asked
and how the responded. I'll leave the details of the methodology
(which was very informal) for the end. Here was the query, followed by
a summary of the results, followed by some details of the and start
with the results. I'll try to save my opinions for a follow up note.
I. The Query:
"Summary: Please send samples of how you respond to such requests.
I am told that academic sys admins regularly receive demands to punish
their users for something posted to Netnews. If you are a sys admin,
how do you respond?"
[Note: The question can be faulted for not distinguishing between
legitimate requests and illegitimate requests. One the other hand there
seems to be no consensus on what "legitimate" is.]
II. Summary of Replies:
10 Explain value of free expression or reply that punishing
users is not my job.
7 Tell accused to "cool it" (or else).
4 (This problem has never come up.)
2 Judge the article and punish if the user if the posting is found
to violate policy.
1 Remove the newsgroup in which the article is posted.
1 Tell complainer "we'll handle it", but nothing else.
1 Pass the complaint up the chain of command.
[Note this represents my subjective categorization; the
categorization is unlikely to be replicatable.]
III. A sample of the replies
A. Explain value of free expression or reply that punishing
users is not my job.
========= Sample Reply 1/3 ===============
I believe you need a short lesson in the operation
of free speech. I have no particular opinions on the subject of this
newsgroup, but I took the trouble to read some of the "belligerent and
harassing" postings of which you speak, and, frankly, they weren't.
It seems to me that your atempt to characterize them as such
stems from a desire to stifle ideas with which you disagree. I have no
intention of cooperating with you in this. The remedy for speech with
which you disagree is more speech, not a silencing (the rather low
signal-to-noise ratio on usenet notwithstanding).
If these postings offend you, I suggest you find out how "kill
files" work, rather than wasting the time of overworked system
administrators who aren't being underpaid to deal with this sort of
childishness.
========= Sample Reply 2/3 ===============
-------------------------- a portion of the complaint --------------------
The above is very disturbing to me because it directly
attacks myself, and everyone at the college of . I would
hope that this kind of language is not looked favorably on
by your institution and you will take corrective measures.
------------------------------- my reply -----------------------------
This institution has no opinion on `that kind of language' or any other
kind of language. Messrs. and are free to express themselves
to the extent provided by law. You are free to ignore them or engage them
in public or private debate as you see fit.
========= Sample Reply 3/3 ===============
Thank you for your mail message. I do not have time or interest to respond
to it in detail. Instead please pick the most appropriate item below and
consider that my response. Thank you.
(1) This system believes in freedom of expression within the
bounds of the law;
(2) If you do not like the content of an individuals newsgroup posting,
then read your newreader's manual entry on how to use the "killfile".
(3) If you do not like the content of an individuals e-mail, then feel free
to delete it without reading it. Continued e-mail after explicit requests
to stop may constitute harassment. Inquire among your local authorities.
(4) If you believe the content of a posting is contrary to law, then inform
the proper authorities.
(5) System managers are not the court of last resort in case you
are losing an argument on the net. Refer to "The Art of Clear
Thinking" by Rudolph Flesch, "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of
Argument" by Ward Fearnside or other similar book for more
information on how to argue without whining to your parents.
=======================End ===============
Here are the comments of two sys admin who distinish disruptive
expression from protected expression.:
========Comment 1/2=====================
We've never punished any user for expressing an opinion. We have
taken action against users who have "letter bombed" or disrupted news
groups in an "uncivilized" manner. However, those who have
"disrupted" newsgroups in a civilized manner have never been punished.
========Comment 2/2=====================
we rarely receive complaints. in general we acknowledge non-local
complaints with a simple ``we'll look into it'' although we might be
more specific if there does appear to be something which might suggest
someone is attempting to represent our institution in some fashion.
if the posting in question is exhorting some community of users to
direct a specific network based ``attack'' on a user we will contact
the user and remind them that there are acceptable use provisions
associated with network access or that there are terms of use
associated with a local account. this has happened once in the last
four years. we don't have the time, inclination or authority to
involve ourselves in what appears to be the vast, overwhelming
majority of such cases that we see on usenet.
======= END comment ============
B. Tell accused to "cool it" (or else).
========== Comment 1/6 =====
[S]ocial and professonal pressure is approriate, and that I would speak
with the user personally, and insure him that, should such an
posting be made again, his professors would be certain to be
given copies, so that he think more carefully next time...
P.S. The post was on the k12 senior group making a rather
flippent support for use of illegal drugs.
========== Comment 2/6 =====
When we get a complaint, we tell the user that a complaint was
made. Almost all complaints are violations of netiquette like
excessive cross-posting, posting to an irrelevant newsgroup,
using vulgarities (in groups that normally do not!), and so
forth. We advise the user what would have been a wiser course of
action, in the interests of making netnews work better, but this
isn't "punishment". Most such cases are a question of the user
not knowing any better.
I don't know what high schools are like these days, but many
undergraduate users seem to feel that any word we give is a
"warning" and that they've been "punished". Likewise they expect
that when they see something they don't like on netnews,
"punishment" is called for. I feel I've disappointed them
sometimes. Pointers to articles in news.announce.newusers are
sometimes in order.
========== Comment 3/6 =====
I usually stay out of it unless the person here is really out of
line. In that case I ask them to tone it down and they usually
do. We haven't had too many complaints (<5) about our users.
========== Comment 4/6 =====
the university has policies on use and abuse of computers.
Whenever we get a message from the outside world about our users
we do 1 of 2 things
1) report the incident to their supervising professor (if they are a
grad student)
2) report them to the student discipline office.
They are contacted and usually stop their actions.
========== Comment 5/6 =====
Lots of complaints from various users usually warrant some
investigation. There are several question I have to consider:
[...]
(2) Are they just being inflammatory?
If so, what sort of "inflammatory" are we talking about? I usually
wind up talking with them to find out what they're up to. If they're
just trying to infuriate people, they get a warning. Another post, and
they get a final warning. Next time, revocation of their posting
privs, which may be appealed. Another offense, and I nuke 'em---if
they're really using my machine for something important, I might be
able to let 'em stay on, but with a *clear* understanding that Usenet
is off-bounds. I don't intend to support the kind of crap and noise
that Usenet is *already* swamped with.
========== Comment 6/6 =====
I think it sort of depends upon exactly _what_ the "offensive"
posting/mailing actually said. Yes, this means I am being
subjective -- that's the breaks. I tend to be on the lenient
side, actually, in that I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the
offender. At least the first time. Recidivism is "frowned"
upon.
========== End Comments ===========
IV. Methodology
I posted the query in newsgroups news.admin.policy and
alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk. I also posted to a sys admin's policy
mailing list (but none of the replies were from academic sites).
Finally, I send email to "news" or "postmaster" at about 20 of the top
Usenet sites.
All the replies were posted to alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk (CAF-Talk)
usually with no identifying information. They are available from
the CAF-Talk archive (access information enclosed).
- Carl
REFERENCES
If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
gopher gopher.eff.org
These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/batch/apr_18_1993
pub/academic/batch/apr_25_1993
pub/academic/batch/may_02_1993
To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/batch apr_18_1993
send acad-freedom/batch apr_25_1993
send acad-freedom/batch may_02_1993
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Zeleny
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.admin.policy
Subject: Zeleny
Message-ID: <1993Aug15.201103.256@news.wesleyan.edu>
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 15 Aug 93 20:11:02 -0400
Following is an excerpt from an e-mail message I sent to Michael Zeleny's
system administrator at husc.harvard.edu:
As a professor of philosophy, I would like to introduce my
philosophy students to the opportunities provided by the Usenet
philosophy discussion groups. But with articles such as ["Hannah
Arendt's Wrinkled Cunt" by Mikhail Zeleny; 8/15/93] being
crossposted to every philosophy-related group on Usenet, I dare
not. I suspect that if I did give an assignment to my students to
check out Usenet newsgroups related to philosophy, and they found
this garbage crossposted to every last one of them, my institution,
my department, and probably I, could be sued for "failing to
provide a non-hostile instructional environment," i.e., sexual
harrassment, for assigning that as part of a course.
I am concerned that by protecting abusers' so-called freedom of speech
(i.e., "freedom" to broadcast via excessive cross-posting) Anti-Semitic
mysogynist hate-speech), Usenet is becoming off-limits for professors,
employers or others "in positions of power" to ask their
students/employees/etc. to investigate, as part of their assigned work.
It is only a matter of time -- SHORT time, would be my guess -- before
some professor, university, or employer is sued (in exactly a situation
such as this) for subjecting employees/students/etc to the Usenet
postings of hate-mongers. It is my opinion that if some way of
enforcing minimal civility is not designed, Usenet will become Useless
for the purposes for which it was intended (free exchange of info).
I am interested to know if other news.admin folks have any thoughts on
this.
---------------------------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA
[Not the US Supreme Court Judge; no relation]
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
= kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
ZELENY: Enough Already!
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.admin.policy
Subject: ZELENY: Enough Already!
Message-ID: <1993Aug16.150506.259@news.wesleyan.edu>
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 16 Aug 93 15:04:59 -0400
I am quite taken aback by the responses I've gotten to my post. My tendency is
to believe that many of these responses come from people who have not yet been
in positions of responsibility, and so who do not feel the terrible tug of
conflicting obligations. Until you are actually the person who has on your
desk the sign saying "THE BUCK STOPS HERE" you can always agitate for more and
more **FREEDOM!!!** without worrying about the concomitant responsibilities
that freedoms engender.
Some of us also have to be responsible to, and answer to, others for our
actions, decisions, choices, etc. In my case, I have responsibilities to the
students who register for the classes I teach, my department, my college, the
profession of philosophy, the parents of the students who pay their tuition
bills, the alumni and donors who sustain the university with monetary
contributions, the community I live in, my family, my conscience, and my own
sensibilities -- among others.
I was hoping for thoughtful discussion among those who also understand such
multiple conflicting RESPONSIBILITIES as well as simply their own demands for
unfettered "freedoms." I am a great believer in freedom, personally, including
freedom of expression. What I do not believe a person can ever be "free" from
is the need to coexist with, and within, a community of others, others who
deserve to be treated with respect.
Many of you made the wild jump from the fact that I wrote a letter to this
person's system administrator, to the belief that I wanted some new kind of LAW
or RULES or LEGISLATION. What I, in fact asked of his SysAdmin, is that Mr.
Zeleny be apprised of the responsibilities associated with use of the Usenet
facilities, and asked to conform his behavior accordingly. I asked for no new
laws or rules or restrictions. Just a DISCUSSION, perhaps from someone with
some clout, as in a person who could restrict his computer access *IF* he
decided not to be a responsible user even after being warned.
I also did not ask that he be prevented from posting articles such as "Hannah
Arendt's Wrinkled Cunt." If you look at my posts to this group, as well as to
the letter I quoted that I wrote to his sysadmin, I *repeatedly* tried to make
it clear that I was objecting to the universal crossposting of this article to
every single philosophy group regardless of its relevance to the subject matter
of the group. The reason I brought up the issue of sexual harrassment, is that
it is fundamentally different to ask a (in this particular case) woman student
to browse through Usenet philosophy groups, when she will encounter the heading
"Hannah Arendt's Wrinkled Cunt" in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM -- than it would be
if she were to see this Subject heading in, say, one-out-of-4 newsgroups, or
even if she were to see the subject heading, "Hannah Arendt's Stupid Ideas"
in all four newsgroups. Sexual harrassment becomes an issue by virtue of not
only its irrelevance, but also its pervasiveness in addition to its
irrelevance. Therefore, by EITHER limiting the content of the Subject header
(not what I advised, or even would ask) OR limiting its distribution to
relevant discussions (which I would request), the problem would be solved.
This concern has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with censoring books in libraries or
any other such red herrings.
Nor does it have anything to do with not treating my students like adults.
Nor does it have anything to do with Puritanism.
I asked for your opinions, many of which clearly differed from mine.
Presumably if you all knew something about civil discussion, some actual
exchange of ideas might have taken place here. Instead you elected to bombard
the newsgroup with personal attacks on me, and with flames about topics that
had little or nothing to do with the issue(s) I raised. I think that,
collectively, you are a much greater threat to the free exchange of information
and ideas than I ever will be.
---------------------------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA
[Not the US Supreme Court Judge; no relation]
Re: Wanted: Assertiveness Training for Cyberspace
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: Wanted: Assertiveness Training for Cyberspace
Date: 4 Aug 1993 13:41:01 GMT
Message-ID: <23oe9d$dh1@aggedor.rmit.OZ.AU>
Re. Carl Kadie lists conflict resolution | From ROBIN WHITTLE
strategies and asks for more, in | zcirrw@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au
Wanted: Assertiveness Training for |
Cyberspace |
|| 1 - Review some follow-on postings. ||
|| 2 - Three factors in characterising a persons communication "strategy". ||
|| 3 - Evolutionary socio-biological perspective on these factors. ||
|| 4 - Cybernetic conclusion - delay, noise and distortion, with excessive ||
|| feedback = chaotic oscillation, so .... Take it easy! ||
Patrick J Chalmers gchlmrs@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
<233kq2$rg8@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>
> We are creating, truly, a global village. This is a
> place where the future of the entire world can be
> affected. The implications of poor communication
> are immense.
> Let's put our best thoughts forward on this issue.
Well said!
Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu
<234a9rINN4po@mojo.eng.umd.edu>
Detailed critique I largely agree with.
Paul Schmidt pjs269@tijc02.uucp
<1993Jul28.131835.1213@tijc02.uucp>
Paul suggests a book, and a strategy based on trying to find a
basic motivation common to people who disagree - and explicitly
stating that motivation.
This is constructive. If both people are willing, then they
can figure out what else they have in common and find where their
paths of thought diverge. Even if it doesn't get this far it is
good for pro- and anti-gun people to agree that they both
want to reduce crime.
Jim Coffey jcoffey@Kodak.com
<28JUL199315384539@tx8600.tex.ecc.kodak.com>
>>* One non-confrontational way to accept criticism X is to reply
>> "Perhaps I did X".
> JIM - another way is to say...I'm sorry you feel that way.
> You don't admit guilt, but you do acknowledge the other person's
> right to be offended.
>>* Sandwich criticism between compliments.
> JIM - I disagree completely. Tell the truth...in a polite way.
> If you sandwich you run the risk that some people will hear only
> the bad when you meant them to hear the good, and vice versa.
> Supervisors are particularly bad about this when trying to give
> criticism. Employees are bad at selectively hearing only what they
> want to hear. To avoid misunderstanding say exactly what you mean...
> don't sugar coat.
It is good to tell the truth when it is at all possible. Carl
was not suggesting otherwise, but his strategy could distract
from the truth, confuse communication and attenuate feedback.
Like many others, I thought Carl's strategies were far from
assertive, and were excessively "soft" or "cool" compared to
the "hard", "hot" approach favoured by others.
He observed that terse communication was often misinterpreted as
being harsher (hotter) than the writer intended. His reason
for thinking this (in the example he gave) is that he got (in
his perception) "four harsh flames".
Carl Kadie kadie@eff.org
<233rmf$hej@eff.org>
> ... my experience is that 80% of the time, a perceived insult is
> the result of poor communications. 20% of the time a perceived
> insult is intended to be an insult.
Does this mean Carl recognizes that in all probability
only 0.8 of his perceived flamers meant to insult him?
ANALYZING COMMUNICATION "STRATEGIES" AND TENDENCIES
Here are the concepts underlying my analysis :-
Soft = Going easy on the unpleasant facts - by stating them in
deliberately gentle language, or adding sugar to the package
in which the facts are communicated. Hence Softwriters -
people who usually communicate this way.
Hard = Stating the unpleasant facts clearly and without attempts to
soften the impact on the reader. Hence Hardwriters.
Cool = Communicating in a way intended not to inflame the reader's
negative emotions. Hence Coolwriters.
Hot = Deliberately inflaming the reader's feeling of loathing at the
receipt of the communication. Hence Hotwriters.
Coolheads = People who are not easily ruffled or upset. They do not
perceive a text as hotter than the writer intended it to be.
They may give a lot of thought to the workings of the writer's
mind before deciding what the text really means. Eg. they may
not read the words literally, but may interpret a warm text
from a known hotwriter as being rather cool.
Hotheads = People who typically perceive a text as being hotter than
a writer intended it to be. They may not think a lot about it
and may jump to conclusions, ignore parts of the text or read
it in a different light to what the author intended. However
it happens, the hothead perceives that the writer is more of a
hotwriter than he or she really is, or that this text is more
of an insult than the writer really intended.
Thinskins = Those who are easily upset by what they perceive as an
attack.
Thickskins = Insults and the hatred of others are like water off a
duck's back.
Looking at the population, there are correlations between these
characteristics and some of these correlations are causative. They
are however independent characteristics. Consider some combinations :-
Thinskinned, hotheaded hotwriter > Prolific, paranoid flamer.
Thickskinned, hotheaded hotwriter > Flamer.
Thinskinned, coolheaded hotwriter > Does not get upset without
> genuine reason, but bites
> the head off the person
> who does cause upset.
Thickskinned, coolheaded coolwriter > Wet blanket at a flame-party.
Individuals could be mapped to points in a three dimensional space
based on these characteristics, but not now.
SIMPLIFIED EVOLUTIONARY SOCIO-BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
We are the descendants of hunter-gatherers who evolved sexually
differentiated thoughts and behaviour as well as the obvious physical
differences.
Men were strongly selected for their ability to protect their family
and tribe from attack by other men. This bred a strong physique, a
strong bluff response (physical and verbal display) and the ability to
attack brutally. Half-hearted physical attacks would have been very
dangerous. Full-on attacks carry significant risk and the male would
have adapted to attack only when it really mattered.
The strongest possible verbal displays carry little danger and could
be used routinely to make many problems go away. So physically and
verbally, the man would be a hardwriter - his output volume is strong.
In combat or under threat, his output functions would be hard and hot.
Socially, if he was too hotheaded, he would cause unnecessary trouble.
In combat, he is thickskinned, because it would be disastrous if he
was easily upset by insult or injury. This carries over, regrettably
to his social life. A man *must not* be upset at the idea of being
attacked and injured in combat. He must go boldly forth and do what a
man's gotta do - typically club another man to death - even if he has
a spear wound and has just had a rock thrown in his face.
It is pretty hard to breed a human who is this insensitive to his own
pain, but who is sensitive to the troubles of others and who is also
caring, self-aware and fussy about cleanliness and details. So women's
characteristics were optimized by evolution to perform these essential
child-rearing and man-support functions.
Males evolved to be tough (thickskinned), powerful (hardwriters), and
when under threat, hotwriters. If they were hotheaded - typically
overestimating the propensity of their communicators to insult them -
then they would get into a larger number of disputes. Since a man is
thickskinned, with hard and hot output functions, this may cause him
little upset and train people not to mess with him. I think men
evolved a degree of hotheadedness, which made people reluctant to
cross their path - but which also made them antisocial. Good social
relations with the tribe were essential, and I believe men have
evolved to subcontract that to their woman partner. (Did women invent
language to make social grooming less time consuming? ... and easier
to do indirectly? Great article by Robin Dunbar in New Scientist 21
Nov 1992)
Females and their children are physically vulnerable, so it did them
no good to get into unnecessary disputes. They would have evolved to
be coolheaded. However, women needed to cope socially in a variety of
situations - cope for themselves and on behalf of their children and
their cantankerous man.
They needed to be sensitive to the inner thoughts of their children
and of all the adults in the tribe. This could only be achieved with
introspection, and probably a thin skin.
Their output functions were not heavily biased to being hard or soft;
or hot or cold because they had to cope verbally with a whole range of
situations. However I think that women tend to be soft- and cool-
writers. (See "Competence and assertiveness are no way to persuade a
man - if you are a woman" - Linda Carli Wellesley College
Massachusetts, New Scientist 20 Feb 1993 page 9.)
Perhaps this is because a man seeks a woman who will be gentle with
his children, and so has little interest in agreeing or co-habiting
with a strident, insensitive woman. (Men still seek resourceful women.)
However, once a woman is caring for the man's children, he can't tell
her to nick off, so she can turn up the heat if it suits her.
For example, a woman might be hard and hot to get it through her man's
thick skin that he really *must* bring home more bacon and keep his
eyes off other women. She might need to be soft and cool to gain the
forgiveness of the tribe when her man makes an arse of himself in some
way.
Since the development of language there have been about 4,000 human
generations under these intense selection pressures - plenty of time
for these sexually differentiated characteristics to evolve. The
pressures have only been removed recently, so these characteristics
have remained but been diluted by random change and by selection
pressures for less aggressive men - since agriculture created a more
stable, denser lifestyle with less frequent direct threats. Men were
however still strongly selected for their proclivity to defend their
"country" by marching off to war and all humans were selected for
their proclivity to engage in the verbal preliminaries for this.
The bio-chemical mechanisms which produce sexually differentiated
characteristics are error prone. For this reason and those just
mentioned, individuals today show a less distinct set of
characteristics than that which I believed evolved in the rigors of
life until agriculture came to Western Europe about 200 generations
ago (5,000 years).
These characteristics evolved to maximize reproductive success. This
is quite different to optimizing for happiness - which is the aim of
social engineering today.
If the above characteristics are accepted as real, it would be
discriminatory to use them to limit the freedom or prejudge any group
of people or member of a group. They can however be used to help
understand behaviour which is otherwise difficult to find the source
of. This is a kick back to the Nature end of the football game called
the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Popularly, the ball is close to
Nurture's goal, but I think this will change with new evidence. (Brain
Sex - Anne Moir). I think both Nature and Nurture are important and I
argue against those who would deny the importance of either.
Next time you tick off a female colleague for some minor failure, only
to find she takes it really badly and does an excessive amount of
soul searching, think of her great-great-great-great... grandmother.
She is scolded by the tribe and goes back to the darkness of her cave
alone, trying to figure out where she went wrong, analysing every word
that was said, in a desperate effort to learn how to fit in with the
tribe. She can't fight them and probably cannot persuade them. She has
to live with them for the rest of her life and so she does whatever
she can to be accepted.
Next time you tick off a male colleague, and get an angry, abusive
response, think of his great-great-great . . . great-grandfather.
You have just trodden on his territory or threatened his status by
disparaging his boar hunting prowess. He is coming towards you,
waving his club wildly and bellowing at you to *back-off*.
ANALYSING CARL'S STRATEGIES
Actually I am concentrating on only some of his strategies. Numbers
1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 14 and to a lesser extent, 10. I fully support the
rest.
1 - Output Functions
Cold - at all times. This seems to be based on the assumption that it
is *never* good to inflame someone's negative passions. In a
reply to Bob McQueer he admitted that this was an oversight -
that it might be a good thing in some newsgroups.
Soft - His strategies have a strong soft tendency. This seems
primarily intended to avoid upsetting those who are easily
upset - the thinskins and/or the hotheads.
2 - Input functions
Coolhead - Deliberately intended to quench any of his own hot-
headedness. The aim is to never overestimate how much someone
is trying to criticize or insult you.
Thick/thin skin? Carl portrays himself as being relatively thinskinned
(although Matthew T. Russotto challenges this) but his
strategies seem intended to make him behave as would a
thickskinned person - someone who was not easily upset.
So Carl's strategies push his output functions to extremes of Cold and
Soft, and are designed to force his "insult detector" input function
into the Coolhead mode. He does not try to become thickskinned, but he
tries to emulate a thick skinned person so as not to fuel a ping-pong
exchange of bad feelings.
This really cramps his style. The great communicators of this world
would resent any such restriction - and so would I! Many a man has
expressed bamboozlement at the extreme tactical flexibility with which
women deploy their communication functions. Many have wished that
their female partner had adopted Carl's strategies. The woman's
response to such a suggestion may be "But that is what makes women
interesting!". This is usually not true, but the woman's mental
agility at making such a brazenly false, self-congratulatory statement
usually leaves the man stumped and shows him that further attempts to
simplify and calm the situation will have the opposite effect.
He shuts up and concentrates on bringing home the bacon - which is
what the woman wants.
Carl's strategies differs from his "natural" behaviour so much that
people would find it difficult to know the real Carl if he assiduously
adopted them. This would be a diminution of communication and a loss
of human potential - however, to a significant degree this would be
compensated for by the reduction he achieves in conflict.
Carl says that his posted list of strategies is not complete. What
has he chosen not to tell us?? Probably those strategies which would
make us angry! The bastard! How dare he pretend to be Mr. Nice Guy
with his published list while keeping the less pleasant strategies
secret. Does anyone really know Carl? I only know him from his recent
postings which he admits are skewed to minimise any genuine reasons
for feeling malevolent towards him - or any reasons I might conjure up
in my own mind. I will not be deceived by this deliberate cyber-
chameleon! I will resist his cunning plan to manipulate my feelings!
What is this - heart-to-heart communication or brain-surgery??? The
. . . ahem . . Sorry.
There is a fundamental flaw in Carl skewing his behaviour like this -
people learn to adjust for it.
On a case by case basis, all other things being equal, Carl's
strategies typically would reduce conflict and so save a lot of
trouble and lost human potential. But things are not equal after he
has been following these strategies for a while. People get wise.
When Carl says something nice about a person, they don't concentrate
on what he is saying, they are worrying about what comes next . . .
Is this the old "sandwich criticism between compliments" routine?
Here is another example, where "Andrew" follows Carl's strategies.
Bruce wants to make Andrew feel miserable, but does not know him and
assumes he has no skewed communication strategy.
Bruce writes :-
"Andrew, you idiot, you really stuffed up X, Y and Z. How dare
you call me a dumb-terminal!".
Andrew replies :-
"Perhaps I did stuff those things up."
- despite the fact that he thinks he didn't. This leaves the whole
issue unresolved - Andrew admits no liability, and by not pursuing the
matter, he degrades the importance of the issue and Bruce's concern -
as if to say "So what if I stuffed them up?"
Andrew also replies :-
"I am really sorry you misinterpreted my "dumb-terminal"
comment. ADM3a's have always seemed beautiful to me - sleek,
stylish, no complicated options, minimal - the cyberspace
equivalent of a brick. It was really a compliment, Bruce. I
really must be more careful about saying things which can be
misinterpreted so easily. Cheers - your friend Andrew."
Now Bruce "knows" Andrew. The next time he wants to criticize or
upset Andrew, he knows he will need to wind up into hyper-flame mode.
People adapt to changed circumstances, and they soon adapt to any
obvious slanting of a person's communication strategy.
Carl's approach would save trouble in many cases in the short term,
but after the world has adjusted around him, some of the effectiveness
of his strategies would be eroded, and he would have imposed a mental
burden on some of the people he communicates with. They need to put
their communications with him through incoming and outgoing Carl-
specific mental filters in order to penetrate and correct for his
skewed communication strategies. After all, they want to talk to
*Carl* - not his nice looking, teflon coated, padded suit.
CONCLUSIONS
I have identified four orthogonal characteristics of personal
communication style. I have shown that these *may* be
genetically/hormonally influenced and significantly sexually
differentiated. A variety of other factors could affect the expression
of these characteristics and so although they may be used as an aid to
understanding, it would be wrong to base discrimination on them.
Other factors are obviously significant and well known - upbringing,
nutrition, cultural factors etc.
Carl's original discussion is about how to deliberately change our
communication strategies to optimize harmony - most specifically to
minimise conflict which causes misunderstanding.
It is self evident that people exhibit a wide range of input
functions, between cool- and hot-headedness and thin- and thick-
skinnedness. It is clear that their correspondents try to correct for
these variations. But what is really happening is that Bruce builds a
mental model of Andrew's biases, and then makes a judgment on how to
correct for them. There is at least one time delay and two or three
sources of error at work here.
In turn, Andrew builds a mental model of Bruce's input and output
functions and uses this model to re-interpret Bruce's text in an
effort to determine what is happening in Bruce's mind. He then
decides what he wants to happen in Bruce's mind, and uses his mental
model of Bruce's input functions to test possible texts before he
decides which one to post.
This is natural and desirable, to a point. When it becomes extreme
and mechanistic, it is a mindless attempt at manipulation.
If you are interested in intense, structured approaches to
communication with carefully devised techniques for understanding and
connecting with other peoples minds, then check out "Introducing
Neurolinguistic Programming - The New Psychology of Personal
Excellence" Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour. I read 56 pages, looked
at the rest and decided that the book sucks - it is fodder for the
"If I don't understand it, it must be profound" crew.
In electronics, a negative feedback path around an op-amp is a fine
thing - until you put a capacitor in which slows it down. The system
becomes resonant and starts oscillating. With Bruce and Andrew and
their complex input/output strategies, we have the human equivalent
of a loop of two amplifiers, several time delays and several sources
of noise and distortion.
One question is - How much should we correct for someone else's
(perceived) biases? In electronics as in life, if you increase the
level of negative feedback too much, under these conditions of delay
and error, chaotic oscillation will occur.
So I suggest that we should not all adopt highly compensatory
strategies for other's perceived skews. I think that a small number of
individuals adopting highly tweaked schemes may not be so bad.
I believe some compensation is warranted, but we must be careful not
to overdo it. It would be better to make the compensation explicit
and clearly identifiable rather than do it by transforming the text.
For instance, it would be better to say :-
"June, your essay is a mess, but I don't want you to get upset
about it. Here is how we can work together to get you on top
of this subject." rather than the cryptic:-
"June, there is a little bit of a problem with your essay. We
will need to do more work in this area."
Here is an explicit, non-confusing way of compensating for a person's
perceived overly sensitive input function. This still communicates
perfectly well to someone who is not super-sensitive to criticism,
where as the "little bit of a problem" would result in a false
communication.
This approach leaves the raw data alone, allows June to feel upset at
messing up her essay and states a simple fact "I don't want your to
get upset about it" which will probably help her over her upset better
than pleading or shallow attempts at ego boosting or sugar coating.
This approach is unambiguous and so there is little danger in using
it. There is a problem however if June has always been mollycoddled
and told her essays were a bit of a problem. If this is the first
time she is told her essay is a *mess*, it could be a shock. She will
survive and come to appreciate the fact that someone is prepared to be
honest and constructive with her.
The British have highly developed unspoken protocols about what should
never be spoken about plainly, and it is alienating and depressing.
Ignoring the explicit/cryptic nature of the compensation, there are
questions about when we should apply it. I assume that the strength
of compensation will be moderate if it is cryptic.
Do we apply it when we have specific knowledge about an individual?
Probably yes. This is part of being friends, talking their
language, making life easy for them. It also may perpetuate
their biases. Do we want to do this? Should we instead
treat them as we would anyone else and so hope to "encourage"
them to correct for their biases themselves? It is easy to
play "spot the value judgment" here, but who says that making
value judgments on another person's behalf is always bad??
Do we apply it when we have no individual knowledge of a person, but
some indication they may belong to a group which typically has
a skewed communication input and output functions?
Who knows? This could be a whole other discussion.
Some of Carl's strategies are attempts to counter his own skewed,
noisy and distorting input functions. I think this is a good thing -
particularly for functional communication. For personal reasons
however, it complicates things and makes communication less
spontaneous. Alcohol could be used to disable these strategies
temporarily.
"Cyberspace" sounds really impressive, but the reality of plain ASCII,
time delayed communication is that it is an impoverished medium.
There is no handwriting, no voice, no body-language, no scribbles, no
whiteout. People are busy and so they are terse and sometimes sloppy.
Given the narrowness of the communication channel, the ease with which
it can be activated, the impossibility of retraction and the doubts
about the context in which it is read, it is not surprising that
things flare up.
I support Carl's call for something to help newcomers, and I support
his many constructive strategies. I don't think we should aim to
*make* things polite or try to placate any authority which wants to
outlaw mere rudeness. Is there really such a stupid authority?
Whatever we do, lets not mince words. Write plainly and colourfully.
When people really get to know each other, they generally like each
other more than they thought they would.
Robin Whittle zcirrw@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au
Deliberate simplifications and polarizations have been
made to stop this from being even longer. Some omissions could
be complete oversights, so don't be shy about pointing them
out. This is not a criticism of Carl - only some of the items
on his posted list of strategies which he says is incomplete
and is willing to add to. This cybernetic and biological
emphasis does not mean that I think people are just machines,
or that they are purely physical.
Society for the Appreciation of Eclectic Sensibilities
9 Miller St Heidelberg Heights Melbourne 3081 Australia
Ph +61-3-459-2889 Fax +61-3-458-1736
These opinions have nothing to do with CIRCIT who give me
Internet access for privacy and (tele)communications work.
Re: [news.admin.misc, et al.] Zeleny
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld)
Subject: Re: [news.admin.misc, et al.] Zeleny
Message-ID:
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 14:44:54 GMT
M. Zeleny lost most of his family to the Nazia. He hates the Nazis,
and he hates their sympathisers and he hates those who see Nazi evil
as "banal", and he hates those who should have opposed Nazism and did
not. He especially hates colloborators. He contrasts them with his
own mother, who fought the Nazis "in the trenches".
Accordingly, he opposes Hannah Arrendt, for her liason with Heidegger,
for fleeing Europe, for what he sees as moral defects in her _Eichman_
text.
So far, so good. If you think Zeleny mistaken, fair enough. If you
think his iconoclasm hurtful, fair enough again.
So, why the fuss? Zeleny is almost unbelievably rude, and his is
profane. He is rude to men and women equally, but for sure, his
insults tend toward the sexist.
Now, if we censor him, if we keep him off the net, Ruth Ginsburg will
be happier, her students will be spared sexist profanity, but net discussion
of Arrendt will die. Seems a high price: we trash incorrect language,
and lose possibly correct thought.
--
Michael Feld | E-mail:
Dept. of Philosophy | FAX: (204) 261-0021
University of Manitoba | Voice: (204) 474-9136
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada
Re: USA Today jumps on a.b.p.e
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: USA Today jumps on a.b.p.e
Date: 18 Aug 1993 11:56:19 -0400
Message-ID: <24tjf3$kci@eff.org>
[Here is Edupage's summary of the USA Today article. -cmk]
HIGH-TECH HARASSMENT. Sexual harassment is making inroads in
cyberspace as female users increasingly report instances of lewd
messages, suggestive graphics or even electronic stalking over
computer networks. Most reported incidents have been at
universities. Last year school officials at the University of
Oregon posted signs warning against sexual harassment via e-mail
after female students received nude pictures pulled off an
Internet erotica news group. Some universities, like Cornell,
have stopped offering the news group. (USA Today 8/6/93 B2)
[...]
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--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Re: USA Today jumps on a.b.p.e
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: USA Today jumps on a.b.p.e
Date: 18 Aug 1993 16:23:01 GMT
Message-ID: <24tl15$ih2@fitz.TC.Cornell.EDU>
In article <24tjf3$kci@eff.org> kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
> Some universities, like Cornell,
>have stopped offering the news group. (USA Today 8/6/93 B2)
Like other universities, Cornell has some pretty wacky
computer use policies, which is exacerbated by embarassment
over the Morris incident. To my knowledge the central
campus computing facility stopped bringing in abpe when it
became apparent that a student from the university was
posting kiddie porn to it, and CIT became concerned about
the possibility of being liable if the question of
criminality (interstate transport of child pornography)
came up. Sexual harassment was not the issue.
--
Melinda Shore - Cornell Theory Center - shore@tc.cornell.edu
Re: Zeleny
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.admin.policy
From: meuer@camax.com (Mark Meuer)
Subject: Re: Zeleny
Message-ID: <1993Aug19.191712.14739@camax.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 19:17:12 GMT
In article , Carl M Kadie wrote:
>meuer@camax.com (Mark Meuer) writes:
>
>[...]
>>The CS department from which I graduated spent over a year in
>>litigation and negotiation over an incident where a female graduate
>>student found, in a public image directory, an image of a woman
>>wearing no top. The overwhelming legal opinion at the time was that
>>having such pictures on the system without being clearly marked as
>>offensive created a harassing and hostile work environment. The
>>university eventually settled out of court because they knew they
>>would lose, and the public image directory was removed from the
>>system. This was for a completely voluntary, non-compulsory
>>feature provided as a courtesy to the students.
>[...]
>
>Where? If you've given all the relevent facts, sounds to me like they
>could use some better legal counsel.
This was at the University of Minnesota. Maybe they could have used
better legal counsel, maybe they just got tired of being bogged down
with it. (There were other R-rated pictures found in this directory,
many supposedly put there by members of the systems staff.) The
department was doing its best to blow itself apart anyway with other
scandals involving professors and research funds. It was really a
fascinating time to be there.
My whole point in my post was that regardless of the "right" someone
may have to cross-post porno articles to all of the philosophy groups,
abusing the net in this and similar manners will greatly reduce its
real effectiveness. People with worthwhile things to contribute will
stay away. The net result (if you'll excuse the pun) will be that the
actual exchange of ideas will be thwarted, and the intellectual
content of the net will continue to head downward.
What can we do to help the net work better, without resorting to
net policing?
-mark
--
Mark Meuer <>< | CAMAX, Inc | (612) 854-5300 Ext 376 | meuer@camax.com
To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
St. Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, xxi
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
= kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Banned at Georgia Tech
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Banned at Georgia Tech
Date: 20 Aug 1993 05:57:44 -0400
Message-ID: <199308200956.AA02228@prism>
kadie@eff.org suggested:
>I encourage you to post these details to alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
>(or email to caf-talk@eff.org).
Since I cannot post to alt groups (we do not get them here at Tech),
here is the letter.
About a month ago, a huge religious war was raging on our local group,
git.general. One person (who was against religion) began using
excessive prfanity. Other articles had occasionaly contained profanity,
but his articles always had several phrases, many of which were directed
at the instigator of the thread. A person from one of the many
departments at Tech removed one article, claiming that he had received
some complaints. He reminded us all of the agreement we had signed to
receive our accounts that prohibited such language. A huge debate
ensued. People who had received their accounts more than two years ago
had not been required to sign anything, so this regulation was a shock
to them. Many people posted that the religious articles were offensive
to them, and asked them to be removed (none were, of course). But the
worst of all was finding out that the guy did not have the authority to
remove the articles. A few people spent time (and much email) trying to
find out who was responsibile, but after weeks of buck-passing (Tech is
notorious for red tape) the whole thing died down. The general
conclusion was that the man had removed the article no knowing if he
could or not, and counting on people saying nothing. Some say that he
was instructed to remove no other articles. To date, none have been
removed (including articles from the same poster with the same type of
language). A revamping of the policy is supposedly underway.
As far as alt groups go, we are supposedly denied them due to the space
they take up, and their nature (free-for-all, anything goes, freedom of
speech type of thing). A new general purpose machine has come on line,
so we are waiting to see if we pick up the alt groups.
John
DISCLAIMER: I happen to work at Tech. Call it strange, but I decided
I'd rather manage a computer lab that flip burgers. If this post
offennds someone at Tech, who complains to OIT, who then tries to fire
me for expressing MY (not the school's) opinion, well, I will not be a
happy person. I am not telling the readers of this article to NOT tell
on me; instead this long disclaimer is a pre-emptive strike at Tech. Do
not fire me. Think: any student could report these facts, and you would
do nothing to them...sorry about the length, but you have to go to Tech
to understand. :-)