% All,
% I am surprised that Dean put up with as much as he did. No one should
% have to take that abuse for an extremely complex product that costs
% only $50. He is/was doing all that he could to answer questions,
% relay information to the development team and get problems rectified.
% The internet provides the safety of distance to people who wouldn't
% dream of doing or saying something to that person's face.
To be candidly honest, Dean was not attacked per se. There have been
posts concerning the product. And yes there were derogatory comments
about Microsoft. I am sorry, but I really find it hard to understand
when a rep of a company decides to bail because one or two posters in
a public forum can't be civilized. It's immature to spite the majority
because of the actions of a few. It's not as if Dean was here doing it
all by himself. There have been many ardent posts by the heavy
supporters of CPR. To turn the tables and make someone else responsible
for one's actions is immature. Dean made the decision to come to r.a.s.
and support his product. Dean made the decision to leave r.a.s., no
other individual can take that honor. No matter how hard someone wants
to make it appear otherwise. Usenet is an open public forum.
% I am personally disgusted with the current situation of the USENET
% arena. Freedom, yea great. With freedom comes responsibility. Use it
% wisely or lose it. In our case we have lost feedback from a devoted
% product manager due to the lack of respect for him and his job.
I empathize with Dean. I can understand his frustrations. He's human
and so is everyone else who posts to r.a.s. Again, I am sorry, but I
did not see the majority of the posts as disrespectful of Dean or his
job. Basically the worst that I recall being said about Dean was that
he at times skirted issues and did not address certain short-comings or
problems people were experiencing with CPR. Dean's rights are no more
valuable than any other contributor to r.a.s. Comments made about the
product were valid. I will agree that some of them may have been based
on mis-concepts or overlooked "settings options". But, that still
doesn't make them invalid. Again, I must stress, no one cut Dean from
the group, he made that decision himself.
% I spent many years on Compuserve and the forums were extremely
% helpful. They were monitored and flaming was just not tolerated. Good
% information was exchanged in a civilized manner. I didn't consider it
% censorship, rather it was conducting conversations in a respectful
% manner.
% Perhaps we could end up with a RAS MODERATED group that could welcome
% back the vendors to discuss their products in such a manner. (I don't
% have a clue about how to do this).
There is a process for creating groups (moderated or unmoderated). The
idea of creating a separate moderated r.a.s. was also discussed during
the RFD for splitting up r.a.s. a while back. The interesting thing is
that the call for splitting up r.a.s. also included similar
concerns. Only then it was Papyrus reps who cried foul and took their
ball home with them. If you are really interested in pursuing this,
here is some starting information:
If you really think it is appropriate to start a new newsgroup, some
general guidelines can be found in:
news.announce.newgroups: How_to_Create_a_New_Usenet_Newsgroup
news.groups: Usenet_Newsgroup_Creation_Companion
alt.config: So_You_Want_to_Create_an_Alt_Newsgroup
New newsgroups in the comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and
talk hierarchies are first proposed/discussed in news.groups. New
newsgroups for the alt hierarchy should be first proposed/discussed in
alt.config. Talk to someone local about starting new local
newsgroups - send mail to your local news admin to find out where to
start.
It is recommended that you have several months experience with USENET
and watching the democratic group creation process in action for other
groups before you attempt to run your own proposal. In particular,
read both news.announce.newgroups and news.groups to see the way
proposals are presented and the sort of pitfalls you can stumble into.
Also read alt.config if you think you want to start an alt newsgroup.
Make sure you have read and fully understand the postings "How to
Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion"
in news.announce.newusers.
[http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/finding-groups/
general/faq-doc-10.html]
% Call me fed up with SPAM, 900 number ads and immature, disrespectful
% people in these forums.
--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.
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