Newsgroup trouble?
rya...@oregon.uoregon.edu
While I don't condone posting phone numbers on the web, I am curious as to
the reasons for removing those newsgroups...
<begin forward>
Pagans and those who consider any religious freedom or academic
freedom important at the University of Oregon need your help.J Please
correspond with the peopl in power to let them know that they are
engaging in religious bigotry and that it will not stand.
Things have reached a point where the University of Oregon has taken
no action for about six weeks and the discrimination continues
unabated.J While I am presently the media contact, you can contact the
school or media directly at your own leisure.J The addresses and phone
numbers are as follows:
pKenneth Lehrman: Affirmative Action Director (isn't sure
discrimination has taken place); Kenneth...@ccmail.uoregon.edu;
(541) 346-2971 pLorraine Davis: Vice-Provost in charge of Computing
Center (responible woman listening to bad advisors);
l...@oregon.uoregon.edu; (541) 346-2041 pJeff Wright: Local Journalist
(doing story on the issue); jwr...@guardnet.com; (541) 485-1234, ask
for Jeff Wright pJoe St. Sauver: Assitant Director of Computing Center
(took the pagan newsgroups, etc. off the server);
j...@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU pJoanne Hugi: Director of Computing Center
(supports St Sauver's decision whole-heartedly and considers herself
above correspondence.J hu...@oregon.uoregon.edu; (541) 346-1702
Following is the press release sent out to local media.J I could also
use helpJ getting an efficient email to the NY Times College LIfe
Editors and email addresses to other pertinent national media.J also,
since we aren't allowed to use alt.pagan, alt.satanism or alt.magick,
if someone could post this on those newsgroups that would be greatly
appreciated.J Thanks very much for your help.
For Immediate Release
Contact: JJJJJJJDave Faux, (541) 684-9391
JJJJJJJJJJ...@gladstone.uoregon.edu
RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION AT UNIVERSITY COMPUTING CENTER
September 8, 1998 -- In early August 1998, Assistant Director for the
University of Oregonbs Computing Center Joe St. Sauver eradicated
several newsgroups specific to non-mainstream religious beliefs.J The
alt.pagan, alt.satanism, and entire alt.magick hierarchy were removed
from newsgroups available through the Universitybs computer server.J
Several dozen students complained immediately, but to no avail.
JJJJJJJJCurrently the effort to reinstate the newsgroups is loosely
coordinated among a few individuals.J At least three dozen students in
August wrote letters to Joe St. Sauver and Joanne Hugi, Director of
the Computing Center.J Ms. Hugi has ignored virtually all
correspondence.J There is discussion of reviving the Pagan Student
Union because of this blatant compromise of civil-liberties.
JJJJJJJJDespite the controversy, the Computing Center has not been
forthcoming with reasons for the discrimination.J Concerned students
of the University have been told that they should simply go elsewhere
to receive information about these religious groups.J The Office of
Affirmative Action (which handles discrimination cases) has mistakenly
concluded that since there may not have been intended discrimination,
no crime has been committed.J Unfortunately, intent has nothing to do
with Constitutional Law or Civil Rights.
JJJJJJJJMuch is at stake in this controversy over religious bigotry:
(1) The First Amendment; (2) Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act;
(3) the academic integrity of the University; and (4) the ability of
the University of Oregon to foster a diverse student community.
Dave Faux (University of Oregon)
Taken on Faith
http://www.kwebradio.com/kw_faith.html
Now Playing: Millenarianism
0/
<|
/ >
</end forward>
"Being a Mac user is like being a Navy SEAL: a small, elite group of
people with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world,
who everyone calls on to get the really tough jobs done quickly."
____________________________________________________________________________
Ryan Ositis U of O Music School Computer Support
rya...@oregon.uoregon.edu mi...@oregon.uoregon.edu
(541) 346-7592 (541) 346-3759
____________________________________________________________________________
joe...@darkwing.uoregon.edu
news3 is managed in the following manner.
1. no international groups (ie de. uk. tw. etc)
2. most big 7 groups (ie. comp. sci. rec. talk. because these have to pass
a vote, many are moderated/filtered/cancelled etc).
3. no groups which carry explicitly non-legal content(ie. no pictures of
adults sodomizing little kids, warez, phreak stuff, pyramid/mail
fraud/chain letter type groups.
4. no binaries
5. no groups with excessive ammounts of spam
6. groups with excessive amounts of flameage/crossposting are
subject to removal(alt.destroy.microsoft should be removed.
alt.skinheads was removed alt.skinheads.moderated which is moderated
was not)
7. groups which are poorly spelled, hierarchicaly inappropiate, or stupid
will not be carried (alt.att.you-will is a stupid group)
8. groups which have no traffic will no longer be carried. (ie.
alt.magick.order has one new message in the last five days which is
titled "Make money quick", it is a canidate for removal.
alt.magick.chaos on the other hand has 14 messages since monday, most
of which aren't spam)
There are a couple of things to note here, first every news box on earth
it run slightly differently. This is a result of several factors involving
the size of the feed, total number of groups carried, spam filtering, the
performance of the news server, the amount of disk used for spool etc.
suffice it to say that on my particular box I have about 10gb of disk
which means I can carry about 8000 groups on between a 4 and 5 day expire
time. That means their about 70,000 groups with varying amounts of content
which I am choosing not to carry. If I add more groups, then I either have
to filter them more heavily, delete some old groups or push down my expire
time to two or three days. so goes the logic of being a news admin. The
larger machines (platform (news4), pith (news)) are run in similar
fashions except they carry 40K+ groups (since they still carry
international groups and binary traffic) on something on the order of 12GB
of spool each so they have short expire times and their admins joe and
hans delete and add groups with similar regularity.
Some observations could be made here:
1. the alt. hierarchy is completely optional and not carrying it gets rid
of a lot of spam and random crap. alt. groups are not voted on and
rarely have charters which define what is or isn't appropiate for that
group
2. news2 (smalltown) managed by lucy has no alt heirarchy at all
3. most alt. groups have analogs in the big seven, ie. alt.magick topics
might be appropiate to soc.religion.paganism which a. passed a vote b.
has a charter c. has a faq
4. many alt groups are not carried nearly as widely as the big seven. Ie.
a discussion in a soc. group will eventualy reach just about every
news server on earth. a post to an alt. group will only reach a subset
5. many but not all alt groups are available via dejanews which is free
and accessible from any web browser, and has a much longer expire time.
6. an account with a provider with a decent feed such as at&t worldnet
starts at about $20 a month. They are likely however to carry fewer
groups than we do, and be heavier on the binaries groups since thats
what people pay for (at&t carries about 17K groups) a full newsguy feed
would cost around $70 for a year and get you 22k groups
I hope that reasonably explains how news works, why groups get
added/removed, and how alt. works. I would suggest that anyone who gets
all hot and bothered about the loss of some random group. Take a moment or
several to actually read the traffic on the bulk of the alt. heirarchy
groups and understand what the content is. I would also recomend that they
take a look at the news. hierarchy at what actually goes on there.
particulary with regards to news.admin and news.groups. I do not believe
that the addition or removal of any or for that matter all of the groups
in the alt hierachy represents any curb on the free and equal expression
of opinion or on the rights of assembly. I fail moreover to see how the
addition or removal of alt groups constitutes religious persecution. There
is some question in my mind however as to the appropiatness of the use of
state resources (ie news servers, transit, etc) for religious purposes
under current state law and the das acceptable use policy (ie. if ones
intrest in alt.satanism is anthropological, that's different than using
the resource as a practicing satanist, which is presumably a religous
activity). Under the das acceptable use policy certain activities are
forbidden on state resources (such as political advocacy). I'm sure all of
these issues will be discussed during the formal grievance process which
is ongoing.
joelja
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Joel Jaeggli joe...@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Academic User Services con...@gladstone.uoregon.edu
PGP Key Fingerprint: 1DE9 8FCA 51FB 4195 B42A 9C32 A30D 121E
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It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of
arms. Karl Marx -- Introduction to the critique of Hegel's Philosophy of
the right, 1843.