X-Message-Number: 6280
From:  (David Stodolsky)
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Re: CryoNet #6271: confidentiality, flaming, etc.
Date: Tue, 28 May 96 12:35:24 +0200

In Regards to your letter <>:
>      The war of words between some Alcor members and some CryoCare members
> or supporters is heating up again, brought on by an anonymous post to
> sci.cryonics from someone using the account:
> ""
> 
>      The implication was that someone fairly unpleasant or incredibly
> stupid was either violating Alcor patient confidentiality, or was making
> guesses based on various sources.  For confidentiality reasons, I cannot
> comment on the truth or falsity of the post itself, but I can say that at

The choice to say anything is already causing a leak of information.
One does not feel compelled to respond to posts which are obviously
erroneous (let us hope). Carefully worded posts that neither confirm
or deny are only safe if there are very, very, few of them. 

The Netnews system and most mailing lists operate in a field of unsecured
identities (not the opposite of "known" identities). There is no reason to 
expect responsible behavior in such an environment. There are some
who have nothing better to do with their time than to post inflammatory
articles to newsgroups. This is commonly known as "trolling". Can
someone be "caught", take the article seriously enough to respond?
If so, the troller is rewarded and will persist.

Mailing lists, while slightly more secure are not immune to such practices.
Cases of people sending themselves anonymous death threats for the "amusement"
of other readers are not unknown. There are new people constantly
coming into the electronic environment, about half have had less than
one year of experience and are easy "catches" for trollers. This condition
will persist until the exponential growth of the Internet ceases after
the turn of the Century. Until that time, the average "mental age"
of Internet users will continue to decline, as less and less computer
literate persons come on-line.


>      For the REST of you, though -- for the hundreds of people who read
> these forums and do NOT care about politics and self-destruction and which
> cryonicist's ego is bruised this week -- please make your views known.  Tell
> your cryonics organization what you want them to concentrate on.

No amount of "jawboning", no matter how well intentioned or intelligent,
can change the dynamics of a communication environment for long.
I urge people not to post further on this topic. And I suggest that
crossposting between the Cryonics Mailing List and the sci.cryonics
newsgroup cease. Especially stop the posting of sci.cryonics articles
to the Mailing List. These two environments serve different populations
in different ways and it is only rarely that articles are important
enough to be crossposted. This will reduce the risk of misunderstandings
due to partial knowledge resulting from reading only one source, 
and serve as a "fire wall" for flames.

I suggest this posting guidelines item from the comp.groupware FAQ be followed
(The total absence of flaming in that newsgroup is remarkable):

2h) What should I do about inappropriate articles?
--------------------------------------------------
Please, do not post responses to articles you feel are inappropriate or 
abusive. (If you can not resist, consider alt.flame as an alternative 
newsgroup for your article [it has greater readership than 
comp.groupware]). If the author is not saying anything worth reading, 
enter the name in your "kill" file, and then no more of your time will 
be wasted by that person. If you feel that the author is saying 
something worth reading, but in an inappropriate way, respond by mail. 
Tell the author what you think is incorrect about the article. If 
possible, suggest how to accomplish the objective in an appropriate way 
(e. g., post to another newsgroup). If you have responded to a person by 
mail a few times without the desired effect, and you feel that the group 
as a whole could benefit by a solution to the problem, only then should 
you post an article. The nature of your article should be a suggestion, 
if possible, of how such problems can be avoided in the future.



David S. Stodolsky      PGP KeyID: B830DF31       
    Tel.: +45 38 33 03 30    Fax: +45 38 33 88 80

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