Newsgroup Censorship by Rob Mitchell

Rob Mitchell, a regular poster to the chess newsgroups, especially
rec.games.chess.politics , has come up with an interesting way to
thwart discussion of any topics he finds objectionable: He changes the
subject headers, so that anybody who has been following the discussion
will not be able to see what happened to it.

At first I thought it was happenstance that threads I had been
following would suddenly disappear. However, when this happened five
times yesterday, I figured out what was going on.

For example, two days ago I started a thread entitled: "Should Bill
Hall be fired over the latest Beatriz Marinello affair?"

First, Mitchell claimed that my statements were not true. Then, when
asked to explain what he meant by that, he wrote something about
wetlands and insurance policies, which had nothing to do with the
subject at hand. Simultaneously, he changed the subject header to:
"Zoning issues and wetlands at USCF construction site".

By doing this, he obliterated the original subject header. That is how
it works on the Google newsgroup reader at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.politics

Note: On other news readers, such as Free Agent which I am using now,
this will not work.

When somebody objected and changed it back, Rob Mitchell immediately
changed it again, this time to "Thread changed."

When asked why he had done this twice, he replied: "the conversation
changed and it would have been improper to have posted under an
incorrect header. Just because others are lazy does not mean that I
will do the same."

However, it was Rob Mitchell who himself who had changed the
conversation. Nobody else had expressed interest in his new subject.

This subject was changed back and forth three times yesterday. Each
time somebody posted under the original subject header, Rob Mitchell
changed it back.

The new subject header, by Rob Mitchell, is "Thread changed."

You can see that it is about the second or third topic down at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.politics

Similarly, in another topic Rob Mitchell did not like, he changed it
three times to
Subject: Just Say No

You can see this now about twenty items down from the top. Although is
has 256 posting to that thread, there have been none more since Rob
Mitchell changed the subject header a few days ago.

Rob Mitchell posts as "Rob"

Yesterday, he took several times to lecturing us on web etiquette and
even implying that we would receive a warning if we kept changing
these threads back to their original subjects. He even provided us
with "A primer of how to post on the usenet":

However, I believe that it is Rob Mitchell who has been behaving
unethically, not us.

Sam Sloan

U¿ytkownik "Sam Sloan" napisa³ w wiadomo¶ci
...

However, I believe that it is Rob Mitchell who has been behaving
unethically, not us.


Sam, of course Rob does not follow netiquette in this regard but ask
yourself if your cross-posting is ethical and follows netiquette ?

[additional crossposting snipped]

On Sat, 27 May 2006 at 02:51 -0000, Sam Sloan scribbled:
-[Mr. Mitchell] replied: "the conversation changed and it would
-have been improper to have posted under an incorrect header.

Mr. Mitchell is correct. Under decades-old netiquette the subject
header should accurately reflect the contents. However, he's tilt-
ing at windmills. Today's Googlers simply deny the netiquette.

-Rob Mitchell ... changes the subject headers, so that anybody who
-has been following the discussion will not be able to see what
-happened to it.

That's not so. Such a situation may possibly apply to threadsters
using Google, but as you noted those who use newsreaders on the Use-
net outside of Google do not have such a problem.

Google is not the Usenet; Google is merely one service for view-
ing the Usenet. Plaintive pleas about deficiencies in Google's pro-
gramming should be redirected to feedback at Google.

(Technical notes: newsreader programs do not depend on the sub-
ject-header to thread postings; they use other headers. Also, not
everybody reads Usenet postings in thread mode. In other words,
the problem described may be a Google users' problem but it isn't a
Usenet problem.)

-He even provided us with "A primer of how to post on the usenet"

The Usenet would undoubtedly benefit if everybody followed the
advice contained therein. But files such as that primer date back
20 to 25 years to a more quaint era, before Google, before AOL, be-
fore the 'web, back when sysops would cuss out users who didn't
change a subject header to reflect changed content. But times have
changed! Ancient netiquette guidelines from 25 years ago have no
standing with today's Googlers. 'Tis a shame.
--
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david moeser -- erasmus39 on yahoo
Censornati, Ohio - USA
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* now in third decade online *