Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!ix.netcom.com!news
From: wilhelp@ix.netcom.com (Bill Palmer)
Newsgroups: alt.journalism,alt.wired,news.admin.misc,news.admin.censorship,alt.culture.usenet,alt.cyberspace
Subject: Bill Palmer & Tim Skirvin: Key Differences
Date: 10 Jun 1997 23:53:45 GMT
Organization: Netcom
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A number of you have read my brief comments in INTERNET UNDERGROUND
relating to my objections over being placed in Tim Skirvin's global
killfile, or, as he calls it, his "Dungeon."  Some of you have
said you want to learn more.

It is impossible to respond to everyone who seeks further unbiased
information about this afaair (that is, further information apart 
from what is found on Tim's website, which does okay at giving HIS
side of the dispute).   Therefore, I have decided to sum up the 
growing controversy for those of you who may be planning stories 
or who simply wish to know both sides of the issue.

Consequently, my purpose here involves setting out for you
the key differences between Tim Skirvin and myself, regarding
how we see our respective roles in the wired community.  It 
is, I should add, not my intention either to blow my own horn
or to attack Tim.  But I WILL have my say, let the cards
fall where they might.

Tim Skirvin has made a determined effort--in the process of
publicizing his global killfile "innovation"--to get Usenet
readers to killfile me without reading me.  [See "The Global
Killfile" in the June, 1997 issue of INTERNET UNDERGROUND.]

In short, Tim has presented his side of the controversy (backed
up with plenty of "admiring testimony") in a national magazine.
I did get a brief paragapph of rebuttal, for which I am 
grateful, but much more needs to be said.

In the interest of assuring that both sides are heard, then,
I will set out for you the key differences between Tim Skirvin
and me.

Essentially, Tim Skirvin's role on the net (I say "the net"
rather than "Usenet" in some places that follow because 
the matter at hand gets into websites as well as simply 
Usenet newsgroups) has been that of a "controller wannabe" 
for as long as I have been aware of him.

If you follow Tim's posts for very long, you will find a 
concern with making the net a better place with respect to
the way Tim Skirvin and those who think like him view
their need to "improve the wired world."  

Yet, somehow these "noble ameliorative goals" never seem to 
stray far from the wish to control the Usneent posting behavior
(and by extension the publicly-shared thoughts) of those who 
disagree with Mr. Tim Skirvin and friends.  THAT lies at
the heart of our disagreement.

If you read a number of Tim's articles, you discern the careful
cultivation of a small clique that Tim seems to feel represents
a technocratic elite having the needed skills and the wisdom
required for running Usenet and other parts of the net as
well.  Though Tim proves far too smart to state his aims
directly, you can easily find his basic themes running 
through many of his postings.

Further, it is easy to find in Tim's posting behavior a 
constant returning to the theme of "ememies" (for which
the code name is often "kooks").  Such posters do not, 
unlike Time, he implies, deserve the opportunity to speak 
out and be heard on the net.  They have abused the 
"privileges" that Tim Skirvin and his friends carefully 
define for the rest of us.

As I've suggested, though, Tim is clever about concealing
his point of view.  One of his favorite techniques involves
making a great show of attacking obvious net abusers.  By
that I mean people who most of us would agree make Usenet 
a less pleasant place with their indulging in things like 
massive crossposting for their own commercial objectives 
or in the way of multiplying their hate-filled or otherwise 
pathological rants in places where such tirades are
irrelevant and unwelcome.

However, with Tim, this public war on actual net abusers is
little more than a figleaf for his real aims:  the stifling
of voices belonging to those who see Usenet in different
terms than do Tim and his coterie, who view themselves as
the self-appointed "ruling technocratic elite" of the net.

This brings us to my differences with Tim Skirvin.  

Simply put, I see my role in Usenet as that of commentator
and entertainer.  Why I get into trouble with Tim and
his pals, though, is because my commentary and entertainment
involve satire.  In fact, I often lampoon and parody 
people like Tim Skirvin, especially when they answer
reasoned argument with snide putdowns.

That is Tim's real beef with me, despite his misleading
remarks in INTERNET UNDERGROUND.

As the Usenet Flame Giant, I have made my name in the
"flame pits" such as alt.flame, alt.genius.bill-palmer,
alt.usenet.kooks, and alt.fan.karl.malden.nose by
"toasting" (successfully out-arguing, out-lampooing,
and out-parodying all comers).  

In such flame newsgroups, I function as a "one person show"
for the amusement of people all over the planet.  In fact,
when people ask me what I do to get by, I tell them I
put on a clown mask and go into the the flame arenas to 
toss gigantic mud balls back and forth with the biggest 
bozos on the net.

Even so, I do have my serious opinions on things, and I
often post serious articles in non-flame newsgroups.  I
first remember meeting Tim when I placed an article
some of you will remember, "The Crosspost Commissar,"
in news.admin.net-abuse.misc and some other newsgroups
late in 1995.

It his not my intention here to reprise that frank, rather
lengthy statement of my viewpoint.  In short, my article
infuriated Tim and his pals.  When I posted it I was still
naive, and I had no idea that I was "trespassing" in a
newsgroup where Tim and friends had set themselves up as
newsgroup proprietors.

None of them bothered to give my frank statement one iota
of serious response.  Instead, I was ridiculed for having
left a half-dozen typos in a 1,200 word article!

As the Usenet Flame Giant, I am not easily frightened off
by ridicule or threats, so I held my ground and the flame was
was on.  When the smoke finally drifted away, Tim Skirvin,
Dave Ratcliffe, and a few others, stood before the Usenet
community looking--metaphorically speaking--like slices
of bread that had done hard time in a powerful toaster.

In short, they had been out-argued, out-lampooned, out-
parodied, and painfully pilloried.

They never got over it.

Since then, Tim Skirvin has done his best to convince readers
to avoid my posts entirely.  He has also harrassed me by e-mail
on several occasions when I have complained of net abuse by
posting my complaints in--of all places!--news.admin.net-abuse.
misc.

I have no doubt at all that I am a chief reason behind 
his global killfile.  It is very clear that Tim has made me 
one of the prime targets for his "Dungeon" (which is what 
he calls his downloadable software).

Now, as I have admitted, Tim is not stupid.  If you look at the
people he has focused his "killfile attentiveness" on, a number
of them are posters most of us would not wish to read under
any circumstances.  However, Skirvin includes (along with the
Usenet pests) a number of people such as myself whose only
"crime" involves challenging Tim, out-arguing Tim, lampooning
Tim, and writing better than Tim.

It is for a combination of those latter reasons--and for no
other--that Tim Skirvin includes me among the number of
people (as he announces in a national magazine) who have
"nothing useeful to say" to the wired community.

Tim tries to give his sentencing me to "life" in his killfile 
Dungeon (as well as his attempting to meet his larger objective 
of getting as many people as possible to shun my posts without 
having read me at all) a thin veneer of fairness.   Therefore, 
to show I deserve my "sentence," Tim maligns me by stating that 
I am guilty of "continually crossposting irrelevant threads" 
(to quote the exact words of his false allegation).

The fact is, as Usenet crossposting goes, mine has always
been generally thoughtful and quite limited.  One mistake
I have made on occasion, though, consists of replying to
someone else and then noticing afterwards that the party
had posted to lots of places where I did not know my own
followup to be relevant.  I try to much more careful 
about nowadays, out of respect to readers.

Even so, I have never been the kind of person to type 
in ten, fifteen, or twenty newsgroups on my newsgroup
line.  A typical crosspost of mine might go to four
or five relevant newsgroups, though sometimes I choose
to post to a slightly greater number.  (This article,
for instance, may end up in eight or nine newsgroups,
simply because I can think of that many where it is
germane to the topic.)

The fact reamins, well over ninety-nine percent of my
Usenet crossposts have gone to newsgroups where my
articles' subjects were relevant.  Further, let's not 
forget that there exist literally thousands of Usenet 
posters who continually generate legitimate crosspost 
complaints, because their massive crosspostings prove 
irelevant to so many newsgroups where those articles 
appear.

All these "crosspost felons," to be fair, would have to be 
put in Tim's Dungeon long before I got there for my few 
"misdemeanors."  Yet, strangely, only sixteen people, 
besides myself, serve "life sentences."  

On top of all that, there I am, being smeared as a big-time
"crosspost crook" in a print magazine with national circulation!

As you may now understand, Tim's gripe with me has nothing
at all to do with crossposting.

In short, the key difference between Tim Skirvin and me
is this:  Tim's role is that of "net director wannabe"
and mine is that of writer and entertainer.

At the heart of the matter lies the fact that most of Tim's
activities in Usenet and on the web aim at controlling
writers, while all of my activities center on informing 
or amusing readers.

I don't see things at all like Tim Skirvin.

With specific reference to one's true value in Usenet, I feel 
you are what you write, not what you do behind the scenes (meaning
"behind the SCREENS") in the way of regulating and controlling.

As far as the net in general, I see it as being about the
mind, much more than about "computers."

For those who understand the immense potential of the net,
what the "techno-elite" does behind the scenes to create
a better and more comfortable nesting place for themselves 
will always remain secondary in importance to the "thought 
in action" on our screens.  

When such activities of the self-appointed "ruling techno-elite" 
of the net aim at restricting the free flow of ideas, people 
will continue to hear about it from folks like me.

That, of course, returns us to my protests over Tim Skirvin's
wish to have people who have never read my posts "confine"
me in Tim's downloadable, "generously-offered" killfile
Dungeon.