5. List Politics

5.1 Is this list always so petty and callous?

Newf-L is, in its simplest terms, a large group of people. In any group of people, no matter what size, there will be politics. In any group of people there will be a mix of personalities. This is the very essence of the human experience.

From time to time Newf-L seems to get uncivilized. No one knows why, but people seem to get grumpy and start flaming others for no reason. Long time Newf-L'ers threaten to leave (some do) and everyone starts telling everyone else what they should or should not do to make the list behave again.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the disease runs its course, and everyone seems to get along again. It is in this respect that Newf-L is most like a large family. If you stick with us, you will learn to like and respect the people that are most often here. As with life, we must take the good with the bad. As with Newfs, on Newf-L there is much more good than bad. Give it a chance. If you don't like a post or two, feel free to delete them. We've all had to learn that some messages just need to be deleted.

Return to the top of this document | Return to the master index

5.2 I'm really offended by Mr. X's post! What can I do?

Well, your first line of defense on the Internet is your delete key. Would you stand around and listen to a madman ranting in the street? No, you would walk away. Maybe you would call the police. Unfortunately there are no Internet police, and the Newf list is not really "moderated". Take heart, there's still hope.

First you should sit back and decide if the mail that has offended you is indeed offensive! Yes we all get grumpy from time to time, and a 24 hour rest from e-mail can often make us see things in a different light. That being said, some people do indeed send abusive, often threatening or obscene messages across the Internet.

If you feel you have been the victim of severe net abuse, then you can try a couple of things to help curtail this behavior in the future.

E-mail addresses are comprised of "usernames" and "domains". The username is separated from the domain with an "@". Thus "gad@gad.net" indicates that the user "lordgad" uses "planet.net" as his Internet Service Provider. So what? Now you know where your offensive e-mail buddy "lives". Many ISP's maintain an e-mail account with the address of "abuse@domain.net". Try sending a complaint to this address for the proper domain. In my example, to complain about gad@gad.net, send an explanatory e-mail to abuse@planet.net.

Beware of abusing this power. "Crying Wolf" has its consequences, even on the Internet.

Unfortunately the learned flamer can change his e-mail headers to make it appear that he sent mail as someone else. If you get mail from "bite_me@loser.com" or something similar, you have probably been e-mailed by someone that knows how to do this. Fear not. There is still a possibility that someone in the know can trace this mail. If you find yourself in this situation, and don't know anyone that can help, drop me an e-mail. Make sure you don't delete the offending mail, as I will need you to perform some actions on it to help me out.

One last note. Remember to delete offending posts. Replying with a flame of your own only causes flame wars. Take a deep breath, delete the ugly message and move on. We'll all be better off. If you must reply, reply in a sane calm manner.

Return to the top of this document | Return to the master index