JT> Ted mentioned once that he would not like to see
JT> me getting a PC for supplying echomail to you.

RS> Its VERY far from clear that its possible to PC
RS> someone who say has Paul as a USER on their BBS.

JT> It is.

Nope, not if you just have them a say a user who can only read the echomail.
And as long as the moderator of an echo he posts in has on complaint,
its very far from clear that you can actually be PCed in that case.

JT> If someone (be it the moderator or otherwise) demands a
JT> user is removed from an echo, then yes, this can be policed.

Thats not even a PC tho. And I was talking about enforcement of Pauls
excommunication. Very far from clear that anyone can PC the sysop of
a BBS that has Paul as a user, even if he has been denodelisted.

JT> Demanding that user NEVER to re-appear in
JT> fido again OTOH, maybe a stretching it a bit.

I'm not even convinced that P4 has anything at all to say
about excommunication of users at all. If for example a
moderator asked that a particular users feed be cut, that
certainly aint got a damned thing to do with any other echo.

JT> Exception is when/if that user is known as a twit, in
JT> that case, no-one will take that person on as a user.

Thats an entirely separate issue to what can be
done PC wise after someone has been denodelisted tho.

JT> I've heard of a few cases of this happening, and the twit
JT> user resorted to changing their name.  Didn't last long though.

I doubt you'd ever see a situation where there is universal agreement
that a particular person would never be accepted as a user by anyone.
No group of people is ever that unanimous about anything.

JT> One becomes remarkably good at recognising
JT> people by writing style after a while.

Oh sure, but it should also be feasible to deliberately change that too.
And some peoples styles are a lot more distinctive than others too.

RS> He was DENODELISTED, which aint the same thing as excommunication.

JT> I dunno.  An excommunication implies the complete removal of
JT> the said person from all netmail and echomail, IE, all of fido.
JT> A denodelisting is one of many ways to perform this task.

Nope, not if he becomes a user of someone elses BBS.

JT> DM had the option of denodelisting Paul,
JT> and as it turns out he used that option.

Even thats not completely clearcut unless that survives the appeal system.

JT> Another option would have been to ASK paul to tone the abuse down,
JT> and to ASK *you* to tone down (it was another netmail at the same time).

From who ?

JT> Hey! Hang on, I hate it when you're right!

Yeah, funny how lots of people say that to me |-)

JT> Anyway, except he didn't, he demanded.  EXACTLY the same way
JT> he demanded I do not post any more messages on behalf of paul.

Sure, I meant that its far from clear that P4 allows that.

RS> There is NO provision in P4 to excommunicate someone completely,
RS> so there is no way that anything stops him from being a USER.

JT> Dunno, read this:

P4> It is considered annoying behavior to assist a system which was
P4> excommunicated in circumventing that removal from the nodelist.

But not necessarily EXCESSIVELY ANNOYING.

P4> For example, if you decide to provide an echomail
P4> feed to your friend who has been excommunicated,
P4> it is likely that your listing will also be removed.

Yes, but thats a FEED, not a USER. You can see why they dont
want people to just say stick the denodelisted node in a private
nodelist supplement and carry on regardless just like it was
in the nodelist and he had you as his feed all along.

And its very far from clear that they are even talking about a
read only feed anyway. Or that the law even allows that anyway.

JT> Don't you think they would use this bit, even if the said
JT> echomail was fed via other methods, (qwk, point, on-line bbs)?

I was talking specifically about the clearer case
of Paul becoming a simple user on someone else's BBS.

JT> I've said it before and I'll say it again, Policy
JT> 4 has more holes in it than a pervert's mattress.

Oh sure, its completely hopeless. Tho not so much deliberately on this one.

JT> Has this type of thing happened before?  If so, how was it handled?

Dunno, I'm not aware of any examples, but then I only
know about a very small subset of the total cases.

Whatsisname, Steve ?, who did a big dummy spit about was it Mann
hanging out his unlisted phone number to his RC or something did appear
to have something similar, and I noticed that he did pop up in normal
echoes later, but didnt check the origin line etc carefully. Forget
whether I was still reading Z3_Sysop when he popped up again or not.

JT> So if you were to post in a newsgroup, and that group
JT> is gated to fido via a big name BBS, then technically,
JT> the sysop of the gating system would be responsible for
JT> "rectifying the problem". This is a requirement of P4.

RS> You havent actually established that Paul appearing as the poster
RS> of a message is actually a 'problem' in the P4 policy sense tho.

JT> Neither has DM, hasn't stopped him from placing the threat though.

Sure, I was just commenting on whether he has any power under P4 to PC.

RS> And then there is also the tiny matter of Australian law to consider
RS> too, whatever P4 may or may not say, it has to be within the law.

JT> Well, that too, although I don't know
JT> what it has to say about the matter.

Lots actually particularly on natural justice. Anyone
prepared to pay the lawyers fees or with access to free
fees could have their fucking guts for garters basically.

JT> Bloody stupid if you ask me.  P4 NEEDS changing and the power hungry
JT> war mongers are using the current Policy as an excuse not to change it.

RS> Yeah, its a completely stupid document on that
RS> basic stuff, absolutely guaranteed to attract the
RS> control freaks and mindless fascists to *C positions.

JT> Must be those gaping holes in it that are attracive.

Its not just the holes, some of them arent holes at all,
like the fact that you get no choice on which net you join.

That alone is a massive cause of the problem with control freaks/fascists.

JT> They say it needs the OK from the International
JT> Co-ordinators. Oops, there is no such thing as an
JT> International Co-ordinator.  Oh dear, how convenient.

RS> True, and fido implodes up its own arsehole
RS> with this sort of mindless insanity going on.
RS> Not at all uncommon with clubs/associations.

JT> I am starting to wonder why nobody complained about it in the first place.

They probably werent aware of the risk. Took me a decade or so to
notice what an utterly obscenity clubs/associations can turn into.

I doubt say Paul realised until he saw what an obscenity could happen either.

RS> And in that case you cant just be PCed anyway, if there is a problem,
RS> say with the user posting commercial messages in an echo where they
RS> are not allowed like Aust_Trading, as long as you do point out the
RS> problem to the user when you become aware of the problem, thats fine.

JT> That's a moderator issue,

Not strictly on that one, you could actually PC on that one
because P4 is rather explicit about Fido being a collection
of hobbyists and has some stuff to say about commercial traffic.

JT> and the moderators in other echos are handling it
JT> just fine.  Pity DN is STILL sitting on his hands,

Or maybe he didnt see that it was something that needed any action.

JT> and DM took it apon himself to take over.

I'm not convinced its that at all. It looks much
more like More had decided to piss off, and wanted
to cause as much damage as he could on the way out.

Taint that uncommon, I know a couple of people
who have done that from a work situation too.

Can cause a bit of heartburn when you realise what a disgruntled
employee can do on the way out. I'm not at all surprised that some
choose to just change the lock on the door and arrange to have the
personal effect delivered to the employees home when they are sacked.
@EOT:

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