DD> Policy 4 says that a sysop is responsible for whatever a user
 DD> issues forth into the net. The "defamation" may not stand up
 DD> under law, but it can certainly lead to loss of node number
 DD> (and if you don't have a node number, you may as well be dead,
 DD> ask Bill). David

  Fido is a successful anarchy that makes and enforces its own rules
in a totally random manner, but it hardly matters what Policy 4 says
in the *real* world, and this is what I am discussing: an L-A-W law
that makes a sysop responsible for the mail leaving his board. 

  I can understand the attraction of this to a bureaucracy and a twit
like Lavarch, where it is virtually impossible to prove (in Law) who
wrote what, but where it is known whose board passed the mail last.

  Hardly a day passes when I do not read something defamatory on email
(in fact I just *wrote* something defamatory about that twit Lavarch),
and this is okay as long as I am willing to take the risk, but how
about the sysops down the chain, whose boards pass my mail?

  I have no objection to threatening the author of calumny with a
defamation suit (whether in a joke or not), but when the threat
is aimed at a sysop, and where the dopey sysop clearly believes it,
then I don't find that funny. He would have to be an idiot to keep
passing mail if he thinks he is legally liable to whatever passes
through unseen... and if he believes that then he ought to get out of
the business quick.

  If this happens, Fido falls apart... and I think this is the aim of
Lavarch and his cronies anyway. The latest attack is making Oaklohoma
bombs on the BBS. This information was around in the 60's and the 70's
when the Yippies actually started doing it! Every day, I read another
attack on the Net...

Regards,
Bob


Regards,
Bob
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
@EOT:

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