ADMIN: Blatant abuse and Peter Milbury

[Michael Eisenberg <meisenbe@WAHOO.SJSU.EDU>]

To the LM_NET community:

Peter Milbury and I have coordinated LM_NET for almost 4 years.  We try
to keep LM_NET as open and civilized as possible.  Trust me - it's not
always easy.

Behind the scences, there's a group of people - the Hospitality Committee
- who work hard to keep junk mail and commercial messages off the
listserv.  They also work to help people learn to use the list in ways
that don't fill up your mailboxes but still get all ideas out.

But, no one is more concerned about fairness, equity, and open access
than Peter Milbury.  No one.  And no one spends more time and effort on
LM_NET than Peter.  No one. We are talking about hours each day spent on
bounces, technical problems, netiquette, helping new members, etc.

That's why it bothers me to see open messages on LM_NET questioning
Peter's actions.  If you have a concern - and these do arise from time to
time - I would assume that LM_NETTERS would first give Peter the courtesy
of a direct message to him to find out about the situation. I'm not
saying that Peter and I don't make mistakes - we do.  But, direct or
implied criticism before knowing the facts bothers me.

Now, concerning the specific situation at hand:

I will not go into a blow-by-blow on this, but I will give you some
insight into the situation.

Mark Whitman clearly violated LM_NET policy.  His messages are clearly
commerical and others have confirmed the commercial nature of his service.
He has been contacted about this and is _not_ cooperative.  He claims to
have apologized, but in actuality, he has not.

Now the issue has shifted from abuse of the 6,000 members of LM_NET to
phone calls. Peter did try to contact Mark via phone and when he explained
that he wanted to discuss abuse of LM_NET, they hung up on him. At this
point Peter made a mistake - instead of dropping it, he called back, got
their answering machine and called back again.  Mistake; one that will be
handled through direct, personal communication - not through LM_NET.

But let's be clear here about what's going on.  Peter made a mistake in
the way he tried to deal with someone commerically abusing LM_NET.  But
the real problem here is a blatant attempt to force-feed us commercial,
junk e-mail.

So, let's put this one to rest.  I'm not trying to cut anyone off.  If
you think you have something that must be shared with the entire list
about this, please go ahead and do so.  However, if there are continued
concerns or issues, please direct them to the appropriate individuals.

Thanks for listening,

Mike Eisenberg
co-coordinator of LM_NET