Volume 6, Number 32 7 August 1989 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Vince Perriello Editors Emeritii: Dale Lovell Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. 1:1/1 is a Continuous Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day. Copyright 1989 by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067. IFNA may also be contacted at PO Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, 164 Shipley Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94107 and are used with permission. We don't necessarily agree with the contents of every article published here. Most of these materials are unsolicited. No article will be rejected which is properly attributed and legally acceptable. We will publish every responsible submission received. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1 How Much GARBAGE should a person put up with? ............ 1 Moderators BEWARE! ....................................... 8 2. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 10 Latest Software Versions ................................. 10 3. NOTICES .................................................. 12 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 12 4. REPORTS .................................................. 13 Executive Committee Report ............................... 24 Report from Nominations and Elections Committee .......... 27 FidoNews 6-32 Page 1 7 Aug 1989 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= How Much GARBAGE should a person put up with? ============================================ By: Justin Marquez (1:106/100) I have interpreted the article in FNEWS631 by Phil Buonomo as an attack upon my performance in the case of Mike Lester's excommunication. This article is my own rebuttal to it. I have refrained from public mention of Mr. Lester's activities while he was in Net 170 because I have had no particular desire to embarrass him publicly. Since he has seen fit to spread untruths about the situation, and to imply that I treated him unjustly, I shall now present the story from my perspective. If anyone doubts my veracity, or has any question about how I deal with fellow sysops or with NC's (while I was in the RC19 job), please feel free to contact ANY sysop in Net 106 or ANY NC in Region 19 for an independent perspective. I regret the necessity to write this type of FidoNews article. I apologize to you in advance. However, Mr. Buonomo and Mr. Lester have publicly injured me by impugning my character and I do not appreciate it. Unfortunately, FidoNews is the only forum available for my reply. It is also regrettably necessary to quote some of his material. Sections quoted will be marked at the beginning of each line with the vertical bar character, as shown below: | More Tales of Horror from the FidoNet *C's | by Phil Buonomo 1:107/583, 7:520/583, 9:807/1 | (Whew! Made it another week! Guess the RC's don't read | FidoNews, else I'd have been tossed out long ago!) No, Phil, the RC's do read POLICY, which is perhaps why you haven't been "bounced". |quote from national sysop: | RG: Tell me, just how many nodes do you know of that have been | RG: excommunicated on the basis of a single offense? Indeed, | RG: how many nodes do you know of that have been excommuni- | RG: cated, period? | end quote Nobody that I know has been excommunicated for a single offense. Mike Lester violated POLICY on a number of occasions while he was NC170 and after he was removed from that post. His POLICY3 violations included: - harassment of local nodes whose sysops he didn't like, including removal of some of those nodes. (How would YOU like to have an NC just lickin' his chops and waitin' for your system to be down at ZMH so that you are found in FidoNews 6-32 Page 2 7 Aug 1989 violation of POLICY?) Don't believe me? Ask sysop Si Hawk. - Entering messages with profanity in a public echo - Entering messages with personal attacks (flaming) - Harassing voice telephone calls to various *C's. The fellow who became the next NC got phone calls in the wee hours of the morning. Lovely fellows, this Mr. Lester and his friends. (No, it could not be *proven* he did it. If it could, there would probably have been criminal charges filed.) - Being exceptionally uncooperative in any number of ways including: suddenly using AreaFix's add areas capability to add 200 echomail areas and convincing a few of his friends to do the same; convincing a portion of the net to band together with him and form a separate group of "Independent Nodes" who were not allowed to communicate with the "regular" Net 170 nodes; attempting to wrest control of echomail distribution. - Revealing contents of private NetMail messages without asking permission. (Some of the things in the Fido News #631 article fall into this category.) - And, of course, his admitted attempt to interfere with the NC's system. I asked him on many occasions to quit his violations of POLICY. He *could* have been removed on the basis of MANY violations, long before he was finally removed. I freely admit that there was a LOT of "NC-baiting" going on in Net 170. I told Mike NOT to fall for it. I tried for MONTHS to convince him to quit violating POLICY, just because some folks in the local net were pestering him. *C's *must* be willing to put up with a lot of garbage. It is part of the job. If one cannot stand the heat, one *should* get out of the kitchen. ("Two wrongs don't equal one right", plus many other cliches....) After Mike was removed as NC, he was given MANY, MANY chances to back off and act responsibly. Only after seeing him deteriorate to serious threats to others was he finally removed. Was he then removed for ONE violation? No. He was removed for the cumulative effects of his many violations and because he was totally unrepentant. Had he stayed in FidoNet, it was painfully apparent that he would have continued to disrupt net operations whenever he could do so. Even now he is still attempting (through his spreading of libelous and false information) to disrupt Net 170 and Region 19 matters whenever he can do so. | 1) First get the NC(me) to route ALL messages for the local net | through your node as NEC. | 2) Then, using a message editor that dont leave footprints (FD | editor), make changes to the messages the NC posts locally, and | make sure some if not most are a degrading nature in responce | to simple questions. | 3) Quietly, forward "copys" to the RC, explaining that you (the | NEC) think the NC is "over the edge" and politlely ask what he | can do about it. A voice phone call helps here, if your GOOD at | manipulating people. A few of your friends making complaints | also helps, no matter how bogus they may be. also, if a node | wont file an "official" complaint make one up in his name and FidoNews 6-32 Page 3 7 Aug 1989 | send it in. (eg. Joe Savard. ) I have seen few people as good at manipulation of people as is Mr. Lester. Curiously enough, during the episodes involving Lester, not once do I recall his mentioning that persons might be tampering with his messages. The most damaging messages to his case were some that he copied me on (in his own dealings with local Net 170 sysops) and which came directly from his node to mine. | 4) The RC removes the NC for "cause" and appoints the NEC the | NEW NC. I removed Mike because he was doing many things that were not according to POLICY. Frankly, I never kept many old files or messages, because I never planned to publicly put him on "trial". Now that he has fired the first volley, so to speak, I will present the situation as I saw it (and still do). | 5) Now your in "CONTROL". Next, start having "secret" monthly | meetings where not even wifes are allowed in the room where | fidonet business is conducted. ( You should have heard some of | the wives outside when this happened.) | 6) When the old NC(me) finds out about what happened and the | reason why, he just shrugs it off and says ok, "you leave me | alone, and I will leave you alone", Now just wait about 2 weeks | and be silent. Hmmmmm.... hardly remember him being silent, EVER. If leaving MANY profane, flaming messages in your local SYSOP echo is "silence", then I guess he was "silent". | 7) Un-rest rules the net, because of the changes that have | happened. "Un-rest" is an understatement, it almost instantly | polarized the net. Now its time for some "heavy handed rules". | ie: You MUST attend the local fidonet meetings. (only heresay) | You MUST get all your echos from the NC/NEC. You can only have | 40 echos MAX. If you post in the local sysop echo, it must be | a message that pertains to ALL. Messages of a one to one | nature are NOT allowed. ect... The penaltys are "you WILL be | removed from the nodelist" A threat of having NET 170 removed | by the RC also comes in, if the nodes do not "Cooperate". My charge as RC included "keeping your Region running smoothly". Many of Mike Lester's tactics were designed to extort and to control others. This fellow was on the most incredible power trip I have ever witnessed. His actions appeared solely designed to polarize the net, to cripple the net and spilled over into some other FidoNet local nets. FidoNews 6-32 Page 4 7 Aug 1989 | 8) Now, dump on the old NC (me) an echo NOT wanted/requested | without warning or even asking to have the area set up. (100+ | messages) ( I had to manually delete them from my netmail area Interestingly enough, the Net 170 local "operations document" which Mr. Lester used required the local sysops to subscribe to TWO echo areas, if memory serves correctly. It seems the new NC got the idea from the former NC that such was OK. The new NC was advised by the RC that "forcefeeding" an echo area was not acceptable and he stopped it immediately. | 9) Now comes the part that got ME ex-communicated. When I | complain saying to discontinue sending the echo, simply send a | message to the sysop (me) stateing "I'M THE NC, and IF YOU WISH | TO REMAIN IN FIDONET, YOU WILL RECIEVE THIS ECHO. | 10) When the ex-NC(me) says "ok, fine, you SEND to ME an echo | that I dont wish to have, I will place a file on HOLD for you | to pick up every time you call. (note: the FILE was my files | listing, the one you would get if you requested FILES from my | system. Not a mail bomb, or virused program. also, I intended | on recieving the echomail to a passthrough area to no one, | effectivly deleting the messages.) Considering that this incident followed closely on the heels of another, in which a bosom buddy of Lester sent a virus/bomb type program to the fellow who was NC between the current NC and Lester, it is possible that the NC may have been totally out of line in believing that Lester meant to harm the NC's system or that he intended to impede mail flow in Net 170. Personally, I believe he interpreted the threat correctly. Lester's prior behavior and the actions of his cohorts confirm "malice aforethought". | 11) The new NC then quietly removes the ex-NC(me) from the | nodelist for that week because he is "annoyed". no warning, no | nothing was ever sent to me about this. Mike Lester was reinstated while the appeals were going through channels. (David Dodell is more than fair when excommunications are involved. He is so concerned about the rights of sysops that he will even allow the real twits to stay in the nodelist on the chance they may turn out to be non-twits.) | 12) When I complain again, pass it along to the RC, who then | passes it along to David Dodell, who ultimatly, finds that "No | one has done anything outside of policy." | It happened to me, and when final, 15 sysops, left fidonet 170 | Now its time for a NEW RULE for the local net. Rule: You can't | be in fidonet 170 if you allow Mike Lester ex-NC of Fidonet | 170 on your system as a user. (Just ask the sysop of | 7:771/208.0 if this is true or not.) The bottom line is this, | I was ex-communicated from fidonet simply for saying I was | going to "put a FILE on hold". The FILE was NEVER sent, since | the new NC removed me from the nodelist. He never called back FidoNews 6-32 Page 5 7 Aug 1989 | either, after I sent him the message I was going to put the | file on hold for him. So, I never actually DID anything wrong, | but i was ex-communicated for it anyway. I even ASKED the RC | for a REGION number, and it was refused, by saying that there | was already an existing net in Tulsa, and I HAD to be in it or | not at all. Now, why would an RC give an independent regional node number to a sysop whose excommunication he had just upheld? Would the