netiquette (was: pianornography)

[Israel Stein]

On Fri, 29 Sep 1995, Benjamin Treuhaft wrote:

> All children on this list, please plug your ears.
> Many years ago when my mother, an upper-class Englishwoman, was at a
> genteel gathering in the deep south, she was shocked to hear the ladies
> use the word Niggra to refer to blacks.  She said, "Fuck" in a her
> distinctive voice.  The ladies pretended not to notice, until about the
> third time this Niggra word came up, and each time my mother would say
> Fuck.  They asked her why and she repied she would say Fuck every time
> they said Niggra.   They stopped right away.  This lesson stayed with me,
> unfortunately for those in the list
> who think it is fine to use sexist humor but are offended by sex.
> Benjamin Treuhaft
> Send a Piana to Havana
>

Ben,

I - and I'm sure others here - very much agree with your point.
However, it was lost on many subscribers to this list because you
neglected to quote the offending passage to which you were reacting in
your first message. Also, people who read your comment can't hear your
tone of voice and can't see your facial expression, so the irony doesn't
come through here on the 'net. So you can't be too subtle here - you have
to explain things. I'm sure that most of the people who criticized you
would not have done so had you made your objections obvious in the first
place.

This is a very good example why we have certain conventions here on the
'net, and why it is a good idea for folks who are going to post messages
to get familiar with them and follow them...

A good place to start (if you have a newsreader) is news.announce.newusers
especially Emily Postnews' Guide to Netiquette. (It's actually formulated
for newsgroups, but a lot of the information applies here too).


Israel Stein