[plug] Slander and Bret-bashing in general

[Peter Wright]

Quick explanation for Garry and anyone else who has trouble grasping
the concept that Bret is a person too:

On Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 12:44:02PM +0800, Matt Kemner wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Bret Busby wrote:
> > Has someone hacked WASP?
[ Matt responds and refers to the L in PLUG being 'Linux' ]
> What part of that title suggests it is also the "let's have a whinge and
> make slanderous comments about ISPs" list?
[ ... ]
> Please also note that if you, or anyone else on this list, sends any more
> slanderous comments such as these to this mailing list, they will be
> summarily banned from it.
> 
> Regards,
>  - Matt
> PLUG ListAdmin.

Tony Clark <tclark at telia.com> wrote (in response to Bret on a completely
different topic):
> Open and honest would have been to let everyone know where you where
> from...not sneak up to the boss and say there is a tenner in it if you take
> Amway Insurance...
> 
> > Whilst I am aware (from personal experience), that some Amway
> > Distributors are not so open about it, to me, to not be open or honest
> > about it, is wrong.
> 
> I've known some good ones and some bad....guess which lot you belong too?
> See above!

Bret asked in response to the immediate above:
> Once again, I am slandered on the list.
> What happens, now, Matt?

Finally, Garry responded to Bret:

On Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 04:42:13PM +0800, garry wrote:
> Obviously the slander laws only apply if invoked Brett.
> What happens next is in your court.


I don't think Bret is referring to the slander laws of our country or state
(not sure which jurisdiction deals with slander). I think he's referring to
Matt's fairly explicit and unambiguous statement of 8/2/2002, which I'm
repeating below just to make it really really _really_ clear:

> Please also note that if you, or anyone else on this list, sends any more
> slanderous comments such as these to this mailing list, they will be
> summarily banned from it.

According to this, Tony should indeed be banned from the list. But it will
depend on Matt's judgement, and I'm sure he'd much prefer it if Tony (and
hopefully the others making rather snide comments) made a public apology on
the list and to Bret.

Then perhaps, if those persons don't want to see any more emails from Bret,
they could go and configure their mail program of choice to filter him out.
Then if they feel they urge in future to disparage Bret (or anyone else),
they can do it in private.


Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly.
It just happens to be selective about who it makes friends with.
                                               -- Dave Parnas