Freedom to speak (was: Slash in filename)

[Dick Dunn]

d87-man at sm.luth.se (Mikael Adolfsson) writes:
> gwyn at smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
> >I thought this group was going to be reserved for wizards!?

Now, a thinking person might have interpreted what Doug said in context--
not an attempt at censorship, but pointing out that people are posting
stuff that doesn't belong in comp.unix.wizards.

But no...this is USENET...nobody is ever wrong for sending ANYthing to ANY
newsgroup.  Dare to criticize drivel and the bleating about censorship
starts:

> Why would anyone want to reserve a newsgroup for a minority group of
> people? What's the point in restricting the use of usenet? To me that
> sounds like censorship, I hate censorship. Everyone should be granted
> the right to express themselves.

Yeah, right, somebody runs into a problem which is not trivial to solve, so
he asks in the wizards group.  Seven people who can barely read section 1
of the user's manual post solutions which have nothing to do with the
problem, not only displaying their ignorance for all the world, but wasting
everyone's time.  (Remember, there *was* a problem to be solved at the
beginning.)  Worse still, the bogus postings often begin with phrases like
"Can't you just..." or "I'm not sure, but I think..."  Then it takes
another handful of postings from other folks to explain why the bogus
answers don't work.

(For those who've watched from the sidelines but are curious about the
answer:  No, you can't escape or quote the slash.  You can't fix it without
root privilege because it's a corrupted directory entry.  You can't get
rid of the file with rm, and you can't move it with mv.  There is no way
to name the problem file from command level.  The original poster knew that
and stated it!  It really *is* a tricky problem.  Perhaps that's why the
question was posted to c.u.wizards?)

What the hell good is it to post an "answer" when you don't know and
haven't tried it?  *THAT* is what Doug was objecting to.  He's not trying
to be a censor; he's trying to suggest (altogether too politely, I think)
that if you don't know what the hell you're talking about, you ought to
shut the f* up because otherwise you're just making a nuisance of yourself.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd at ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools.