An Apology (non-technical)

[Peter Rowell]

This is a non-technical article and you can hit 'n' now.

This is an apology to the readers in general of comp.lang.c and
comp.unix.questions.  It is the result of reasonable people making
reasonable points in a reasonable way. It is decidely NOT a response to
those people who felt that my poor choice of groups released them from
any semblance of adult communication.

At the request of some of the cooler heads present on the net, I have
canceled my response to Doug Gwyn.  I do not retract any of the
statements made therein.  Even if his specific complaint was correct,
his method of delivery ... well, let's change the subject.

I have considered the well reasoned arguments made by a number of
people and agree that the posting of my article to comp.lang.c and
comp.unix.questions was well intended, but misdirected.

In particular, Jim Shankland made a calm, clear statement.  To
summarize and paraphrase, he said that *everyone* has something they
feel strongly about.  If they posted all such items to every newsgroup,
the net would simply disintegrate.  Not because they were wrong in
their opinions and not because they were wrong for making them public,
but because the net is a fragile thing and is clearly showing the
strain being placed on it.  This is inarguably true.  It may have been
what Gwyn was trying to convey, but, shall we say, words failed him.


So... To Jim Shankland, James Jones, George Leach, Jon Westbrock, Scott
Spetter, and stevea at laidback (all of whom took the time to state their
thoughts in an adult manner) and to the other readers of these two
groups, I would like to apologize for my inconsiderate distribution of
an inappropriate article to your groups.  I *still* haven't been told
by anyone where it reasonably belonged (although a few have made some
anatomically improbable suggestions), but some very reasonable people
have pointed out where it *didn't* belong.

    Peter Rowell