Quack theories love an audience, and you can expect to
find them making use of whatever media is available, starting, perhaps
from street corners. But what better medium is there than the internet!
At a minimum cost you can make your pet theories available to the entire
world. No need to find a publisher, just get a free web site, learn some
very basic HTML, and you're in business. And if that's too complicated,
send your musings to newsgroups, where you're more than likely to find
one or two people who are willing to listen (probably at the expense of
your having to listen to them).
I don't know how many quack theories are floating around
the newsgroups, and I'm not about to check. My guess, from a very brief
examination, is that a group like alt.alien.visitor
is filled with theories and counter theories on everything ranging from
cosmology to why NASA and the US Air Force lie to us when they don't admit
that the earth is flat. But there are countless newsgroups filled with
legitimate researchers who occasionally (perhaps frequently) get visited
by people looking for a means to promote their pet theories.
thanks, The author himself told us that he "got hundreds of replies".
Replies can be sent directly to the original poster, or to the entire group.
When there are "hundreds of replies" you can expect to find at least a
few of them on the group list, but on the list I was reading nobody responded
in public. But apparently the original post did generate some reactions,
because that same day an additional posting, from the same poster, appeared,
under the subject heading: Falsely accused of spamming:
I am doing some serious research on a very important subject(see
my previous posts) and am a member of quite a number of mailing lists which
are appropriate to the broad area I am working in. I accept hundreds of
emails each day from these mailing lists, not all of which are relevent
to my work - but I do not complain. Now I have just posted a quite important,
and I hope interesting to most mailing list members, social/scientific/philosophical
document along with a request for feedback to most of the mailing lists
of which I am a member. Among whatever other values this posting might
have, is the fact that it is critical to my research. After making this
posting I received an email from listserv accusing me of "spamming" and
saying that my posting priviliges have been withdrawn for the next 48 hours
worldwide. I was quite clearly not spamming and I did make a legitimate
post only to appropriate mailing lists. Of course I am concerned with spamming
on the internet and the problems it can cause, but there must be some better
way of dealing with it than arbitrarily curtailing the rights of mailing
list members, and as in my case interferring with an important research
project. I would have to say I feel I have been badly wronged by these
policys and procedures. The glib 'apology' stating that if you are one
of the people who have had their legitimate postings intercepted then they
at listserv ask you to, "Please accept our apologies if this is what happened
to you" does little to make me feel better after having my research suddenly
come to a halt. NOTE: You will probably never see this as it is likely to be censored
- how many mailing list owners want you to read something so threatening
to the established order. Wouldn't many of them be lackies of the rich
and powerful? So that's the end of it, except it's
not. I just had to know to how many more mailing lists our author had written.
It was a bit after the fact already, but search tools for newsgroups are
available. Searching Usenet on AltaVista
didn't bring any results. Using DejaNews
was more successful. But an advanced search on Reference.COM
that allows searching for anything generated from a particular e-mail address
hit the motherlode. (For anyone interested, the attached
page, though only here as an example, is a copy of the first page of
results from that search. The links may no longer be active, but the texts
in question are quoted here anyway.)
And as to the results:
The results from the Reference.COM search show that the
first letter, under slightly different titles, was sent to fifteen (15)
mailing lists. These lists ranged from library science ("Books on World
Social Transformation"), to International Relations ("International Relations
and World Change"), to philosophy, psychology, environment, technology,
education, and more. From my search it appears that only one of these first
postings generated any public response, and it that case it was only one
response.
The second letter seems to have been sent to nine of the
first fifteen lists, though once again, I can't be sure that I found everything
that was posted. The complaint about being accused of spamming, and the
public withdrawal from all newsgroups show up only on the Israeli list
I'm subscribed to.
So what are we to make of all this? I can't help having
the impression of this being a case of someone who has found the solution
to the world's problems. He's presented his paper (or at least submitted
it) but that didn't generate the desired response. Over the past six years
he's probably sent the same abstract to numerous journals, or quoted from
it in letters to the editor of numerous Australian newspapers. He's reached
just about everybody he can reach, and there are no takers. And then he
gets an internet account and discovers mailing lists and newsgroups, and
sets out to spread the word to the entire world. Nobody listens, and the
world loses out on another opportunity to bring about significant (and
I don't mean the bandaid and look good stuff) social change.
That's it for this edition. Reactions and suggestions
can be sent to:
back to the Boidem Contents Page
Return to sCommunications & Computers
In Education - Main Page
From the Boidem -
an occasional column on computers and information technologies in everyday
life
March 22*, 1997:
It probably happens all the time, but like a tree falling
in a forest, if we're not there to witness it, it might as well not have
happened. This time, I was there. This month's column is devoted to a swift
and brief meteoric appearance on the newsgroup scene, accompanied, of course,
by an equally swift disappearance. But it's also about the fine line that
distinguishes between having a legitimate point of view and quakery, and
how the internet can all too often help push us over that fine line.
Before going any further, a WARNING:
In the middle of February of this year the following post
from Australia, under the subject heading: Cyberspace and world change
showed up on an Israeli mailing list I subscribe to (the list is both a
listserv and a newsgroup and can be accessed either way):
I don't know the person in the following example. It's possible that
my impression of the story I'm about to relate is inaccurate, and that
the person in question is actually involved in "legitimate" research (whatever
that is). My objective here is not to make fun, but to illustrate an interesting
phenomenon.I am new to mailing lists, but am very interested in the role the
internet(cyberspace in general) can have in finding solutions to the world's
many problems - and I mean social solutions on a MASSIVE scale, not the
bandaid and look good stuff so often foisted upon us. If anyone knows of
any web sites, programs or research anywhere in the world that is really
proposing something significant please let me know.
This particular list is little more than a conduit for announcements
on tools for academic research. Other than this post, the only activity
on the list in the past few months has been a discussion on the usefulness
of a particular search tool for scientific materials. Thus it was a bit
of a surprise to find a post of this sort. I didn't do anything other than
file the posting, but my curiosity had been aroused. In particular I was
attracted by a few items in the post:
Two or three days later the next post arrived:
A few days ago in here I requested information on sites, programs
and research concerning world social change on a massive scale. I am subscribed
to a number of mailing lists so I got hundreds of replies - for which I
am most appreciative. It will take me some time to follow all those leads
up, but I will. I didn't ask out of idle curiosity, but out of a sincere
belief that something truly effective CAN be done to correct many of the
world's social/environmental problems. Toward that goal, and as a return
gift for all those who have assisted me in this quest, I offer something
which I think is very interesting and povery promising. Hope you like it
too, and I would like to get some feedback on this if anyone is willing.
Once again, a number of items caught my
interest:
I diligently read the appended "gift" and couldn't make heads
nor tails of it. Though the author tells us that the article is an abstract
of a paper presented at an International Philosophical Congress, it's worth
noting that the congress was held in 1990, and since then it apparently
hasn't been published. The subject matter is, of course, totally legitimate,
though to my mind our author had nothing more than run-on platitudes to
say about it. It wasn't the sort of thing that you'd expect would generate
much discussion. And it didn't - at least on the list I was reading.
To all concerned internet citizens,
Is sending the previously linked abstract to a number of
lists spamming? On the face of it, I'd have to say no. It's a means of
trying to generate some recognition, but not necessarily spamming. (I've
discussed spamming from a different perspective in a
previous column.) It depends, however, on whether the posting is related
to the subject of the mailing list/newsgroup, and on the number of lists
it was sent to. From the above posting it's impossible to tell where the
complaint about spamming originated. With so much "make money fast" spamming
that seems to go on without any curtailing actions being taken against
the perpetrators (or so it seems) it's strange to read that the rather
innocuous postings of our author caused his posting priviliges to be "withdrawn
for the next 48 hours worldwide". Still, there's something pathetic in
this last post:
The next posting was a reposting of the abstract, apparently
posted because due to the withdrawal of our author's posting privileges
he wasn't sure it had gotten through (a legitimate concern). But that hardly
prepared me for the final posting entitled Why I am leaving mailing
list:
I am unsubscribing to this mailing list and all others in which
I am a member. I feel sorry about this as I think this mailing list offers
me much and I might be able to offer something in return. There seems to
be some severe censorship going on in this list and others. I believe that
among the uses the internet may legitimately be put to is as a tool to
help transform society into something much better than it is now. There
are, though, those who have a hugh commitment to maintaining the status
quo(and they wield much power - including an increasing de facto control
of cyberspace). I am sure they think a society changed for the better may
not continue to allow the acquisition of great wealth and power in the
hands of a few(and in this they are right). So goodbye to all.
These are the words of a new convert spurned. Only ten days
early we were informed that he was new to mailing lists, and now, in a
huff, he's leaving them, hinting that it's because the censorship wielded
by those committed to maintaining the status quo keeps this media from
making it into a tool to help transform society for the better. The strange
part of all this is that, although one would have to squint a great deal
in order to get the impression that I'm part of the status quo, I somehow
feel guilty. After all, I also believe that the internet can be "a tool
to help transform society" for the better, yet I did nothing to support
this brave, though apparently naive and misguided, warrior for justice.