NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/talk/abortion/48574

Text File | 1992-11-19 | 11.6 KB | 255 lines

Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!hubcap!opusc!usceast!nyikos
From: [e-mail] (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Let's Play Attributions, Take 3
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Summary: Susan Garvin's claims of idiotic misunderstanding on my part examined
Keywords: forgery, tampering with evidence, lying, false accusations, empty
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 19 Nov 92 15:30:39 GMT
Lines: 242

In Take 2, I included a copy of a post by Susan Garvin in which there are
some strange goings-on in certain attribution lines.  I made no changes
in the text I saved.  I wonder whether Susan can make the same claim about
herself.

In this post, I will repeat some parts of Susan's post, to better compare
it with a later, more complete post that she made.  The excerpts will be
split up to make comparison of the posts easier.  First the "topmatter"
and attribution lines.

Note to the uninitiated: the date of Oct 29 you see below is the date
I saved the post to my files.

    ________________________24 Oct post___________________

From talk.abortion Thu Oct 29 11:03:02 1992
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Path: usceast!gatech!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!garvin
From: [e-mail] (Susan Garvin)
Subject: Re: Susan Garvin on Forgery
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: misc.test
Summary: I think it's wrong, Chaney likes to do it
Keywords: Chaney/Hall, flame, typical
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: satan.cimds.ri.cmu.edu
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 02:30:29 GMT
Lines: 75

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Stephen A Chaney) writes:
    ________________End of excerpt from Oct 24 post___________________

I followed up to the above post, pointing out anomalous features.  Susan
followed up to this on November 1, deleting everything in my post.
Here is the "topmatter":
    _____________________Beginning of Nov 1 post______________

From talk.abortion Thu Nov  5 18:27:45 1992
Path: usceast!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!garvin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Susan Garvin on Forgery
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (Susan Garvin)
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1992 18:38:58 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet News System)
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Keywords: Chaney/Hall, lies, Nyikos/?
Summary: 1-800-634-2224
Nntp-Posting-Host: satan.cimds.ri.cmu.edu
Lines: 147

____________________________End of Excerpt from Nov 1 post_____________

In between these posts, Susan repeated the now-familiar claim that I
do not understand how attributions work.  I'm posting just the relevant
part, for your amusement.  I'll be glad to provide additional documentation
on request.

___________________________Fragment from an Oct 27 post_________________

#Note that there are exactly as many #### up there in the reference as
#there are in the part quoted.  That is as it should be, because the
#part quoted is from a FOLLOW-UP by Don Beaver to a post of yours.

[text deleted - everyone's seen Nyikos's idiotic misunderstanding
of how things work.]
_______________________End of fragment_______________________

The lines preceded by # above are from my post on Adrienne whose title
ends in ?!?!?!?.  Here, in quotation marks,
 is the text immediately following these #-preceded lines,
which Susan deleted [by her own "text deleted" admission above], as well
she might, because it would have spoiled her little joke (?) about me
not understanding how things work:

"It's always the case (don't ask me why; after seven years on the net,
you are in a much better position to know why) that there is one MORE
>  pointing to things in the text than there is pointing to the
reference from which that text came from."

[I was addressing these words to Adrienne, the "you" of the beginning
of the first line.]

Now we get to the real heart of the matter.  Susan goes at Steve Chaney
in her usual inimitable hammer-and-tongs manner. [Well, Linda Birmingham
does a halfway decent imitation, but I have yet to see a perfect match.]
To back up her stream of insults, she includes an excerpt from a post in
her files.  Note the two attribution lines, the first one from Chaney
supposedly following up to the second one, yet neither preceded by
either a > or a #.

________________________From Oct 24 post_______________________

I notice that you have not attempted to prove that I changed
anything in the quotes, nor did you follow through on your
threat to contact my sysadmins.  Now, I know why you have
done neither of these things - you know that you're lying.
I hope that you continue to make false accusations and empty
threats.  It illustrates quite clearly just how ridiculous
you are, and let's everyone feel good about laughing at you.

I'll bet that you're the campus joke, aren't you, little bit?

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Stephen A Chaney) writes:
In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Cranius Sphinctus) writes:

##I'm speechless, actually.  I'm stuck in 7:00-A.M.-no-stimulants-
##in-the-bloodstream hamster wheel over this statement:
##
_______________________End of Oct 24 excerpt________________________

The November 1 post tells a slightly different story.  First I show the
attribution lines and what corresponds to the two lines above with ##
in front of them.
     ________________________Nov 1 excerpt__________________
In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Cranius Sphinctus) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Borg designation: Bogus) writes:
[...]
>I'm speechless, actually.  I'm stuck in 7:00-A.M.-no-stimulants-
>in-the-bloodstream hamster wheel over this statement:
______________________________End of Nov 1 excerpt__________________________

Had there been a # before the bard@cutter attribution in the Oct 24
version, the two posts would agree at least on who was speechless.

Susan deleted the attribution to her in the Oct 24 version, which appears
to be inconsistent with something else she writes in the Oct 24 post:

"I reposted two articles, deleting only the text
that followed the pertinent lines."

Immediately after this sentence, she protested her innocence, which I
am not going to challenge in this post:
 "There was no forgery involved."

[I will deal with the missing attribution line to Chaney later.]

The foregoing differences can be easily explained away, but the next pair
is not so easy to handle [I repeat two lines for the sake of continuity]:

    ____________________Excerpt from Oct 24 post_____________
##I'm speechless, actually.  I'm stuck in 7:00-A.M.-no-stimulants-
##in-the-bloodstream hamster wheel over this statement:
##
##Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
#### Oh, I love it when my liberal approach makes me look pro-choice.
_____________________________End of excerpt__________________

Note that there are TWO MORE #'s in the last line than in the attribution
line immediately preceding it.  In the Nov 1 post, THE DIFFERENCE SHRINKS
TO ONE:

    ________________________From Nov 1 post____________________
>I'm speechless, actually.  I'm stuck in 7:00-A.M.-no-stimulants-
>in-the-bloodstream hamster wheel over this statement:
>
>Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
># Oh, I love it when my liberal approach makes me look pro-choice.
_____________________________End of excerpt________________

[Minor distraction: a column of #'s has been "replaced" by > s.  This is
an innocent artifact explained by Scott Roby.  Susan Garvin explains it
too, as I will quote near the end of the post.]

A bit of background info:  the "Oh, I love it" line is being attributed
to Chaney, and Mr. Woodyatt's [bard@cutter] is speechless because, well,
read on:
    _______________________From Oct 24 post__________________
##
##He wrote that in a followup to a post by [e-mail] which}i
##presumed that *Larry Margolis* was pro-choice.  I was left with the
##impression that Mr. Chaney was confused about his identity and thought
##he was Larry Margolis for a moment.
____________________________end of excerpt_______________________________

Even here there is a discrepancy with the Nov 1 post, though most likely
an innocent one: there is a superfluous }i at the end of the first line
of text above, that is missing below.

    _________________________From Nov 1 post_______________
>
>He wrote that in a followup to a post by [e-mail] which
>presumed that *Larry Margolis* was pro-choice.  I was left with the
>impression that Mr. Chaney was confused about his identity and thought
>he was Larry Margolis for a moment.

No, you stupid shit - it was a response to ME. It was my attribution
directly before his words.

You've got some major stepping to do, Cranius Sphinctus, to make this lie
of yours stick. For instance, re-posting that article to show evidence.
______________________________end of excerpt__________________________

Note to the uninitiated: Larry Margolis is pro-choice and I don't see
how anyone could think otherwise.  Mr. Woodyatt is really playing his
cards close to his chest by his use of "presumed".

Above, for the first time in this, my `Take 3' post, one sees the words of
Chaney from the Sept 29 post where he challenges the significance of the
"Oh, I love it..." statement.  This explains the lack of an attribution
line to Chaney in the Nov 1 post:  Susan was "enclosing" a copy of a
post from Chaney himself.  Here is the "topmatter" from that copy:

    ________________From Nov 1 post__________________
From gatech!darwin.sura.net!wupost!csus.edu!nextnet!chaneysa Tue Sep 29 12:53:25 EDT 1992
Article: 37309 of talk.abortion
Path: pitt.edu!gatech!darwin.sura.net!wupost!csus.edu!nextnet!chaneysa
~From: [e-mail] (Stephen A Chaney)
~Newsgroups: talk.abortion
~Subject: Re: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
~Date: 29 Sep 92 15:56:56 GMT
~References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
~Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: California State University Sacramento
~Lines: 56
____________________________end of excerpt____________________________

A feature above that has never been explained to me: certain lines are
preceded by ~ and others are not.  I hope someone can tell me why.

I wonder which of the above set of excerpts is closer to the original
posts.  Susan Garvin claimed on October 24 that she was "deleting only
the text that followed the pertinent lines."  In her November 1 post,
she makes no such sweeping claim, except perhaps where she says,
"The following articles are included in their entirety."  In her
October 27 post from which I included a fragment above, however, she
said "Here are the two posts from which he [Chaney] claims that I forged
quotes, exactly as they appeared on t.a. (Of course, I changed ">"'s to
"#"'s so that my posting software would accept the message....)".
This October 27 post seems to agree right down the line with the Nov 1
post, with the change of > for #.  In particular, the crucial "Oh, I
love it..." line is preceded by ONE MORE # than the immediately
preceding attribution.

What is the source of the discrepancies, I wonder?

Peter Nyikos