Northwestern Staffer Cancels Spam

The end (for now):

I'm back from vacation. A few words.

I accidentally deleted my copy of the spam I cancelled, and for that I am truly sorry.

I am as ardent a supporter of free speech as anybody is. I oppose and will continue to work against physical and electronic vandalism. If you think vandalism is free speech, I disagree with you.

I am an NU system administrator, and those of you who say I am not do not understand my job.

I am not the news admin, nor The Prime DNS Admin, nor the Arbiter of What Is Right. I was authorized by our news admin to cancel spam in our local newsgroups. I think that there is precious little policy on the issue, and what little policy there is supported my action. If you disagree, that's your prerogative.

We need better policy. I've been saying this publically and privately for some years. Please come to the next NU-CERT meeting if you're interested in helping a rational policy to come into affect.

While I did not expect to be a Newsgroup Hero (and in fact expected [some] dissent :-), I thought that there was a consensus on campus that spam shouldn't be permitted on nwu.*. I see no such consensus.

I won't be cancelling nwu.* spam again unless someone makes it part of my job or a policy is created that more clearly permits me to do so.

Ann

Back to
case page.