[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Scientologys Attempts
On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Charles Bell wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jan 1995, Hadmut Danisch wrote:
> > I just had a view into the alt.religion.scientology and
> > alt.clearing.technology newsgroups. There are some messages
> > about a Scientology decision to shut down every internet traffic
> > about Scientology. If the messages are true, Scientology sent
> > rmgroup Control messages to remove the groups.
> >
> > The request to stop the remailers seems to come from the
> > same people...
> After reading the lawyer's threatening letter I tried to check out the
> two newsgroups mentioned, and was told they do not exist. (This is not a
> local filter here; Eskimo does not censor newsgroups.) So have they been
> deleted? If so, by whom and how? What is 'rmgroup' and who has the
> authority to remove alt. groups?
An 'rmgroup' is a control message used by Usenet when a group needs to be
removed globally. Etiquette suggests that only big, important people
should send these out, but technically anyone can send one.
I followed the Scientology debate with little interest until yesterday,
when I fired up my newsreader and was asked "Subscribe to new group
alt.religion.scientology?" At that point, I knew that the real war had
begun. :-)
From what I was able to ascertain here, an rmgroup was sent out, followed
soon after by a newgroup (or two or three or...). My news server doesn't
honor newgroups in the alt hierarchy automatically as a rule, but did so
in this case for some reason.
News server: news.cso.uiuc.edu, on the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign campus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Licquia (lame .sig, huh?) | Finger for PGP 2.6 public key
[email protected] | Me? Speak for whom? You've got
[email protected] (work) | to be kidding!