{original post had no questions}

Short version: anyone with even minor celebrity -- and there
can be no more minor a celebrity than a producer -- attracts a certain
number of what can only be described as stalkers. Stalkers range from
vaguely annoying to disturbing (and disturbed) individuals. I have
acquired about six or so who are dedicated to one singular goal: trying
to disrupt my life, my career and my show through a constant, chronic
pattern of abuse, insults, outright fabrications, disinformation
campaigns, and innuendo. Six doesn't seem like a lot, and in the
grander scheme, they're irrelevant; on the less grand level, because
they are singularly dedicated to this cause, utterly tireless, they
can, and have, paralyzed whole discussion areas, poisoned topics and
made places on the net unlivable for me and many others.

Several of them, if they were doing via other means -- mail,
phone, in person -- what they are doing on the nets, could easily be
arrested and prosecuted under any of a number of anti-stalking laws,
for creating malicious mischief, character assassination, and other
charges. But the nature of the net makes it easier for these
individuals -- who are basically cowards -- to do what they do with a
relative (though shrinking) degree of impunity.

Their behavior is pathological at best, and it was the exposure
on a daily basis to their virulent pathology, the necessity to respond
each and every day to the next new charge or rumor or lie -- which, if
unanswered, becomes assumed truth on the nets -- that in time drove me
from rastb5. As with most Internet newsgroups, it does not have the
same safeguards against chronic abusive personalities that are present
in CIS, AOL, GEnie and other systems and BBSs across the country.

A number of people who've gotten tired of the chronic abuse of
the system, and each other, recently resolved to try and create a new
moderated group whose purpose would be to ONLY restrict these chronic,
abusive messages from the petty dysfunctional, while allowing a) a full
range of open criticism and language, and b) not in any way affecting
or censoring the original rastb5 area. Any group of people can agree
to come together and form a group of their own, with their own rules,
which others may or may not choose to enter. When and if that group
gets approved, many of the users who left rastb5 will sign on with this
new group, myself included.

(I understand there's a discussion about this issue currently
going on over there, using the words censorship and nightwatch. Which
are loaded terms designed to elicit an emotional response and muddy the
waters. Censorship is enacted against an individual against his or her
will; anyone who joins the moderated newsgroup, should it be approved,
does so knowing the charter of the group, thus expressing a willingness
to go along with that, just as anyone signing on with CIS understands
the general guidelines here. If someone doesn't want to work under
those guidelines, they need not sign on, and hang out in the
unmoderated area. How this relatively simple logic gets muddied is
beyond me.)

In any event, to your question...if any of the less than
rock-solid individuals noted three paragraphs above are asking for your
cooperation, that decision is between you and your conscience.

jms