[SECC] Fw: [usve] Petition to eliminate Morse code (long)

[Ben Coleman]

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 16:45:54 -0500, Dan/W4NTI wrote:

>Nice post Ben,  unfortunatly it is a bunch of crap.  You see the 'new
>breed',  the scum following the NCI goons, intentionally want to turn
>amateur radio into CB.
>
>Go read the newsgroups.  See what kind of help they want.  They know it all.
>Didn't you know that?

Oh, believe me, I've read the newsgroups, but I don't really consider
rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroup activity representative of the ham
community at large.  I don't think I've ever seen a bigger
concentration of trolls (on both side of the code argument) anywhere in
my life than in rec.radio.amateur.misc and .policy newsgroups.  I've
noted for a long time that there is a small segment of the ham
community who seem to think that vociferous argument ought to be the
major ham activity.  They're loud, brash, obnoxious and attract a lot
of attention, and they all seem to have descended on rra.misc and
rra.policy.  Poke your head in there awhile, and you'll be convinced
that we should add a new section to the written tests on screwy
argument techiniques, simply so new hams will be able to keep up.  But
I don't think rra.* is really representative of the hobby at large any
more, if it ever was.  The trolls,the spammers, and the multiple
misplaced ForSale posts have chased most of the ordinary hams away.

I'm sure a few of those posting the 'we're going to turn ham radio into
CB' are serious.  I think most are simply trolls, trying to aggravate
the opposition and raise the noise level higher (which I thought would
be quite a trick until I saw what the spammers have done to .misc
lately).  For some reason, USENET attracts the kind of idiots who find
that fun.  But I think it would be a huge mistake to take USENET troll
activity as a reason to give up elmering new hams.

Ben
-- 
Ben Coleman oloryn at benshome.net      | The attempt to legislatively
http://oloryn.home.mindspring.com/   | micromanage equality results, at
Amateur Radio NJ8J                   | best, in equal misery for all.