"Haven't there been reports of Fred's untimely demise? What more is to be gained by talking about him?" Reasonable questions, demanding reasonable answers. The most obvious answer is that, once one is able to separate oneself from the aggravating realities of the experience, it's a funny story, if in a very sad way. But, aside from that, the story isn't really over, even if Fred has passed away - and false reports of things like that are not unknown on the Internet. The story isn't over, because even if Fred is gone, his words live on, and the rumor mill is still going. Consider the experiences of one Susan Cohen who, even if she is being a very good sport about the whole thing, is still being harassed. Consider this post from November 2004, well over a year after Cherry's reported death.

For the record, I have never seen anybody ever offer so much as a single quote of something that Susan Cohen wrote that any sane individual could take to be support for NAMBLA (the North American Man - Boy Love Association, a group dedicated to legalizing sexual relationships between grown men and young, pre-pubescent boys, a position which I've condemned elsewhere). But even in the absence of evidence, some have tried to offer an alleged absence as evidence, as we see in the case of yet another person fighting to keep Cherry's libel alive:

... and might very well have had excellent reasons to do so, given that crowd's historical fondness for mailbombing and otherwise harassing its critics, as mentioned in the Fred Cherry Story. One need not have any ill motives at all to take a look at the bad experiences others have had when speaking out, and decide that one would rather not be put through that oneself, especially online, given the practice seen out of some ISPs to reward campaigns of online harassment by silencing the people harassed. (eg. "An Open Letter to Suba"). Assuming, that is, that one can even trust that party of the story that we are being told. Sad to say, many will do just that, without thinking.

Nor is Ms.Cohen the only person that this has been done to, though in her case, the efforts would seem to be unusually blatant exercises in cyberstalking and general abuse.

All of this, as I've said, took place after Fred's alleged demise, and why wouldn't it? Usenet always has more than its share of people who are looking for a little mud to sling, in the hope that it will stick, and Fred's false accusations are preserved in the Googlegroups/Dejanews archives, in large numbers, ready to be dredged up by anybody. In real life, death stills the voice of the neighborhood gossip, but online, one's "voice" lives on in print, or its electronic counterpart, very often. That being the case, the seemingly commonsensical query "why now" can be seen for what it is - the failure of the complaintant to recognize that the experiences which gave rise to his earlier notions of common sense are no longer a reasonably good guide to the new circumstance which he finds himself in.

If it sounds like I'm suggesting that the introduction of the Dejanews (now Googlegroups) archives was a change for the worse - no, not at all. In the bad old days, when somebody would play the kind of game Fred and his friends made a name for themselves playing, there was little that one could do to prove that they were lying. Now, with the introduction of a (one hopes) neutral third party keeping the records, documentation and defense of one's reputation, or reputation of another, becomes a real possibility. But Usenet, having become something of a cesspool during those old days, didn't suddenly become a decent place just because a few new tools were introduced, and there will be those who want to misuse those tools. It's up to the rest of us to make a reasonable effort to see to it that they do not succeed in their attempts to do so.



At this point, would you rather go to the ring hubpage on World of Webring or Ringsurf, or return to one of the rings to which this ring or an associated site belongs?