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[at-l] What goes?

In a message dated 5/10/98 7:35:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dbruce@buncombe.main.nc.us writes:

<< I just had a visit from a 1998 thru-hiker who was
 rather bummed out by a shelter register entry left
 by an AT-L regular which, as the thru-hiker himself
 described it, was "a verbal attack" on Trailplace,
 ATML, and me. >>

Responses to Wingfoot's post have made me think about two
separate issues:  censorship and criticism/attacks of Wingfoot.


When I was thru-hiking, I always viewed the trail registers 
as a really cool restroom wall stall.  Most of the entries are
way better than what you see on a restroom wall stall.  But like a 
restroom wall stall, pretty much anything goes. There's some potty
mouth, and there's some personal attacks, but I was pretty hard up
for reading material, so even ranting and raving was pretty 
interesting :-) The good far outweighed the bad.  I would be sad
if the word police tried to clean up trail registers or tried to 
impose some kind of guidelines for what's appropriate. One person
may be offended by four letter words.  Another person might be 
offended by religious witnessing.  Censorship is a slippery slope.

On the trail, Wingfoot is pretty much a public figure in the gossip
circles and in the trail registers.  I'm surprised by this complaint
of a verbal attack because I thought his skin was thicker. Obviously,
his skin needs to be thicker.  To imply that a single personal attack
might have some relationship to the attitude of an entire mailing
list or web sites strains credibility.  On the trail, I heard statements
that Wingfoot was god-like and other statements that were quite negative. 
I reserved judgment until I met him, and found that none of the extreme
statements that I heard at either end of the spectrum was accurate.
Wingfoot recently wrote that he has a great deal of faith in the 
intelligence of thru-hikers.  Well, they can also separate the wheat 
from the chaff in the trail registers.

Quid Pro Quo
GA>ME '96


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