Or the law is right and the speeders are wrong…
Rules like the ones to which Drain Bead refers are in place for several reasons not the least of which is accidentally saving passwords to public computers where people who are not you (and not nearly so smart and considerate as her) can do nasty things with the information. Another reason is that sometimes on install these programs can overwrite hidden files in directories thus causing errors and frustrations to tech people and the community of students using the computers.
Of course, I can’t speak for Drain Bead but that’s been my understanding and in the latter example, my past experience.
But I think that, while stuff that embarrasses the culprits is OK (“Help me, I need advice. I think I’m gay.”, “am I the only one attracted to my grandmother?”, etc), I would really be leery of sending anything offensive, or hurtful to, people who might very possibly be innocent bystanders, ("To someone’s friend “verysingle123” I sent, “Do you know why you’re very single? Because you’re fucking ugly!”)
I mean, it’s one thing to go after the people who probably deserve such treatment (because they violated policy), but to mess with their friends and associates, whose only “crime” is that they know this individual (and quite possibly might be unaware that their friend is doing ANYTHING wrong), seems to me to be a little harsh.
I’m sure a lot of us remember the disruption caused by “Odz Bodkin” (sp?) and his faked injury report, a few months ago. Do we want to inflict similar emotional trauma (even to a lesser degree) on some innocent bystander, all because their friend is a cretin? I for one would have problems with that. I know that I wouldn’t like it if I received a nasty e-mail from someone impersonating my friend, and I’d be irate at the perpetrator if it was explained to me that “well, you deserved it because your friend was a schmuck”. I might explore my legal options, if sufficiently provoked.
I want to emphasize here that I do not mean to criticize Drain Bead (who I like and hold in high regard) or any other poster who may have posted one or more of these joke messages. But from what I know of the members of the SDMB, few, if any of you, would consciously screw with innocent bystanders to exact (admittely deserving) revenge on the morons you have to deal with. I respectfully submit that some of the ideas here might be (unwittingly) doing just that.
It is also true that I’d have no hesitation doing some of these mean spirited things if BOTH the supposed sender AND the intended recipient of this e-mail/IM/whatever, are violating policy.
To end on a positive note, I do love some of the joke messages submitted here.
Wow…while I think Sample 2 is pretty appropriate (as it gets back at the person installing the offending and forbidden software) why is Sample 1 an appropriate thing for you to do? This poor person has no control over their friend installing ICQ or whatever on a computer they are not supposed to. And I’ll bet that really hurt, even after they found out it was a prank.
I would really try to focus on making the offender look silly, ignorant, and bad, and not on being mean to the offender’s friends.
It’s a pretty common thing for people (esp. Freshmen) to leave themselves logged in on computers all over campus. Last semester sometime a freind of mine started sending emails to the entire student body with a single word - “poopfinger” - in the body. There are copy cats all over campus now. It’s much better than what people USED to send, and it actually makes me smile - Aaron struck again! It’s easy, it’s amusing, and that person never leaves their computer logged in/unlocked again.
