response 120 of 157:

Feb 7 17:59 UTC 2004

Re #108: You say 

"I'm tired of this "heart and soul" argument.  I put a lot of thought and
 energy into my posts in jep's items too, you know.  I did it because I
 wanted to be of help, not out of any sense of self-aggrandizement.  So if
 John no longer wants those posts online, well, I'm a little sad, but his
 stake in the matter is clearly greater than mine.  So I bow out.

 No one has the reasonable right to expect Grex to keep publishing their
 text forever.  "Infinite publishing" is not a part of free speech, by any
 definition.  So no, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the damage done to
 posters to the items that were removed.  If their text was so important,
 they could easily have kept a copy somewhere.  And if their goal was
 really to help jep or valerie, then the wishes of those people should be
 important to them."

I'm not sure if your are missing the point I am trying to make or
deliberately avoiding it. Do you even remember the points I tried to make
in earlier posts?  When I keep saying most posts have intrinsic value, I
do *not* mean only to the author. You keep ignoring my point about the
possible value to a third party. If the next person in jep's position is
also helped, and that person is even a step closer to crossing the line
jep almost crossed, then allowing those words to remain *far* outweigh any
speculative benefit to jep from deletion. The "heart and soul" put into
those words was to provide a benefit you would deny via censorship in
order to do a personal favor for a favored person. What is even more
amazing is that JEP HIMSELF wished such an item existed. So you (and jep)
seem to be ignoring the fact that jep has essentially made one of the most
compelling arguments *against* censorship. The goal here, which you
consistently mistate, is permit words to have their maximum effect and
value for *everyone* by not censoring them.