response 58 of 357:

Jan 10 22:20 UTC 2004

Well, we could "protect responses from being taken out of context" by
deleting the entire item.  (smiley face, OK?)  The idea that everything
a person says has to be kept on display forever in context to preserve
freedom of speech is an interesting.  In fact, when the moment has
passed, so has most of the context.

But getting to the point of this item....

I disagree strongly that this is an inappropriate subject for a member
vote.  Many people here seem to want their rules simple and absolute. 
We make a rule, and we stick by it, without even taking into
consideration whether certain rare circumstances make the enforcement of
the rule pointless or harmful.  Grex's system of laws is minimalist.  It
consists of a very few written rules that weren't really very carefully
written, and some unwritten rules that are even more vague.  What JEP
wants is in violation of a rule that has never been formally written,
that at least a few people heavily involved in the system didn't know
existed.

In the real world, we have a very complete set of very carefully written
laws.  And you know, they aren't enforced in a totally rigid and
absolute way.  We routinely find cases where the rules seem to conflict,
where different considerations seem to come to bear on the situation. 
We have a system of courts that can deal with those, where everything
that seems to bear on the case can be presented, where the arguments pro
and con can be weighed, and where a hopefully consistant and sensible
interpretation of how the rules should be applied in different cases can
be set forth.

Grex lacks any such thing as a court.  We have before us a situation
that will likely never be exactly repeated.  We don't need a policy to
say what Grex should do when a particular sort of item is deleted by a
rogue staffer.  That would be pointless.  What we need to do is to
decide what to do in this specific case.  To make the specific
situation, there are two ways it could be done.  The board could make
it, or the membership could make it.  I think the membership is the
better choice.

That's why I suggested this to JEP.  When I did so, I suggested that he
keep it very narrow.  Just about his two items.  Not about Valerie's
items.  Not about general policy.  I thought it would be useful to make
a decision on a specific case without having to worry about what we
should do in all other vaguely similar cases.  That gets the most
emotionally charged issue off the table and allows us to consider what
our general policy should be in a calmer manner, if any changes in
general policy are actually need.

The only precident it sets is that it says that when people think that
for some reason there general policies of grex are inappropriate in
their specific cases for specific reasons, then this can be used as a
mechanism to make an exception.  I don't see anything wrong with that.