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| Author |
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kerouac
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What is a fair witness?
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Mar 20 02:50 UTC 1996 |
Okay, this is an extension of item 40 intended to be a general
discussion of the role of fair witnesses. While I agree with what
Popcorn said about letting fw's have enough leeway to develop and
expand their conferences and discussions, I still think there can
be some broad definition of a fair witness and maybe thre e or
four general fw rules that any fw can abide by. This will clarify
and hopefullly avoid many future fw disputes. Here's what I
propose that somebody official propose:
1. The fairwitness agrees to take responsibility for starting and
maintaining the conference, with the sole objective after creation
of the conference being its development.
2. The fairwitness is a member of the conference like anyone else who
joins it and is not a representative of cfadmin or staff of Grex. It
is agreed that the fw may take the role of moderator in conferencing
disputes, but that except in unusual circumstances, it is understood
that the readers of the conf are joint owners and jointly responsible
for its content. Where possible, majority consensus of the readers
as determined by the fair witness, will determine the outcome of any
disputes.
3. The fair witness agrees to keep the readers of the conference advised
of any policy issues relevant to the conf, and of any requests he/she
might make to cfadmin to either be replaced as fw or to add additional fws.
Thats it. Three guidelines. I dont think this seriously hampers the
ability of any fw to control or develop his/her conference in the way
he/she feels is best suited. It is not my understanding that a conference
here has ever been given to an individual. All confs belong to grex
and anyone who joins a conference has a right to expect that he is a full
and equal partner in the conference.
My suggestion is that this,or something similar, be drawn up and that
the fw issue be on the agenda at a future board meeting. I really think
that as grex grows larger, you are going to want to have something on hand that
that at the very least broadly defines what the Board expects out of an fw.
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| 154 responses total. |
kerouac
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response 1 of 154:
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Mar 20 02:55 UTC 1996 |
And with CDA on the horizon, fair witnesses could be held liable
for material they havent properly censored in their confs. So this is
actually a way of protecting fws if you think about it.
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davel
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response 2 of 154:
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Mar 20 03:19 UTC 1996 |
I personally would be very uncomfortable with these rules, here. We have a
policy, in existence since Grex has existed (I believe) of letting people
propose & start conferences freely. There are some constraints built into
the software here on what a FW may do - for instance, a FW can't censor a
response (by someone else) except at the expense of killing the entire
item - and there are several conferences besides agora & coop which *might*
be viewed as semi-official (such as garage & info) ...... but pretty much
we've encouraged people to start up conferences & run them as they please,
& the results have been mostly reasonable. I know *I* wouldn't take on the
job of starting a conference on a topic of interest to me if this required
me to say that "the readers of the conference are joint owners" of it. This
is basically a complete reversal of how we've done things; in effect, the FW
is required in advance to go along with decisions which may be decided on
later by anyone who happens to come passing through.
What Valerie said in item 40 resp 19 (& mostly what Jan said just before that)
seems to me right on target. So much so that I'd appreciate it if they (or
someone with cut-&-paste at hand) would post it here, too.
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kerouac
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response 3 of 154:
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Mar 20 03:42 UTC 1996 |
davel, the way I had it written, the fw would be bound by majority
consensus "as determined by the fw" This gives a great deal of leeway
if you ask me. And conferencing is not healthy on grex right now.
Conferencing is dying. Look at the break down steve posted earlier.
We have many confs where the person who originally proposed it is long gone.
So now there are situations where people are involved as fw's who
have different views from the original proposer(s). But because they
are the fw's, they have the authority to impose their views of what the
conf should be on people who have been in some cases members of it longer
than they have.
I think the original setup was fine probably when grex needed people to
create confs when none exsisted. But grex now has a mature conference
listing, there may not be that many more confs created in the forseeable
future. I dont want to see any of these confs die out when an fw leaves
or loses interest. I have seen many healthy conferencing environments
and what is needed is stability and clear working paramaters.
The day may come when none of the people who originally proposed the
conferences grex has are around, and chaos could develop each time
somebody tries to take over a popular conference. Grex is set up so that
the members of it are equal partners. That is one thing that is really cool
about it. So extend that philosophy to conferences. Say that if you join
it you belong to it and that you have an equal right to participate in
its development. As long as conferences are too dependent on
individuals, no conference is secure because very few people are going to stay
around forever. Look around. Grex is becoming a wasteland of dead and
inactive confs, many of which already have fws who are no longer acive.
er...active. The current setup is flawed, and if yoiu take a good long
look at conferencing on grex, you would see that.
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kerouac
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response 4 of 154:
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Mar 20 03:52 UTC 1996 |
And I would ask davel, if confs are entirely to be the domain of
whoever proposes it, why has it always been policy to discuss conference
proposals before they are implemented? Why then isnt it policy that the
onlyu thing one need do to get a conf is email cfadmin? IN fact the
practice has always been to get input from other users in coop as to
whether the confeerence is a good idea and what the conference should
encompass. This is a good policy but it makes no sense under your view,
where the fw's need not answer to anyone, any user, or even staff.
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janc
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response 5 of 154:
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Mar 20 04:28 UTC 1996 |
I don't see a need for a policy.
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robh
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response 6 of 154:
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Mar 20 06:22 UTC 1996 |
Same here.
(Amazing how brief we can be, eh? >8)
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rcurl
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response 7 of 154:
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Mar 20 07:09 UTC 1996 |
ditto
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brighn
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response 8 of 154:
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Mar 20 07:47 UTC 1996 |
The purpose of idscussing conf ideas in co-op, *I* tought, was
so that someone could come along, say "I have a vision", and tell
us all what that vision is. If people respond, that person can
use those responses to determine how wonderful or idiotic thier
vision is.
After Dark has about a dozen regular users., maybe two. I've
had two people accuse me of abusing power. I've stepped away
because of my temper three times now. Each time, I've had more
than two users ask me to stay, because "it's your conference,
brighn, it wouldn't be the same without you". So I think that,
yes, definitely, there is the perception that some conferences
are "owned" by a particular user, usually the FW. Accordions was
humdog's conference; when she left, it died. Oathbound is Sun
and Anne's; Sexulaity is Selena's; Poetry is Jenna's. Other
conferences are not really owned by anyone; Mary hardly owns
Agora; Rob doesn't exert much possessiveness over Synthesis.
As somebody else said, each conference has its own character and nature.
TO have a uniform policy would be detrimental, I think.
M-net, I undestand, *does* have a universal policy; other boards
I'm on do too. I'll admit that this may have an effect on my
behavior: on ISCA, the FWs don't simply chastise off-topic posts.
Users can be reaperd for being excessively off-topic. Because
Grex has been down or inaccessible a lot, I've been going to Monolith,
an ISCA clone with similar rules. And ther, there is no sense
that the FWs "own" the forums, either, but their power is a lot
stronger. *shrug*
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davel
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response 9 of 154:
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Mar 20 11:21 UTC 1996 |
Re #4: I've always viewed the conference-proposals policy as being
designed to allow for improvements or second thoughts, but that's just
my opinion. (Note that I say "allow for", not "require", though; people
have always been free to go ahead in the face of silence or of being told
their idea is dumb.) It also announces new conferences before they even
happen. And I can't imagine any conceivable reason at all why FWs should
be answerable to staff; why do you think it's a problem that they aren't?
What Jan, Rob, & Rane said ... except that I'm not bothering to be brief.
(As usual. <sigh>)
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scott
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response 10 of 154:
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Mar 20 11:51 UTC 1996 |
I'd go for the no rules (current) approach too. Grex actually limits FW
powers more than other similar sites; somebody from the Well who FW-ed the
Accordions conference was rather suprised to learn that FW's can't censor
individual responses.
(BTW, Mary doesn't own Agora at all, since Katie is the FW :) )
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chelsea
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response 11 of 154:
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Mar 20 13:38 UTC 1996 |
I agree with others who'd rather we not make a whole set of
general rules but rather let each conference decide how it
should work, mostly by letting the fairwitness have some
room to see what works. If problems arise I'd think they'd
best be approached within the conference taking note that
peer pressure and consensus can be all that is needed.
By the way, when I wrote asking for Coop #40 to be linked
to Cflirting I got this mail back from one of the fairwitnesses:
From selena Wed Mar 20 07:19:04 1996
Received: (from selena@localhost) by grex.cyberspace.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id
HAA21299; Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:18:59 -0500 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:18:59 -0500
From: Selena Barwens-Kershaw <selena@cyberspace.org> Message-Id:
<199603201218.HAA21299@grex.cyberspace.org> To: brighn@cyberspace.org,
chelsea@cyberspace.org, hross@cyberspace.org,
selena@cyberspace.org
Subject: coop #40
Status: R
Well, now, that's ridiculous! Linking a coop item that is proper
coop business to afterdark,because it's about inappropriate linking?
Do you have any idea how ironically mindless that sounds?
Now, I'll point AfterDarkers to the item, but no, I'm not linking
that.
Thank you for your suggestion.
/^{@ __,_ /,___,__,___,____
(___ ___ ( ___ ___ ___ )
)|___)| |___)| )| )(_,__,___,__,___,
(__/ |__ | |__ | / |__/| @cyberspace.org )
Oh, my.
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brighn
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response 12 of 154:
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Mar 20 13:47 UTC 1996 |
*shrug* *laughs* Less hostile than mail I've gotten from certain baff.
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selena
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response 13 of 154:
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Mar 20 14:08 UTC 1996 |
I have put a pointer item in AfterDark to here <actually, I'll
amend it to point to #42 now>, because I want them to be aware of this
discussion. However, I don't believe this discussion needs to be *held*
in AfterDark, and it does not fit what should be there- Light Discussion,
Flirting and Erotica.
I'm sorry if I came off as overhostile, but I feel that I've been
pushed enough of late regarding linking, and I thought it was entirely
wrong to link something so off-content to AfterDark, especially because
this all started with linking <or delinking> off-content items.
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rcurl
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response 14 of 154:
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Mar 20 15:48 UTC 1996 |
I don't think anyone "owns" a conference. Someone might be the person
that keeps it going and tends to define the character of the conference
just by virtue of frequent and creative participation, but they don't
*own* it. They are just the current sparkplug/firebrand/heart/etc.
I am very fond of meta-discussions - discussing the discussion. I think
that it is quite appropriate to have a meta-Item in a conference. If
people like to do that, they should have the opportunity in the
appropriate place. It would be silly to create a conference to have
meta-discussion of sexuality, for example: a sexuality cf is the place
to have such an item. Therefore I disagree with selena - where is
a better place for such a meta-discussion?
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kerouac
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response 15 of 154:
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Mar 21 01:16 UTC 1996 |
Yesterday I reached an agreement with Brighn, that he would re-link
my item to afterdark and let the readers decide if they wanted to
read it there. Today I came on and had mail from selena saying that she
had not only re-deleted the original item, and the follow up item on
the same subject that I had posted, but had also de-linked the coop
discussion I had initiated. My feeling is that the readers of a
conference have the right to decide for themselves what they want
to read, and that it is not the right of the fair witness to decide
for them what they are offered to read in the conference. Selena
not only unilaterally countermanded the other fw but has totally abused
her role as fw and the priildeges contained therein.
This is what I mean when I say that fairwitness roles should be spelled
out. As it is, I feel I have been wronged and I have no redress of grievance
other than to be obstinate as hell and re-post it. I have the
disputed item on file now and I have told selena that I will not, nor do I have
to, to, accept her decision. I will re-post it again and again and again.
Not because its any great item, but just on principle, because I am being
censored and not being allowed to contitribute to a conference in a way that I
believe is relevant.
One other thing. Most confs dont belong topeople. Sexuality does not
belong to selena, nor did it belong to robh before her. It is
"GREX"'s sexuality conference...we dont need ten sex confs, just one good one
I just wish thatstaff and members cared about the conferences and
their health as much as they do about hardware. The *problem* is that
too many confs are too closely identified with the fws. Grex is supposed
to be a community, and ain a community people arent censored and things
are shared. Without some semblance of order in the way fw's carry out
their functions, fw's have the will and ability to prevent this from
happening.
I'm an fw too. I worked hard to set up my little politics conf. But I
didnt want it for myself. I wanted it for grex. If I ever leave, I dont
want to have it deleted or "sell" it to some other user. Its there to
be a political forum for the benefit of any grex user and I want any user
who chooses to join to feel they are a part of it, NOT my guest. No user
should be made to feel they are a GUEST in any conference, as I currently
am being treated in After Dark. When Fair Witnesses have the ability to
make users feel this way, it is contrary to the goals of Grex and the
idea of community.
Thats why I am saying the board should consider a few fw guidelines. I'm
willing to live by whatever is come up with in "politics", I dont see why
it should be so hard for you other fw's to accept.
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carson
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response 16 of 154:
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Mar 21 01:49 UTC 1996 |
I don't believe that the "guidelines" (nice switch from "rules," BTW)
you propose move Grex towards a community, but rather away from it.
I still disagree that conferences are dying, but that's another item. 8^)
I see selena's reasoning, and if I put it into the context of why
there is an afterdark conference now, I think I might even agree.
If any conferences are perceived as being "owned" by a FW, the fault is
with the perceiver. Setting policy won't change that.
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kerouac
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response 17 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:13 UTC 1996 |
All Im saying is that I shouldnt have to have permission from the fw
to run an item in a conference, particularly if the item is neither
malicious or in bad taste. Just because there is a conference on "x",
does not mean that items about "x" can only be posted in that conf. Even
if my item is out of place, which I dont think it is, I dont think the fw
has the right to make that determination. The readers do. It is called
the "forget" command. I think the "kill" command in the fw file directory
should be removed, because while items can reasonably be retired or
frozen, there should never be any reason outside of extraordinatry
circumstances, for an item to be deleted entirely. And when such
extraordinary circumstances exsist, cfadmin can do the deleting.......
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giry
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response 18 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:17 UTC 1996 |
As the only non-fw After Dark member reading this I believe... I think this
is just insane.... I have thought once or twice of leaving and now that I know
that all of this is still going on itis a consideration. This is so sad. I
personally think that there are too many fw's there. Just recently there were
4 and i don't think there is enough work for more than one. The only semi
diplomatic fw I have seen on After Dark is Hross (sorry to brighn and selena),
but he is not around as much as brighn or selena... I don't know what the
solution to this is,but it is getting VERY uncomfortable within After Dark
and with in the last month or so i can think of 4 people who left because they
were fed up... now should this happen? What can be done to stop it?
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carson
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response 19 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:20 UTC 1996 |
I dunno. I think the opportunity passed a year ago. 8^)
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kerouac
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response 20 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:26 UTC 1996 |
I dont wish this to be a bad situation. I'm the fw of politics. If
someone posts an article on graphic sex in politics, I wouldnt delete it.
If someone posts an article on cooking in there, I wouldnt delete it.
I would contact the fws of the appropriate confs and ask them to link
the item, and maybe try to find some political drift in the subject
matter, but I would not delete it. Period.
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scott
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response 21 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:38 UTC 1996 |
Well, you could be FW of your own HSex type conf...
Nothing in the rules against counter-programming.
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kerouac
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response 22 of 154:
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Mar 21 02:46 UTC 1996 |
Helmke, the users of grex dont want redundant confs...those are the
sort of proposals that get shot down. Dont you understand that users
will leave, or never come at all, without a solid cohesive
conferencing atmosphere that makes it clear they are welcome and
where certain topics are usually discussed. There's too much
cliqueishness as it is around here, without letting individuals
dominate conferences. Confs arent mailing lists run out of the fw's
mailbox. They are open, public areas. They should be treated with
care and should never be anyone's private domain.
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kerouac
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response 23 of 154:
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Mar 21 04:06 UTC 1996 |
For the record, in response to giry's post, I have suggested to
the fw's of both After Dark and HSexuality that the idea six months
ago or whenever it was, to split the Sex conference was flawed. A
good idea but one that turned out to have been done too strictly.
The idea behind splitting the sexuality conference was to allow more
room for the drift that the topic of "sex" naturally spawns. But
the way it is done, with all this linking, is unneccary. We can
have two distinct "sexuality" confs....Sex I and Sex II, that can
allow full fledged both serious and bs discussion.
Since they have different names, and different presentations to
make them unique, as they do, I have suggested that the confs should not
have the same people as fw's and items should not be linked between them
unless especially requested. Since the "sex" pointer will continue to be
directed at AD it will get more of the light, flirting items and a
heavier .cf file load in general but nothing need be limited in either
conference.
The confusion arose because you had a lot of gray area in some responses
that were clearly suitable for both. Anyway I think this suggestion
will save the fw's a lot of grief. I have suggested this to the fw's and
in the appropriate conf. I wanted to state it here because I feel like
Im coming off as mean and vindicative here when honestly I just want to
be constructive.
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giry
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response 24 of 154:
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Mar 21 04:39 UTC 1996 |
I am glad that this is going on, it needed to be done in that conference, and
I know that sounds bad, hopefully this will not turn into a flame war in AD.
I do not want tht to happen and I have asked ADers to take a look in here and
I hope that they do.
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