response 101 of 163:

Mar 5 23:49 UTC 2004

cmngee and twila are simply playing word games to avoid the real issue, which
is that users were denied control over their own words as part of doing
personal favors for favored persons. They both fail to see that the reason
there are absolute principles about censorship before *or* after the fact is
because otherwise expression (words) is lost when the twilas and cmgees of
the world start making value judgments like "those weren't really ideas, they
were just commentary." What a boatload of bullshit. Shame on both of you.

And FWIW, my words were not commentary, they were ideas posted to benefit
everyone, not just jep's sorry ingrateful ass.

The ignorance and/or intellectual dishonesty shown by the likes of cmgee
and twila is stunning. BTW, prior restraint is just one form of
censorship. The actual definition in my Webster's unabridged is 

"to examine, review, *expurgate* or change as a censor." 

A censor is defined as "a person whose task is to examine literature,
motion pictures, etc. to *remove* or prohibit anything considered
unsuitable." Note that prior and post publication actions are covered.

response 103 of 163:

Mar 6 00:28 UTC 2004

I hope someone copies verbatim their previous answer to that comment.

response 105 of 163:

Mar 6 02:29 UTC 2004

Isn't there a copy in gelinas' house?

response 107 of 163:

Mar 6 03:27 UTC 2004

re102:  why should he have to make a copy to have them
        preserved?  you are defending the actions of
        a cowarly vandal.

response 109 of 163:

Mar 6 04:43 UTC 2004

Well, she didn't ENTIRELY destroy the items, as far as we know.  There could
still be copies on the GreX pumpkin backup tapes

response 111 of 163:

Mar 6 13:57 UTC 2004

Mnet was down for a month from vandal activity.  Grex backups are rare at
best.

By not keeping copies of your works given what you know about the reliability
of unsecured, open Internet sites, you've pretty much proven that you don't
care that much about your words.  Whether the loss was due to a staff abuse
or any other source is irrelevant.

response 113 of 163:

Mar 6 15:30 UTC 2004

My logic is just as good as yours.  You valued your words that much, you
should have done something to protect them.  You KNEW that Grex was not a
guaranteed safe place for data - doesn't matter how the damage was done.

response 115 of 163:

Mar 6 19:26 UTC 2004

Scott's logic is defective in many, many ways. He also fails to recall my
very detailed arguments as to why the the "safeguarding" of one's posts is
a complete red herring (here's a reminder scott: what if a poster died?). 
The words have value regardless of the permanence of storage or the
safeguards to retain them. 

Censors are people who make value judgments about the texts based on the
qualities they attribute to the words and/or the authors. Scott seems to
think words are not worth preserving if the original authors take no steps
to preserve. If he wants to live in his fantasy world, great, but I have
lost all respect for his intellectual capacity. 

Using Scott's twisted "logic" if a person didn't attend to their health,
it would be OK to murder them because they didn't plan to live long
anyway. 

response 117 of 163:

Mar 6 21:21 UTC 2004

Re 115:  So it's not about the value of your own words, then?  That would
explain why you hadn't even posted them under your own name.

Look, you could go ahead and just say you've changed your mind, given the way
those items were removed.  Just don't try to argue logic here, or present any
more faulty analogies.  It's very hard to take you seriously when you
essentially saying that your words are important, but that you didn't care
enough to preserve them yourself.

response 119 of 163:

Mar 6 22:57 UTC 2004

Scott & Cyklone:

Read item 75, responses 155 - 167 .

Thanks.

response 121 of 163:

Mar 7 13:26 UTC 2004

Re #117: " It's very hard to take you seriously when you essentially
saying that your words are important, but that you didn't care enough to
preserve them yourself." 

So even if words have value to a third party, the should nevertheless be
denied access to those words simply because the author for whatever
reasons did not to take your required steps to designate those words
worthy of preservation? Get a clue, moron. You don't even realize that by
piling value judgment upon value judgment you are engaging in the very
behavior free speech prinicples seek to avoid. 

You also have a wonderful way of blaming the victims for Valerie's abusive
behavior and to justify the shamefully unprinciple vote of the grexers who
supported personal favors for favored persons.

response 123 of 163:

Mar 7 15:00 UTC 2004

I'm not blaming the victim, actually.  I'm saying that you are making 
yourself out to be the abused and aggrieved victim, when your (lack of) 
actions previously seem to say otherwise.

As I said a couple responses ago, I would accept that once the deletions
occurred you suddenly found yourself much more concerned about the survival
of your words than before, and that in retrospect you would have made your
own backups.

BTW, calling me a moron is not helping your logic any.  And it would help if
you could decide once and for all whether you're concerned about your own
access or a hypothetical "third party" access to your words.

Hmm... didn't we have yet another huge argument here a while back about what
sort of license was being given/loaned to Grex to keep a copy of people's
words online?  This was part of the scribble log debate.