response 106 of 157:

Feb 7 14:58 UTC 2004

Alrighty, then. I retract my statement about the apology owed.

response 108 of 157:

Feb 7 15:48 UTC 2004

Cyklone, this is not a court of law.  Grex policy is not law.  We get to
decide what that policy is, and we get to decide what we want Grex to be.

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.

So, here we are, voting to decide which course of action is the lesser of
two evils.  Like Mary, I think there is room for reasonable people to
disagree.

response 112 of 157:

Feb 7 16:05 UTC 2004

Cyklone and jp2, I was sharing my impressions of what people have said and
implied in these debates. Richard, at the very least, is upset that everything
written on Grex is not going to be preserved. I don't know if anyone else
shares his views, but it certainly seemed to be the thrust of several other
comments. 

As for thinking that Grex was a private and somehow cliquish thing, no, I
never thought that, exactly. I knew it was open, and that people could read
it. But I also didn't think of it like USENET -- it's small and not very many
people have even heard of it (I think, of every computer savvy person I've
ever mentioned it to in verbal communication, maybe one has even heard of
it... and that's in Ann Arbor, where it's based.) Of the subset of people who
do use it, what percentage reads the conferences? According to the staff I've
spoken to, not even half. Maybe not even a quarter. That's still quite a lot
of people, true, but I also thought, perhaps mistakenly, that there was a
culture of civility and etiquette around here. That most of the users who did
read and respond in agora understood that people should be treated with
respect and that people's feelings mattered. I left M-net after being fed up
with all of the "fucks" and "shitdicks" and gratuitous insults flung around.
I didn't wish to have a conversation where that kind of thing was common. So
I walked away and found a place where it felt as if there was an understod
respect for the other person. Whether or not I liked or agreed with various
users, at least we could discuss our differences with respect to each other
as people. This has changed in the last several years, and not for the better.
I have always thought that one could argue without descending to personal
insults. 

response 114 of 157:

Feb 7 16:33 UTC 2004

Re #109:  I don't think people who abuse their staff privileges should be
          allowed to benefit from doing it.  I feel that way especially
          where censoring other people's words is concerned.

          Keep in mind that I completely agree that both Valerie and John
          have the right to remove their own words.  I just don't agree that
          Valerie has the right to remove other people's just because she
          doesn't want people to read what they said about her, or because
          John doesn't want people to read what others said about him.

          I'd think both items should come back minus John and Valerie's
          responses, no matter what the procedure was.  Personally, I'd be
          willing to scribble my responses in John's item if he asked --
          but he should ASK, because they're my responses.  I'm still
          willing to.
          

response 116 of 157:

Feb 7 17:10 UTC 2004

Religious people tend to be more adamant than average about everyone having
to follow the rules (no matter how illogical the rules may be).  But the
Catholic Church has come up with a way to deal with people who break the rules
- you confess, apologize, promise never to do it again, and maybe contribute
something to the church in exchange.  What sort of apology could valerie and
jep make here that would satisfy people?  I recall someone a while back
actually asking for financial reparation to grex from jep.  
Could he maybe volunteer to take over some of the more tedious staff duties,
such as answering requests for help?

response 118 of 157:

Feb 7 17:35 UTC 2004

Grex is a private system and the people who run it may be expected to 
do favors for their friends from time to time.  If you want copies of 
some responses of yours in the items valerie and jep started, it's 
reasonable to ask for copies of them.  But it is not reasonable to 
expect your responses to remain on public display until you want them 
removed.  You can remove them any time you like, but it's unreasonable 
to ask the administrators to automatically preserve them in public 
view.  If valerie or jep had asked me beforehand for my consent to 
delete their items, I'd've said: Yeah, sure.  So they didn't ask me, 
they just did it.  So valerie hates to be parodied.  So what??  

Jamie's "This is a deliberate censorship designed to frighten those who 
are not in Grex's upper class into silence" is drama queen idiocy.  
Talk about estrogen poisoning.  In the first place, nobody 
is "frightened," nor was that ever the intent.  In the second place, 
Grex has nothing resembling an "upper class," or if it does, the 
definition depends on whomever you're talking to.  (Ask me, and I'll 
say it's obviously me.)

Anyway, I vote not to restore the items publicly in any form.

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.

response 122 of 157:

Feb 7 19:23 UTC 2004

Well, as I said earlier in this discussion, all it would take would be one
post in agora or a conversation in party for someone to say "oh, btw, you
might want to check out item X. You might find it interesting." Certainly of
such an item had been in existence when jep began his one of us would have
mentioned it to him.

response 124 of 157:

Feb 7 21:38 UTC 2004

Childish behaviour from children is of course to be expected.

response 126 of 157:

Feb 7 23:10 UTC 2004

Re resp:64, resp:71: Sure.  And we could be like M-Net, where everyone
uses pseudos for fear of becoming personally involved, and discussion
consists mainly of exchanges of insults.  If people can no longer feel
comfortable talking about their own lives here, that's what we'll be
left with.  Shitdicks and half-assed parody.


Re resp:90: "I resent the fact that some people are apparently so
lacking in empathy that they can say "it's only pixels. it's only the
internet" when people do very clearly do find these pixels to be
communication and ways to reach out to other people."

I think it's an attitude born of hanging out places like M-net, where
there's a sense that everyone's just playing a shallow pseudo and no one
is revealing who they really are.  You can beat up on them all you want
because they're not real people and don't feel pain.


Re resp:110: In other words, Valerie is no longer here, so we have to
punish jep in her place?


Re resp:120: I'd like you to explain why you feel free speech means
publishing your words forever.  If a library recycles old copies of the
New York Times, are they therefore censoring everyone who wrote a letter
to the editor?