1 new of 157 responses total.

It would be nice of janc could try to keep up with ongoing discussions rather
than playing the "up to my gills in work" card followed by a rehash of issues
already addressed (and BTW, I've spent the last three days trying to counter
jep's personal BS and obfuscation while fighting a nasty flu, so spare
us the lame excuses).

Anyway, janc misses a few points that must be addressed. He notes that
jep's purported reason for his deletion request is "He fears that material
from those items could someday be used against him or his son." This is
true as far as it goes, which is not very far. I have REPEATEDLY asked jep
for specifics regarding this alleged fear. Jep CONTINUOUSLY REFUSES to
provide any details whatsover, saying at one point "I haven't discussed in
great detail the reasons I think there is risk from those items.  I don't
want to.  More detail about that isn't going to change the discussion." 
(Item 76, #153). Thus, janc is asking readers to support the drastic
implemenation of censorship to satisfy the request of a user who is
himself UNWILLING to provide any meaningful justification for imposing
such a drastic measure. Instead, janc appears to be falling for jep's
clever ploy of implying vague harms to himself or his son, and then
failing to support such claims, while instead allowing those already
predisposed to do a personal favor for a favored person to create their
own worst case scenario that will give them the maximum warm fuzzy to
justify their support of censorship.

If janc weren't personally connected to this dispute, I expect he would
have seen through that intellectual dishonesty almost immediately.
Unfortunately, though, janc is blinded, as seen by his later statement:

"Neither of these items were active discussions.  John's divorce item
 has not been active for a couple years.  Valerie's most recent baby item
 had been frozen for weeks before it was removed, and the others were as
 much as five years old.  If their deletion had not been announced, it
 could have been a long time before anyone noticed that they were gone.
 Furthermore, it is not systematic censorship of any idea, opinion,
 or person that is being proposed here.  If anyone who gave John advice
 in his divorce item wishs to give the same advice again, they are not
 being prevented.  If this is censorship, then it is a form of censorship
 that does not interfere at all with active discussions."

As I have mentioned in other discussions elsewhere (please try to keep up
janc, as it gets really tedious having to go over the same ground over and
over like some neverending game of whack-a-mole) Grex does suffer a harm
regardless of how long the items in question are idle. My recent example
was a new item about divorce posted by someone other than jep. It is quite
possible that at some point in the item jep's item will be mentioned. It
should therefore be available to assist other users facing similar
situations. JEP HIMSELF SAID HE WISHED SUCH AN ITEM EXISTED when he was
going through his divorce. It's a shame janc can't keep his facts
straight. 

It is also disingenuous for him to suggest that even if what jep and
valerie want is censorship (and it most certainly is) it is some sort of
minor or barely harmful censorship, since no one is prevented from
providing similar responses in the future. This certainly begs and
interesting question or two. Does janc honestly believe that all posters
will live forever? Or that someone who posts one year will remain to
re-post five years later? I would suggest the answer to both questions is
no. Janc's "censorship-lite" still results in the removal of text and
viewpoints that (a) could be valuable and (b) are not guaranteed to be
re-entered if a similar situation arises. Of course, hidden in janc's
"argument" is a hidden and unspoken subtext, which suggests that
notwithstanding (a) and (b) there will still be "true grexers" available
to repeat their advice if necessary. Which brings us back to the "my
ball/my playpen/personal favors for favored persons" mentality that is
displayed by some (but thankfully not all) of grex's regular user base. 

Janc's "sad, tattered remains" argument has also been debunked numerous
times (you REALLY need to keep up, dude), and certain posts will remain
valuable regardless of how much else is stripped away. In any case, it
seems kind of odd to argue that by removing their text, jep and valerie
harm the content of their own items so much as to AT THAT POINT justify
censorship of the remaining posts. If you don't see a slippery slope
there you need your head examined.

I realize that I have been spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to
get people like janc and jep to be more honest with us in their arguments.
I realize now, though, that the problem is they cannot be honest with
themselves. How sad. 

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss