Guys, I'm sorry. I really do apologise. I admit; I started it all. It was I who caused a former member and dedicated former staffer of GreX to leave the GreX community. It was also I who caused a well-known GreX member to spend weeks of his time in great duress, wondering if his cause would be passed. It was I who caused a great rift in the thinkings of the GreX public, a great wave of conflicts and disinformation. Yes, it was I who initiated all of the above. But now I wish to change things. Everything started with item 68 in this conference, which I entered. Now, any future user of GreX who comes upon this conference will read this item and see that the information in its first response caused an enormous battle. Naturally, they will believe the person who entered that item must be very bad indeed, and must have a truly evil intent. Therefore I call upon the GreX staff, board, and members to bring about the deletion of item 68 in this conference. With it gone, I can finally be at peace with any future GreX members and users. I will not have to worry about those people (who knows, maybe even JEP's son) carrying a deep and intense hatred towards myself. I will truly be happy if that item is gone. Please, call upon your morals and do what's right. Delete that item, I beg you.109 responses total.
Wouldn't it have been easier to pay the USD18 and vote for the 'no deletion' proposal, when it comes up for a vote?
He shouldn't have to pay anything to get Grex's staff to do what's right, gelinas.
Exactly, unless you're saying members get special treatment.
What is "the right thing"?
"That's what this vote will tell us"
Remember, the top priority here is community. If we delete this item, then we can all put this behind us and continue on. Especially me.
Just about a month ago, I wrote:
"Approving this proposal may set a precedent, but the
precedent will be quickly made moot, but [sic] an explicit
change in policy. It will not be possible to argue, 'He got
to, so I should be able to, too,' because of all the argument
around this issue: It is very clear to any reasonable person
(and we don't worry about unreasonable ones) that this
*is* an exception, in an exceptional situation" (Item 76,
Response 67).
I just noticed a typographical error in the quote: it should say "by an
explicit change in policy." That change has now been proposed. I am
reluctant to take any action on deletions until the policy is clarified.
So you admit an exception was made for jep.
The logical question that follows is, 'why jep' ?
As I've said, I voted for restoration and against the exception. You're arguing the wrong questions with the wrong person.
So now you admit you're an enemy of an upstanding GreX citizen and decorated former staff member! I call for a court-martial.
Yes! Old GreX is crumbling like a rotten door: just give it one solid kick! They're now turning on themselves! Look at what we can see through the door: New GreX!
I'm only gonna say this once: If you respond to anything entered by naftee, polytarp or any of those jerkoffs, YOU are the problem. Do you understand, gelinas?
Sorry, I forgot, you're only allowed to do what you think is right if your name is VALERIE or JOHN.
I am sorry that you guys are feeling hurt because a bunch of members voted with their hearts and decided to give special treatment to people they care about. Personally, I voted to restore the items but I cant really blame people who voted the other way. I totally understand it. Is it special treatment for special people? Yep. Those people spent a lot of time forming relationships with other people who happen to be members. Those members decided to make an exception to the norm around here as is their right according to the grex bylaws. I can see how you see this as being unfair. I guess in a way it is. But, sometimes life is unfair and having some of your words deleted isnt the end of the world. I promise.
Anyone who suggests that a society cannot hold its principles and still occasionally violate them as a society for what it perceives as legitimate reasons cannot be expected to understand the simple notion that societies are made up of people and thus cannot serve their own interests if they remain rigid and inflexible in the application of those principles.
This response has been erased.
This response has been erased.
To use the PC word of the millennium, these clowns are being disingenuous. jep was not given special treatment via vote in the deletion of his items - that was carried out by a rogue staff. The recent vote was about whether to leave all the items deleted, since the damage had already been done. Only a weak mind cannot see the difference between the two. There is no existing policy allowing for the on-demand removal of items on request of the creator.
#17: Principles are by their nature generalities. No generality can adequately address all possible cases. Principles, as generalities, work because they guide actions through MOST scenarios, and in fact, the level of debate spurred by the instances in which they are not adequate is indicative of their strength. However, to suggest that they cannot be compromised in the slightest no matter the circumstance, is utterly ridiculous. That would be the policy of a machine which is incapable of making decisions without specific programming, not policy acceptable for the government of human societies.
This response has been erased.
Why not?
remove the free speech ribbon from the website, please.
re 19 "since the damage had already been done." I truly believe that the users of GreX would have voted the same way, regardless of whether or not it occurred before or after the fact. re 15 So you're saying I'm not special? :(
SLIP ( I agree with #23)
Great. Now JEP has left. Do you guys realise how bad item 68 makes me feel now?! Please delete it.
I can't believe I am still struggling to make a point that should be clear to a sixth grader. I do not a believe a single person involved in this debate claimed there was an absolute "no exceptions" rule against censorship. For instance, we all agree that credit card numbers could be removed. Starting from that basis then, no can possibly frame the argument as one in which the "anti-censors" were seeking to impose rigid principles with no flexibility. In my case, I begged the users to explain what CRITERIA they intended to use to determine whether an exception was warranted. I even suggested what I believed would be appropriate criteria to consider. Rather than engage in any principled (ooh, there's that word again) discussion, the conversations almost invariably returned to (a) "jep and valerie claimed they would be harmed, and that's good enough for me", or (b) "stop talking about principles, we should be allowed to do favors for our friends; that's how we show what a caring community we are!" Note, though, that in neither case have you created any guiding basis for deciding how to proceed in the future. Once again, someone can come along, make vague and unsupported allegations of harm and then point to valerie and jep as reasons to support a third request for deletion. Or someone insider can come along and attempt to obtain a personal favor as a favored person. NOTHING HAS BEEN RESOLVED. Please remove the free speech ribbon from the website. It has no place on grex.
it has become a soiled hypocrit-ribbon and that makes me sad. :(...
This response has been erased.
:(~~~
Would someone please enter a citizen member's in good standings' initiative to have the free speech non-sense removed?
Not me. What valerie did was not done for the purpose of suppressing others' views, their ability to express views. As much as I disagree with what was done, it does not constitute to me a fundamental, permanent shift in how grex perceives or supports free speech. That's true even if the membership voted not to restore the deleted items. > I truly believe that the users of GreX would have voted the same way, > regardless of whether or not it occurred before or after the fact. Perhaps - who knows? I don't believe that the members, if asked *before* the fact, "is it OK to kill these items based on the following feelings from valerie & jep?", would have voted to allow deletion. I think it more likely that most of them would have agreed to scribble their own responses, to yield as close as possible the same result. If the vote *had* been in favor to allow it, I think it would have been very close, more like 50/50 than 2/1.
This response has been erased.
You're a member - make a proposal.
The calls for the removal of the blue ribbon seem to be predominantly coming from those whose own hypocrisy in suggesting that their judgement of what it means to support free speech is superior to that of the Grex community at large should, in the mind of any reasonable reader, cause those calls to be vigorously denied. If the retention of the blue ribbon on the website becomes a matter of policy to be determined by vote because of this series of events, it will only further support the basis for keeping it there in the first place.
Right, Grex should mislead people who give it money.
This response has been erased.
Re 335: Call me one of the hypocrites, but surely you cannot possibly be claiming the ACLU believes the correct level of free speech is determined by those supressing it. The ACLU may or may not agree that Grex has crossed the censorship line. I can assure you, though, the ACLU does have an objective standard and that standard is not based on personal favors for favored persons. If you are going to interfere with speech you damn well have a better reason than that. Lose the ribbon.
The Blue Ribbon is linked to EFF, not the ACLU. Try clicking on it to learn a little about what you are purporting to talk about. Short form: You are not in touch with reality.
Right, EFF supports staff members who support favouritism.
The EFF is a member corporation of the ACLU.
Again, I think the real crux of the argument was that the deleted items contained responses from people other than the authors. Those responses were deleted without warning and without permission. That's some kind of suppression or censorship, isn't it?
exactly. remove the ribbon, please.
No, it's not censorship. Despite many attempts to claim so.
"The ACLU may or may not agree that Grex has crossed the censorship line." No, cy, the ACLU is concerned with *government* attempts to suppress free speech on the Internet. As a card-carrying member (when I can stand their obnoxious fund-raising blitzes) I know whereof I speak. Grex has no obligation, least of all any legal obligation, to preserve every post everyone makes. The Grexers That Be can delete anything they please, for any reason they please. Grex supports the EFF, I guess, as we all should. If the government ever started regulating private bbses like Grex so as to prevent them from deleting text, for example, that's when EFF and ACLU would step in to defend Grex. You're on the wrong side of this argument!
There are more cute girls on this side of the argument.
Re #45: I absolutely understand the ACLU is concerned about government actions and not private actions such as Grex. And if the ribbon is related to the EFF rather than the ACLU, then simply subsitute EFF for ACLU in my comments. My point is NOT that Grex is engaged in "illegal" censorship. My point is that if Grex purports to be a bastion of free speech in the face of government attempts to supress same, then its current stance is hypocritical (criticising the government for behavior you engage in yourself is not very persuasive even if legal). Reread my posts and you will see that what I am concerned about is that grex decide whether there will be (a) principled reasons for removing control over individual posts from the person who posted them or (b) whether there will be no such standards and instead a system of personal favors for favored persons. So tell me gelinas, what do you think is "not in touch with reality" about that concern?
And plus there are more cute girls on this side of the argument.
well, you point to where the government told us to censor any items and it was done, adn I will agree. Otherwise, get off it.
This response has been erased.
Guys, I feel terrible now. User gull has stated that m-netters are attempting to destroy GreX. This makes me feel HORRIBLE. And now everyone's going to say I started destroying GreX by entering item 68! Pleas, for my sanity, delete item 68.
Yeah. You guys are being cruel.
ESPECIALLY by not deleting the item!!
And BTW, valerie's decision to kill the items does not speak for grex.
Being cruel doesn't speak well for GreX.
re 54 No, but the vote does.
Re #49: Still grasping at straws to justify personal favors for favored persons?
"My point is that if Grex purports to be a bastion of free speech in the face of government attempts to supress same, then its current stance is hypocritical (criticising the government for behavior you engage in yourself is not very persuasive even if legal)." It is unreasonable to say that a bbs can't oppose government attempts to control Internet content unless it lets itself be ass-fucked by every troll in the neighborhood. And there is nothing hypocritical about a private bbs supporting the broadest interpretation of the First Amendment while at the same time allowing selective deletion of material. Call it personal favors for favored people, if you like, because that's what it is. I understand you'd kick Anna Kournikova out of bed if she didn't demonstrate the strictest principles, but you're probably a minority of one there. ;-)
Btw, I keep replying to cy's posts here because he seems like someone who cares about the issues, rather than just a Grex chain-yanker.
This response has been erased.
I agree with your last, md. cyklone, "personal favors for favored persons" is NOT censorship. Nor is it, really, suppression of free speech. It may be wrong, but it does not make the Blue Ribbon hypocritical. If you wll admit that, you'll have gotten back in touch with reality.
This response has been erased.
His brain's sick.
By the way: it's wrong to say the EFF (an ACLU member corporation) is only concerned with govermental infringement of God-given rights. You know for a fact that, as just one example, they helped stop Scientology from ruining everything.
Also: don't think for one second that they won't come after the lying filthy j*w-ridden Grex next.
Let's play....SPOT THE JEW.
You know, if you want the blue ribbon taken off the site, please feel free to write to EFF. I suspect that they will not ask Grex to remove the ribbon.
Re #58: Bless you, md. You are are one of the few people honest enough to admit this was about personal favors for favored persons. Many others twist themselves in knots to avoid that admission. From what I read earlier today, some even get nauseous contemplating the phrase . . . . Re #67: I disagree with the distinction you are trying to make. Even if you convince yourself the side effect of your personal favor for the favored person was merely "incidental" removal of speech, it nevertheless has the reek of censorship. Of course, I think you are arguing definitions and I am arguing effect. Call it whatever you want, define it however you want, but MY WORDS were removed without my permission. The fact jep was too much of a weasel to even tell me specifically why he felt the need to control my words only added insult to injury. Like md, though, I give you credit for being honest enough to admit this was about personal favors for favored persons. Like I said before (and take note this is not directed at you personally, gelinas) all you "personal favorers" may have won the battle, but you lost the war. You killed the patient to save it. You may think I'm exaggerating, but in fact grex will never again be the same. EVER.
Btw, I don't think Anna Kournikova is looking that great anymore. She had that adorable sly/innocent teenager face for a while, but now she's turning into a slavic mama. You can smell the cabbage. (Cy's Law: in every newsgroup or bbs debate someone eventually mentions Anna Kournikova.)
Btw, the population of people who find a personal favor for a favored person to be acceptable includes the parties involved, those who like one or both parties involved, those who don't give a rat's ass, those who are thinking they might want such a favor themselves some day, those who dislike the people who oppose the favor even more than they dislike the parties to it, and I'm sure many others. The people who find it offensive -- and *boy* do they find it offensive -- are people who have what they imagine to be principles about such favors (obviously not as silly to them as it seems to the rest of us), and those who have issues with the parties involved. Those two are interrelated. For example, if you thought valerie's baby diary was a self-indulgent pile of crap, or if you thought valerie herself was an obnoxious microparenter or a "Laleche fascist" or whatever, any principles you had on the subject are likely to have a sudden growth spurt (le mot juste!). Anyway, in the case at hand, the second category is certainly much smaller than the first, so I don't see the vote changing in the foreseeable future. As to Grex "never being the same again" -- dude, this happened because Grex *is* the same.
THose who find it offensive seem to believe that it would be a repeatable favor. In fact both people so "blessed" have left the system under a storm of complaint. I'd gladly honor such a request from jp2, polytarp, etc. if I thought they were honest enough to leave as well.
Only if they took all their pseudos with them, though, right?
re 71 You just admitted that your supposed change in policy for the good of GreX is in fact the cause for its demise!
scott, are you implying that jep and valerie REALLY left? I'm skeptical. I've read too many responses from the vanished after they reportedly have gone for good.
They've dropped out of other conferences they used to habituate, and they seem to come back here only because they keep getting dragged back into the discussion.
but how would they KNOW that if they have left for good? And more importantly, WHY WOULD THEY CARE?
This response has been erased.
Do you even REALIZE the utter senselessness of your phrase "fascist resulting votes?" The membership of Grex chose to allow this one-time single (or double) violation to stand out of respect for the real concerns of the people involved (call it favors for favored persons if you like, but the fact remains that the majority of the membership SUPPORTED that one-time choice). The policy is unchanged from what it was before, and the general respect for and appreciation of the rights of free speech are unaltered by these events. The blue ribbon *properly* represents the policies and general practices of this organization. If you cannot accept that a significant majority of the Grex membership agrees with this statement, then you are free to leave. To continue to state that there is either a policy or any practice of wrongful abrogation of free speech on Grex not only flies in the face of the facts but marks you as either incapable of appreciating the subtleties of meaning involved or engaged in a desperate attempt to sabotage this community and destroy the ability of those who support it to enjoy what they have created. The terms sound hyperbolic, but that is the only impact.
So where were all you arguers when the Sex conference was annihilated?
This response has been erased.
On the contrary, a tyranny of the majority is Democracy.
This response has been erased.
You fall into the trap of assuming that there is any objective measure of the legitimacy of Grex's democracy other than that accepted by the majority of its membership. I suggest giving up this line of argument, because you can't win.
This response has been erased.
This response has been erased.
84: "none of those supporting censorship in their vote were affected by the deletions" Prove it. 85: If the stiffness of your penis is the indication we're to rely upon to determine legitimacy, then you'll have to post photos and prove to our satisfaction the functionality of the instrument.
This response has been erased.
This response has been erased.
My text was in fact affected by the vote. Stuff that I held valuable (things I wrote about Griffin and his birth, and his development, for example). But I voted for the continued deletion of the items anyway, because I felt that it was in fact not censorship after the fact. If someone buys/collects every issue of _Current_ that has something I wrote in it and destroys them, I don't think that I was censored. I was published. It just didn't last. Big whoop.
This response has been erased.
I too had posted in Valerie's items and in jeps items. I had text that was affected by the vote. I voted not to restore the items.
Yes, but you could have voted to restore and then voluntarily deleted your posts. Instead you voted to impose your will on MY words without any clear evidence justifying such a drastic action. Shame on all of you who voted to do a personal favor for a favored person at the expense of us less favored persons.
Mkay! ;-)
This response has been erased.
biatch
Yes, Valerie has really left. If jp2's proposal comes up for a vote again, I'll tell her and she'll log in and vote against it again. If anything else happens that I think she might want to give input on, I'll tell her and she may want to log in. I might spend a couple sentances a week telling her about interesting developments in the lives of Grex users. I still occasionally ask her technical questions about Grex's operations. But I do not expect her ever to rejoin Grex in any substantial way. I have no idea if she intends to renew her membership when it comes due.
her baby's almost due
Is that whore pregnant again?
That was really disgusting, you two (rational and naftee). What in the world could condone insulting someone like that?
To clarify: I don't think naftee said anything even remotely offensive, and what I said was an in-joke and not really directed at Ms Mates; just fit into the conversation. By the way, have you fit a FREEDOM OF SPEECH RIBBON GREX into your shirt?
re99: ...and you are stupid enough to get sucked in by them, duh.
This response has been erased.
mmm.... waffles...
She already explained that we were *forcing* her to return.
Yes, I suspect jamie showed up at her house with his posse and forced her to log on.
This response has been erased.
jp2-live-crew
Bum rush the conference. Yo.
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
You have several choices: