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?

response 132 of 157:

Feb 8 02:17 UTC 2004

Violent disagreement to cover-up jep's violent crime.

response 134 of 157:

Feb 8 04:12 UTC 2004

While we are at it, let's wipe all of m-net too.

response 138 of 157:

Feb 8 04:41 UTC 2004

What's fucked up is that she revealed that her inner emotions are destroying
her!

response 140 of 157:

Feb 8 15:43 UTC 2004

Polls are closed.  A few corrections.

Valerie did not admit that she knowing did wrong when she deleted 
John's items.  When she deleted her own, she thought some people would 
be dissappointed to see them go, but never expected there to be any 
serious outcry.  She thought it was obviously within her rights and 
expected others to think so too.  By the time Valerie deleted John's 
item she had found out that many people did seriously object and that 
most perceived it to be in violation of a rule she hadn't heard of.  
But she did it anyway because she believed (and still believes) that it 
was right.  She left staff not out of contrition or shame, but because 
it was obvious that her values were no longer in sync with Grex's.

It is also not true that nobody fears the outcome of this vote.  I know 
two who fear it on a rather personal basis, and several who fear it on 
a less personal basis.  Restoration might have a chilling effect on a 
few people, and I can think of at least one person who might be tempted 
to stop posting on Grex in protest if they are not restored.  This is 
not an easy issue.