response 126 of 154:

Mar 29 18:17 UTC 1996

Um, yes, I forgot to add pillows to the list of things kerouac must be
demanding to have outlawed.

response 128 of 154:

Mar 29 20:40 UTC 1996

(..how did knives and chainsaws get into this?..are the cyberpolice going
to confiscate my Leatherman?...)

response 130 of 154:

Mar 29 22:20 UTC 1996

  davel, none of the accusations I'm making are personal.  Simply stating
that we have a disagreement.  You are simply more libertarian than
I am.  For instance, at least in DC, you cant carry a knife of anything
larger than a pocket knife on your person in public.  Thats carrying
a concealed weapon, like carrying a gun, and in most places thats
considered dangerous and a crime.  Granted, some states like Virginia
and Texas, are re-writing these laws   to turn citizens into gun-
toters but I dont agree with that.  I dont think arming everyone
protects people's liberty.  Nor do I think giving even one citizen
on each block guns to protect everyone else is a good idea.  Thats the
role of the police.  It is the role of the staff to protect the users
of this board, and there are certain things only staff should be able
to do.

An FW cant kill a conf (well he can delete all the items, but he cant
remove the conf altogether)   why doesnt the fw have this 
ability...he/she has to ask cfadmin to do this.  It makes sense.  I'm not 
in any way saying cfadmin should run all the confs, just that cfadmin 
should take responsibility for this one little command.   That is not 
creating extra layers of bureacracy.  The FW can still retire or freeze 
any item, so he still can control his conf.  


Davel, you may want to put knives and guns in the hands of everyone, but 
I dont.  I'm saying instruments that give people the right to infringe on 
the liberties of others have to be controlled.  Staff should want to 
control who can kill messages, just as it wants to control who can kill 
conferences and who can delete public files.  And I wasnt being rude, I 
was arguing.  All I ever accused Dave of was having different views than 
mine.  Views that I think are wrong.  That isnt being rude, insensitive, 
or personal.  Its just making an argument.

response 132 of 154:

Mar 30 01:41 UTC 1996

I still don't see kerouac's case for adding a layer of bureacracy, or
why he thinks of it as _not_ creating another layer. Maybe he just
sees it as a thickening of layers or something; only he knows,
apparently.

why can't a FW remove a conference? it's a function of the software,
but, even moreso, it's an organizational function. someone (and its
a few select someones at that) have the ability to create and delete
conferences. As a matter of resource allocation, it wouldn't make much
sense to make that an universal power.

of course, a certain somebody is probably asking himself "why not just
have the cfadms FW everything?" I'd say that certain somebody lacks a
few basic management skills, such as the delegation of powers.

if I were to spend a little time on it, I could come up with a list
of what conferencing powers are delegated, reserved, and shared. Suffice
to say that the powers are placed where they are out of simple 
functionality. 

response 134 of 154:

Mar 30 01:45 UTC 1996

        # 132 slipped in and said what I wanted to say in a clear and
eloquent fashion. <bows>

response 136 of 154:

Mar 30 02:31 UTC 1996

re #134....because what works fine now doesnt work so in the future
if grex becomes more populated.  The lamest excuse in the books is
to say "well it works now....."  Every society in our history that
has failed, did so because of leaders that had no foresight, who 
refused to look at what might work better should circumstances
change.  Grex isnt going to stay as it is forever.  It has the potential
for growth.  It also has the potential to die.  If it does die, it
is because those in charge refused to change, refused to accept that
grex itself would change, refused to believe that even the most minor
change is worthwhile even if it doesnt seem absolutely neccesary.

I'm telling you guys flatly that if you want more people to try this board,
to participate in the conferencing, you have to be open about everything
and you need staff that is willing to protect their right to participate.
Otherwise, this board will die a slow death, and when the cliques die out
so will grex.  

What have I suggested thats so horrible?  That staff reserve the right
to the /kill command and ONLY the /kill command.  That fw's of each
conf consider a purely voluntarily code of honor, in which they agree
that the health of a conf is a shared responsibility.

Most of what I'm getting in response is sarcasm and little one-liners, but
what I'm saying is not silly, and I'm saying it out of concern, not out
of any other reasoning.   Nothing I suggest puts handcuffs on fair
witnesses.  It just suggests that in a society you have to have boundaries.
If we want to live with each other, we have to accept common sets of rules.

If all of you who are fw's want people to participate in your confs, you
have to be willing to share those confs.  As long as fw's think and staff
allows them to think they own these confs, people arent going to want to
stick around and participate.  

response 138 of 154:

Mar 30 02:46 UTC 1996

you're addressing two separate issues, kerouac, and you haven't
presented a compelling argument for tying those issues together as
tightly as you would like.

you claim that your proposal would promote growth, yet make no substantial
argument to back your claim. perhaps it's because you realize how
flimsy that claim is; growth comes from a delegation of responsibility,
not a concentration of such. It comes from many, not a few. do you
really need an example of that?

you also make the heartfelt, if completely irrelevant, statement that "if
we want to live with each other, we have to accept common sets of rules."
newsflash: Grex has a set of common rules in place.

what you continue to suggest (and without compelling reason, again) isn't
horrible; it's simply unnecessary. it's almost as if you're suggesting a new
way to put those little m's on M & M candies. frankly, your way is more
expensive.

response 140 of 154:

Mar 30 02:57 UTC 1996

  Carson you can do those things without /killing items....that isnt a
necessary command.  When FWs decide for users which conference is more
apporpriate for a response, as opposed to letting users decide, you
alienate the users and they leave.  There are too many dead confs around
here to ignore the reasons why they died.

response 142 of 154:

Mar 30 03:30 UTC 1996

I'll just throw in how shocked I am that one of our users is suggesting
that the staff should have *more* discretionary power than it already
does.  One would think that with the ever-present rumors of the
Secret Cabal of Grex, that an opportunity for non-staffers to make
decisions affecting the system would be welcome.  Or, at least,
that the thought of giving the staff more power would be scorned.

response 144 of 154:

Mar 30 04:10 UTC 1996

I like your guess as far as why the person whose item I moved "left."
I can tell you why: it was a pseudo. The person claimed to be a
custodian at the U-M [I was working for the U-M at the time, and 
was able to quite easily verify that the person was not who he
claimed to be] who was searching for young girls to have sex with.
As a matter of fact, I verified all of that before asking my co-FW
at the time, scg, whether it was a good idea to move/remove the item,
and, after consultation with him, consulted with robh, who was FWing
the sexuality conference at the time. we were all on at the same time,
and the process took mere hours.

Now, I suppose I could have used the autocratic method that brighn
employed, but at the time I was a relatively new FW who didn't want
to step on any toes. Nowadays, I'm a fairly experienced FW who doesn't
give a damn, and I'd _still_ do it that way should the "need" arise
again. That's just good conferencing etiquette.

Of course, that only further illustrates the emptiness of your argument:
you can't cite examples, and you can't cite experience. You're wholly
dependent on supposition and insinuation. 

Funny that you should use the phrase "blowing out of proportion," as
that's exactly what you've done: you've taken an unrepresentative
situation, and you're (rather pathetically) trying to extend it to 
cover everyone. Is brighn a lousy FW? Maybe. That doesn't make everyone
else guilty by association.

You've also resorted to your weapons analogy again. I don't really 
consider a butter knife all that deadly, but I suppose I could be
educated. That's roughly what the "kill" command is: a way to remove
the little annoying crumbs that inevitably end up in the butter. you
further go on to imply that you're completely helpless. I'm really
sorry to hear that, really. At the very outset of this item (assuming
you can read), I gave an example of one way you could combat the
action that you percieve as unjust. Heck, you _used_ it, and it 
worked, so now what's your problem?

Kerouac (so there's no doubt of whom I've addressed this response to),
you conclude by dismissing rolling restarts and misentered items as
"rare." I find it laughable to the point of tears that you can dismiss
those fairly frequent events as "rare," and yet consider something as
truly rare as a jerk FW as worthy of removing a tool of expedience
from all who use it. Perhaps you'd like to explain why one rare event
doesn't need bothering with, yet the other one needs floundering rants
from you.

response 146 of 154:

Mar 30 11:25 UTC 1996

(Is a staff member allowed to forget an item?)

response 148 of 154:

Mar 30 13:57 UTC 1996

(Re 146: metoo! <sigh> )