response 232 of 357:

Jan 22 17:08 UTC 2004

If something someone said online led me to believe they were suicidal,
then knowing what I do (which admitedly isn't that much) about how much
human communication is distorted in a medium like this, I'd go over
to the person in question's house and talk to them to see if my fears
were justified.

Mary, shame on you.  You ought to know better than to presume that what
you read on a computer screen is going to be a sufficient for you to
make a good determination of a person's state of mind.  You engaged
in an action that could have had serious consequences for JEP and his
son without first doing sufficient due diligence to see if your fears
were well-founded.

Don't Nurses have to take some equivalent of the Hypocratic Oath?
``First, do no harm.''  In this case, your actions don't appear to have
affected the outcome of events.  I think that's luck.  What you did
had potential to do real harm, and you don't seem to understand that.

response 234 of 357:

Jan 22 18:30 UTC 2004

Mary's actions are irrelevant to this item, which is a policy 
discussion in coop of whether to direct the staff to leave my items 
deleted.  My state of mind from two years ago isn't very relevant, 
either.

response 236 of 357:

Jan 22 19:00 UTC 2004

I'd say it shows his concerns are very real, if belated.

response 238 of 357:

Jan 22 21:07 UTC 2004

That Mary's (limited) actions had no ill effect is NOT proof that someone
else's actions would be similarly harmless.  Right now, the possibility
for such action is limited.  Restoring the items restores the possibility
for adverse action.  In my opinion, the current controversy increases
the likelihood of such adverse action.

response 240 of 357:

Jan 22 23:29 UTC 2004

Re #238: Please identify some *rational* basis for your belief that an
adverse action could occur. Remember, the issue should be weighing the
potential harm to jep v. the *established* harm to grex's professed values
of free and uncensored speech (with the resultant harm of denying access
to someone else in the future who may need such an item much as jep
himself said he wished such an item already existed). "Awfulizing" is a
form of distorted thinking and not a good basis for rational
decision-making. Speculation that has *some* basis in reality is OK, so
please share some details. So far though, you have simply made a hollow
statement empty of any real meaning. Here's another hint: Jep himself
stated his request to keep the items deleted was *not* based on legal
concerns.

response 244 of 357:

Jan 23 03:34 UTC 2004

Yeah, that self-serving logic is laughable. Just because someone is free
to speak out later does not negate the existence of censorship when a
person's previous words are no longer available. Of course, if jep
believes this logic, then I suggest he authorize staff to provide me
access to all the dbunker posts. Put your money where your mouth is. I
*will* use those posts to start a new item if jep's proposal passes. I am
hereby requesting a grex member in good standing make a proposal to permit
all posters to jep's item be given a chance to retrieve their text. This
includes those of us who's pseudos have been reaped.

There is also an insidious argument being circulated in a very underhanded
way. It is the "most of the responses aren't going to be there.  I, and at
least several others, would be left with, at the very most, is a few
scattered comments which used to be part of a discussion." I anticipated
this little argument about two weeks ago. The "hidden agenda" here is to
play the "poor me" card and get enough people to agree to delete their
posts. That means now jep can argue that the item itself has lost its
value. Apparently he believes this justifies censorship on the groungs
that what is being censored has little present value. Of course I think Ku
Klux Klan literature has little value, yet should not be censored. While
this should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of principles and
intelligence, I see jep's "logic" as yet another means for the feel-good
crowd to do a personal favor for a favored person. The intellectual
dishonesty displayed by jep and his supporters is stunning and
disgraceful. 

response 246 of 357:

Jan 23 04:40 UTC 2004

Wait, you don't want to restore the items because you WANT to help jep -- a
stalker -- skirt the law?

response 250 of 357:

Jan 23 14:35 UTC 2004

Re resp:240: I think you're doing a lot of "awfulizing" yourself.  Any
damage to Grex's values is already done, and restoring the item won't
reverse it.  It won't undo all the debate that's occurred over the last
few weeks.  It's not going to do anything except satisfy some people who
want to see jep punished.  Resp:242 is revealing; if you read between
the lines, it says that valerie was the problem...but since she's no
longer here, we're supposed to take this out on jep instead.

I originally wasn't going to vote for this proposal, but I've been so
disgusted with the amount of abuse directed at jep over the last couple
of weeks that I'm starting to reconsider.

response 252 of 357:

Jan 23 15:17 UTC 2004

There is no guarantee that any items will remain on grex forever. 
However, usually items are removed with notice. That didnt happen in 
this case because of a staff member intentionally deleting this item. I 
agree that the items should not have been removed without notice. 
However, I cant buy cyklone's argument that we shouldnt remove the 
items because of some potential future benefit to someone. If those 
items are restored, they will be essentially useless since the majority 
of posts will have been removed. 

The only reason I can see for the items to be restored is that people's 
posts were removed without notice. I think that as a system policy, 
that should be frowned upon. But, I also think it should be ok to make 
exceptions to the rules. Luckily grex has a method (member votes) to do 
this. Yes, if this passes, it would be a situation where a favored user 
has been granted special treatment. 

FWIW, I havent yet decided how I am going to vote on this. I dont think 
any great harm will come to jep if the items are restored since most 
people (myself included) will be deleting our comments anyway which 
will leave the items pretty bare. I also dont think it will ruin grex 
to leave them deleted. They were good items, sure. But there is no way 
that they will be restored in any usuable way. For me, I guess it all 
boils down to if I consider it more important to protect every users 
words no matter who they are or to allow someone I like to use proper 
channels to make an exception to the rules.