At 10:41 02-05-2002 -0500, Marvin Long wrote: > > I'd like to ask the list for a reality check. > >Reality Check, part 1 > >I think it would depend on how Jeroen carries out his idea. If he puts >his catalogue of shame on brin-l.com, then that makes it an "official" >part of Brin-L culture, and IMO that would be a pretty clear abuse of his >listowner position and a clear threat against other listmembers. > >If he were to put his catalogue of shame on a personal website, a place >without any "official" ties to Brin-L, then the question of whether the >catalogue constitues a true threat or an innocuous and juvenile stunt >would depend entirely on how it's structured and worded.
I do not believe it would make any difference. If someone, say the employer of listmember X, would find that site and see that X often ressorts to personal attacks to try and win an argument, do you really believe it will make any difference for said employer whether he finds it on www.Brin-L.com or on, say, www.vanbaardwijk.com? >In any event, the threat, if there is one, doesn't come from making >people's words public -- they're already public. The threat comes from >broadcasting accusations of misbehavior and the risk inherent in the >possibility that whoever reads them will believe the accusations without >wading through the Brin-L archives to learn the full context and history >behind any given statement. One way to counter this problem might be if >Jeroen allows the accused to post full rebuttals on the catalogue of shame, >so that the casual reader will get both points of view without having to >wade through the Brin-L archive. How can you rebut statements that were clearly intended to hurt the victim? How, for example, would you rebut a statement like "you live in a paranoid fantasy world"? The only way to rebut *that* statement is by explaining that we were discussing the setup for a role-playing game we are designing -- but in that case the comment would not and could not be seen as an insult and thus would never make it to any Wall of Shame (or whatever you want to call it). >There's another complication, too: Jeroen states that he wishes to deter >what he considers bad behavior, but that he's not making a threat. >However, the only way to deter behavior is to promise genuine or potential >harm, which is the very definition of a threat. We clearly disagree on the definition of "threat". I do not see such a site a a threat, but more like the penalty the state imposes for breaking a law. Pointing a gun at someone and saying "do this-or-that or I will shoot" is a threat. But then, if I say "if you do not maintain your car properly it will break down", there will probably be *some* people (especially Americans) who will see it not as good advice but as a threat that I will sabotage their car... >Jeroen says he just wants to make the list a happier place, a place where >people won't indulge in personal attacks. To the reader of this post I can >only ask: out of all the possible options available to Jeroen, is a >"catalogue of shame" really a tactic that's consistent with his stated goal? >Is it the sort of thing you'd contemplate yourself if you actually wanted to >improve the tone of Brin-L? In the past I have tried the approach of telling people personal attacks are not nice and therefore they should refrain from that. I have tried telling people that if they want to accuse someone of something they should also provide ample proof for it. Unfortunately, that approach seemed to have failed miserably. Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
