Erik said: > I said, "from your description" because I am not very familiar with > irc, or your situation in particular. So I can't answer your question > directly.
That's fair enough. > That said, I suspect that if it were possible for members to continue > normal relations on the channel while ignoring the offending remarks, > then I would not have banned. I don't think that's possible. Many people there are using unsophisticated IRC clients that don't have the ability to ignore certain users and which don't allow multi-way private messages. The only option would've been to set up another channel secretly and move across to continue the conversation there. > You are implying that the ban helped the person, and therefore that > banning Mark will help him. I find this implication disturbing. I'm implying no such thing. I'm saying that the ban certainly helped the remaining people in #culture and that by my friend's own testimony it forced her to think deeply about things in her more lucid periods and hence to seek professional help in more than token ways, and that as a consequence she feels a bit better than she did. I deliberately put that update in parentheses because I intended it to be a comment on that specific situation and the friend in question (of whom I'm currently very proud), because I felt that I ought to tell more than half the story or else feel like I had slighted her. If I had wanted to see Mark banned, I would've said so directly. As it stands, I don't want him to be banned. Indeed, I've even unkillfiled him, but I'm still not doing more than skimming his messages. My main point all along has been that freedom of speech is not absolute on mailing lists such as Brin-L, nor should it be, nor is claiming that it should be very constructive when by your own admission you can see situations (however extreme) in which it would be reasonable to limit it. (I fully believe, however, that there should be no blanket restrictions that prevent certain opinions being aired in any forum whatsoever.) Rich GCU I Never Meant To Say So Much
