On Wed, 29 May 2002, Dan Minette wrote: > > Could you provide examples of these specific diagnoses? The most specific > one that I remember is Rob's "he is probably mentally ill." That's pretty > general statement, and it was meant as a defense. Rob mentioned that he has > dealt with mental illness very closely, as have I and others on the list.
No, because I wiped my mailbox of brin-l messages (which I do whenever I start topping 1000) about a day and a half ago, and I'm too lazy to go through Yahoo searching. However... > > Please point out to me when I did therapy with him. I'd be happy to bet a > drink, payable when I ever get to Austin or when you get here that I didn't > do that. ...I'm content to admit that I overreacted and attributed to you and others actions based not on fact but on fear. (Fear leads to anger, anger leads to bad posts.) I'm very sorry. That still leaves the problem of how to deal with Mark. I like Erik's idea: it offers a way to define the problem, our "boundaries," and so on before we go all ban-happy. When I read Mark's posts, what I see is a high volume of messages in which: * Most are strangely worded but innocuous posts that nevertheless contain interesting ideas, many of which could easily start a nearly-on-topic thread about technology, society, and so on, if people would only look past their knee-jerk annoyance at the sheer volume and/or peculiar style. * A smaller but still noticeable number of posts are so cryptic that they're hard to make out: weird but not offensive. * A few posts that include vulgarity for no obvious reason, but the vulgarity is not generally wielded against any particular listmember (though I can think of one or two exceptions). * An even fewer number of posts in which Mark offers way too much information about his private thoughts about his sex life or his lack thereof; regarding the latter, sometimes the comments border on misogynistic, but I haven't seen one of these for a while now. I rather hope not to see any more of them. And finally, * There's an annoying tendency to cross-post, although I don't see these because I'm not on any of the lists to which Mark is cross-posting. Of all these, the last is the one that, to my mind, offers the most clear example of uncivil behavior in an on-line forum. The rest are sufficiently open to interpretion that merely saying "follow the guidelines" isn't enough to provide a set of "boundaries," limits, or criteria for banning or disciplining the alleged offender. So, if we need to send Mark a warning, here are the requests I'd make: * No crossposting * Keep your thoughts about your private sex life to yourself * Please refrain from using profanity As far as enforcement is concerned, I would expect us to show Mark the same degree of latitude we have historically granted ourselves. (For instance, we've never tried to ban anybody just for the occasional use of an expletive.) Marvin Long Austin, Texas There ain't no Devil; there's just God when he's drunk. -- Tom Waits
