----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 5:59 PM Subject: Re: Beware off-list conspiracies!
> On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 05:55:13PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > > Personally, I would welcome such comments as well as I would welcome > > someone who sat drinking beer watching me work on something that was > > supposed to benefit him comment on how I should have done a much > > better job. > > Yes, well, I would have been glad to help, as long as it was only > testing that was done in secret. Since I wasn't even informed of the > possibility, I can hardly be blamed for not helping, can I? > > You'll also notice, if you pay attention, that I didn't criticize > the work that was being done to set up the new list hardware and > software, in fact I complimented it. I criticized the secrecy and lack > of announcements. You have every right to criticize. But, there are polite and impolite ways to criticize. "Surely you realize how badly you handled this" is more than criticism, its an attempt to gig. I've noticed that you've often used words that are nuanced to be insulting when you write. It appears to me that you tend to try to elicit an emotional response in order to get an advantage over a perceived opponent. Trolling Jeroen is a good example of this. Since you are frank, let me be. As far as I can tell, help from you would be: "you are all so stupid; do it my way." Can you see why others might not see such actions as being helpful? From what I gleamed from your posts, you seem to be opposed to the ideas of compromise and cooperation. Freedom of speech does not mean that every forum must be totally unregulated. Sci.physics.research is not a step down the road to the thought police. I don't think personal attacks contribute to a forum for exchanging ideas, you clearly do. I agree that if there were no forums where anything could be said, that would be a lack of freedom of speech. But, there is no restriction on freedom of speech if there are different forums with different guidelines. Speaking of freedom of speech, why can't people talk to each other without your approval? Its not as though there is a common property that folks will control. Nick can get help and advise from whomever he wishes to ask. Now, if Nick's attempt to create a new forum for Brin-L ends up similar to one Jeroen would design, then folks would seek another alternative. If his first pass cut is "close enough for government work", then it will be fine tuned, generally agreed upon and set in motion. Finally, I've been both a member and an elder in the Presbyterian church, which has had a representative government for longer than the United States. I've been on session for the last two years, and like the idea of how we give a task to a committee to thrash out and not do everything as a committee of the whole. I've both been on those subcommittees and listened to the reports. From hundreds of years of experience, this seems to work fairly well. One other note from Sessions: those sessions in which people routinely insulted each other accomplished very little. Those where the disagreements were strong but polite accomplished a great deal. My guess is that there are few if any other posters who think that flame wars are a good and important part of a mailing list. As far as I can tell, there are three suggestions for the next forum for Brin-L on the table at the moment: yours, Jeroen's and Nick's. IMHO, Jeroen's is one in which he views himself as the benign despot, enforcing his view of civility: what Jeroen does is de facto correct, and everyone else will act as Jeroen thinks best. Yours is the more flames, the more ideas. Nicks seems to be a forum where a wide variety of ideas will be encouraged, but people will be expected to express them without flame wars dominating the list. Indeed, let me make a suggestion off the top of my head. Why don't you get together with like minded people and put together a proposed setup for the new home of Brin-L. Jeroen can do the same, and Nick can continue to work, taking suggestions as he will. Everyone can consider the proposals before the Cornell list shuts down and we can get a consensus. Dan M.
