> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Jim Sharkey
... > If we are talking about a permanent ban, then I'd have to > disagree. As much as I think he doesn't know when to just say > he's sorry and admit he might have been wrong in his approach, I > still can't "vote" for that. Don't ask me why; I'm not sure > myself, other than that I think he might be getting just a little > bit of a raw deal. I don't believe in permanent bans. Or the death penalty, or life in prison, or anything else that smacks of ruling out changes of heart and mind. So that won't happen. I don't want the list to be about all this mess, but some discussion perhaps is in order (as long as we keep talking about mutant tails and such). I'm a bit concerned about escalation, so I've been somewhat patient in responding to each new problem. However, today, when I saw the attempts to gain unauthorized access to the mccmedia.com server, I didn't see much choice but to act immediately. My business depends on that system and others here. If someone got at the data I use for my work, I could be out tens of thousands of dollars in a hurry. There are backups, etc., but even an interruption is costly. List admin is an interruption that I chose to accept, but there are limits to that, as well. Thank goodness for Julia, who keeps it from being too much of a distraction. > Yes, I know he's gone off the deep end, and that he doesn't know > when it's better to just not say anything. But I can't shake the > feeling that he's getting the business just a little bit, even > though, as I said earlier, he makes it as hard as possible to > want to take his side. I'll acknowledge that I have plenty of sympathy for the frustration any active member would feel at being stifled. And having been a journalist and publisher most of my life, I certainly support freedom of speech. And I don't think an on-line community like ours would tolerate overbearing management. It seems that Jeroen imagines I'm out to take over brin-l.com, an idea I've done my best to dispel. That's a bit odd, since when he asked me to host it, I told him I would only do so if David Brin owned the domain name. Yet even David is unwilling to pay much for it, so that's probably not going to happen. That all happened off-list just before his moderation began, so I suppose that's why the two may be related in his mind. I hope that helps somehow. I'm always open to suggestions on how to make the difficult trade-off between list governance and free-ranging discussion, self-determination as a group, etc. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
