On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> You are a very evil person...
I try, thank you.
[blinks innocently]
> My point is that it's not fair to ban Jeroen without
> the consent about the list rules. We didn't agree to
> what would be the list rules, and which was the minimum
> set of restraint that listmembers should show before
> being suspended
That's a good point. However,
{set pontificate="Yes"}
In all my years on Brin-L, despite numerous attempts, I've never seen the
list produce even a means for producing a decision by consensus, much less
a decision itself. Not for lack of suggestions or technical skill, I
suspect, but because not enough people are willing to be bothered or
willing to trust another to be in charge of a formal system. If that is
indeed the case, then it's unrealistic to expect Brin-L to behave like a
participatory democracy in which people vote on rules and the application
of rules.
Rather, in the terms of my own evil analogy, we are like a free social
club hosted in someone's home (Nick's server now, Cornell's server by way
of Eileen and Hector in days of yore). We can come and go any time we
please. The only restriction on listmember behavior, de facto, is what
the host and fellow listmembers, by way of the host, are willing to
tolerate. The only restriction on host (listowner) behavior is what the
guests are willing to tolerate. Thus the organizational principle of
Brin-L is not discussion and formal consent but is the bare fact of
participation itself.
If moderating or banning someone is against our collective sense of
fairness in the given social context, then we may scream in protest or we
may vote with our feet by unsubscribing; but to expect parliamentary
procedure is unrealistic, and because we know this, we should be prepared
to accept that the only justice available is poetic, so to speak -- a
matter of social cause and effect. If Nick and Julia are jerks, for
example, then poetic justice will take the form of everybody leaving and
starting a new list elsewhere.
The advantage to such a system is that it suits the lack of effort we
appear to be willing to put into collective self-governance. The
disadvantage is that it is prone to the explicit or tacit tyranny of the
majority where unpopular behavior or opinions are concerned. The question
on the conscience of every listmember ought to be, then, at what point
does unpopular-but-protected become uncivil-and-punishable?
I wish it were otherwise - being socially inept myself, I hate anything
that smells cliquish - but I see no reason to expect things ever actually
to be otherwise, and I'm a sufficiently evil hypocrite to be content with
the current system as long as it works sufficiently to my own perceived
benefit.
Therefore: there is not, has never been, and will never be a court of
consensus or appeal except for our own selves. If one believes an
injustice is being committed, one must say so, leave, or decide it's not
worth the trouble to interfere.
{set pontificate="No"}
> And even 40 messages per day can't be considered
> mailbombing. I guess even I - who spend too much
> time watching TV - have occasionally written 40
> messages in one day.
That's true. Mailbombing, as I understand it, is flooding a server with
so much mail it crashes. For just being an annoying git, the term
"mailbomb" is hyperbole.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA)
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
