All - actually I find Stevan's style invigorating and stimulating. I may get annoyed (which stimulates thought) but Stevan has an impeccable style of scholarly discusssion which could - with benefit - be emulated by others. I do not see any conflict of interest or role - Stevan appears to me to be even-handed, putting up postings critical of his opinions and adds much to the discussion by his interpolations. I am happy to trust Stevan's judgement to exclude from posting minimally and only then when the proposed posting contravenes the well-known ethics of lists (and listed by Jan quoting the BBC website). I have just seen Derek's latest post to the list and agree; let's discusss the real issues! best Keith
---------------------------------------------------------- Prof Keith G Jeffery E: [email protected] Director Information Technology & International Strategy Science and Technology Facilities Council Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Harwell Science and Innovation Campus Didcot, OXON OX11 0QX UK T: +44 1235 44 6103 F:+44 1235 44 5147 President ERCIM & STFC Director: http://www.ercim.org/ W3C Office at STFC-RAL http://www.w3.org/ President euroCRIS http://www.eurocris.org/ VLDB Trustee Emeritus: http://www.vldb.org/ EDBT Board Member http://www.edbt.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- The contents of this email are sent in confidence for the use of the intended recipient only. If you are not one of the intended recipients do not take action on it or show it to anyone else, but return this email to the sender and delete your copy of it The CCLRC telecommunications systems may be monitored in accordance with the policy available from <http://dlitd.dl.ac.uk/policy/monitoring/monitoring%20statement.htm>. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- Please note that from 20081006 all my email will be sent out from stfc in the format above. However, incoming email using other email addresses for me will work for the forseeable future. Nonetheless, you are advised to change any address book entries or typed 'to' email addresses to the new address provided above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- ____________________________________________________________________________ From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: 13 October 2008 15:47 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Call for a vote of nonconfidence in the moderator of the AmSci Forum I was on the road in the last few days, cut off from the Internet. This will explain my silence. I agree with all the people that believe Stevan's interventions on this list (and elsewhere) have been invaluable. Sometimes infuriating, but invaluable nonetheless. I have long debated against some of Stevan's theses, but I have learnt a lot from these discussions. The point of my earlier remarks was absolutely not to push Stevan out of this list. This would be total nonsense. The point was a worry about a confusion of roles. As Jan Velterop states it below, doing so ended up in "not making it easy on himself" for Stevan. I had not thought about JaNs, BBC-inspired, host/moderator distinction, but I find it interesting and useful. It would certainly clarify Stevan's position on this list while not cramping his inimitable style, and it would free him from negative reactions, especially when these have been the result of possible technical delays rather than intent (a reference to my own, inaccurate, outburst that seems to have started this whole discussion). In conclusion, what I was arguing about was not about a vote of confidence (or nonconfidence) with regard to Stevan. I was arguing in favour of a simple clarification of roles. What Stevan has constantly striven to do ultimately strikes me as very difficult and ultimately contradictory: attempting to be as fair as possible, as Stevan has constantly tried to do, while simultaneously adopting a highly polemical style of intervention may not be mutually exclusive stances in theory, but, in practise, they are damn hard to maintain under a single brain. Jean-Claude Guédon Le lundi 13 octobre 2008 à 08:22 +0100, Jan Velterop a écrit : Apologies for the lateness of my comments on this matter. Stevan has my full support. He is fully entitled to post on this list what he wants and to withold submissions if he deems that right. Those who hold the view that a list such as this one should ~V or indeed can ~V be run 'objectively' and according to some pseudo-democratic rules are, frankly, a bit naïve. Those who don~Rt like Stevan~Rs judgement with regard to acceptance of submissions can always start their own list. That said, Stevan hasn~Rt made it easy on himself, combining the task of moderator with that of host. Other lists separate these roles, and he may wish to consider drafting someone in to help him run the list and do the same (Stevan being the host; someone else being the moderator, I would have thought, given the definitions of the roles, see below). The definitions that, for instance, the BBC uses for the two roles are along the following lines: A host's job is to encourage interesting discussions and to help resolve disagreements. They post regularly on the lists, start discussions or reply to questions. Hosts do not reject messages. A moderator's job is to reject messages that break the ~QHouse Rules~R. Messages will not be rejected for any other reason. Moderators do not post messages on the lists. Among the BBC ~QHouse Rules~R are the following (there are more). Messages are rejected that ~EAre racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable ~EContain swear words or other language likely to offend ~EBreak the law or condone or encourage unlawful activity. ~EAre considered to be off-topic ~EAre considered to be ~Qspam~R, that is posts containing the same, or similar, message posted multiple times. Apart from the possible problem of finding such help, the only difficulty of my suggestion that I can foresee is perhaps dealing with the last house rule mentioned. But then again, Stevan is free to set his own house rules. Jan Velterop Jean-Claude Guédon Université de Montréal -- Scanned by iCritical for STFC.
