[Krimel] People here have a right to say whatever the hell they want; at least until recently when people are being bullied into silence. I know that Horse does a great job here but WTF?
[Arlo] All discourse communities have topical boundaries, some very narrow and some quite broad, but it is this topical idea that defines the boundaries of the community. Typically, this is self-enforced, but when self-enforcement fails there is usually some authority to reenforce these boundaries. (If you go into an PTA meeting and the everyone is talking about their sexual liaisons from the weekend, some authority will have to move the group back into its topical domain). [Krimel] I am not at all sure what "topical boundaries" one could put around a metaphysics. Isn't that a term that includes, well, everything. One could argue about tone and context of course which is what seems to be happening but I don't see how topical boundaries apply to either metaphysics or Quality. [Arlo] This said, non-topical discourse can be very healthy. No PTA would last long if the members if no social presence was permitted. And I am certain Horse knows this, which is why a lot of "social presence" discourse makes up the body of the list's posts most days. We are social beings, and we our very nature come to appreciate the familiarity of those we interact with. Personally, I have little problem with people I've come to know and care about sharing their ups and downs. We all share, to some degree, elements of our social world outside the list in the list. [Krimel] Right, those social meanderings seem to me to be good for the MoQ community. I have objected complains and calls for action because someone posts too often or isn't quite on track. That kind of "tattling" strikes me as being corrosive to the community. [Arlo] This is not about anyone's right to "say whatever the hell they want", this is about the boundary as to when non-topical discourse overwhelms topical discourse to the detriment of the community. This is not AA. This is not the PTA. Horse makes the decision when this boundary has been breached, and as such he does an exemplary job. I've never known Horse to uphold this boundary as if its some non-negotiable event horizon, and his decisions are always fair. [Krimel] As I said to Horse, he is the arbiter of what can be said here and if we don't like it we can leave. But I think your analogy of AA and PTA meetings is flawed. What you say might apply well to face to face meetings of people who are trapped in direct contact with each other and for whom time is an immediate concern. While virtual communities do mimic real life communities I think some of the "real" life time constraints don't apply here. Deleting and ignore posts is not time consuming and is hardly the problem it is in real world meetings. [Arlo] Indeed, all Horse did was state (and I am in full agreement) that messages that are intended to be private communications should remain private communications unless all parties involved give their consent. [Krimel] I guess my problem with this is how is Horse supposed to enforce this? He can't delete a post that has already been sent. All he can do is remove it from the archives or ban the person who sent it. I fear that part of the problem here is that within this virtual system the only possible penalty for infractions is the virtual equivalent of the death penalty. What concerns me is people calling for the use of the penalty for the virtual equivalent of have a boom box in your car. [Arlo] But wherever Horse finds this moving towards imbalance, he has to act in the best interest of the community, for if we slip into a forum of "anything goes" we will surely lose all relevance. Again, to date, I have never found Horse's judgement to be anything but fair. [Krimel] I think Horse has had to make some difficult decisions and while I might not have decided the way he did, I recognize the difficulty in making such decisions and respect his calls. On the other hand making those decisions tends to lead to the need to make more of them. It's kind of like those grey squirrels invading Scandinavia, once you have a couple of them, they breed like crazy. People need to be more careful about what they wish for because what I see trends that are not conducive to community flourishing. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
