From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri Jul 18 2003 - 12:01:09 MDT
(sorry if this is a duplicate. I got a mail error back on this so I am
resending it.)
Lee Corbin wrote,
> What Harvey is referring to by "this level of coordination"
> etc., is an incident that resulted from his complaining to
> the then-current list monitor of personal attacks. His story
No, that is NOT what I am referencing. Your version is a little distorted.
I was referring to the attackers' coordination, not the victims.
For the record, I have never made any complaints in which I was the target
of an attack. All my complaints were prompted by other people's complaints
to me offlist or their complaints publicly made on the list.
For the record, I was not originally involved in any of the flame-war
threads about any of the original topics. My only involvement was to stop
ad hominem. My only participation in flame wars were about the metatopic of
moderating itself.
For the record, all my complaints were summarily dismissed by the
moderator(s) previous and current. I was told that I could not complain on
behalf of others. I have consistently refused to complain on behalf of
myself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. During my decade
on this list, I have never had any complaint accepted by any moderator.
Remember that we had no moderator at the time of these events. It wasn't
until I pointed out that the list rules required people to take arguments
off-line and contact the moderator that we discovered that there wasn't one.
When the new moderator was appointed (Hal), he said he would not delve into
previous attacks, nor would he stop new attacks without complaints, nor
would he accept any complaints from me or anybody on behalf of others. In
short, I am not aware that Hal has done any moderating or accepted any
complaints. In fact, I am not aware of any moderator doing any moderating
or accepting any complaints for many years now.
> So, Mike, I don't think that it was really a big deal, though
> taxing for those of us worrying that finally after all these
> years maybe speech on the Extropian list would not be free.
> But free it has remained, not surprisingly.
There is no free speech on this list while members report that they are too
afraid to speak publicly for fear of personal attacks. We lose more speech
when people drop out, stay silent, or curtail their own speech than we gain
by allowing insulting and ad hominem speech to continue. Flame-wars do not
encourage free speech and participation, they suppress it.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISM, CISSP, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified InfoSec Manager, Certified IS Security Pro, NSA-certified InfoSec Assessor, IBM-certified Security Consultant, SANS-cert GSEC <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>
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