RE: META: Time to enforce the List Rules! (personal revelation)

From: BillK (bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 14:43:40 MDT

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    When I joined the Extropians List I received an email of useful
    information from E. Shaun, including how to post messages and what
    behavior was expected from list members.

    A relevant quote is:-

    5d) Rules about fighting and insulting; fighting and insulting
    are not allowed!

    5e) If someone starts a fight with you what should you do?; we have a
    private legal code set-up to handle such disputes which includes a
    judge (the List Administrator) and an adjudicator to handle appeals.

    If someone really annoys you, you can do any of the following:
    1) Nothing - give no response
    2) Respond OFF the list
    3) Make a formal complaint to me asking for a judgment against Person X

    5f) What if you just have to respond to "uphold your honor" or to set
    the "facts/record straight," or to tell the entire list why you
    will not be speaking or reading posts or messages from the person who
    offended you?

    D O N ' T!

    we consider such responses flames in their own right and you would
    be taking the law into your own hands; you might also be censured or
    removed from the list.

    Remember:
     Don't contribute to or continue a fight once one has started.
     doing so places you in violation of the list rules. That includes
     meta communication, which includes posts with an angry tone, or voice.

    End quote ------------

    From this message it would appear that the list rules do not permit
    Harvey (or anyone) to 'set the record straight' after they perceive that
    they have been falsely accused.

    So Amara was acting correctly in refusing to respond to her attackers.

    Effectively, these list rules mean that as soon as someone is accused of
    supporting Sadaam, supporting Communism, seeking the downfall of USA,
    terrorism, cannibalism, etc. then they should leave the discussion and/or
    complain to the List Administrator.

    This would be similar to invoking Hitler as ending the discussion.

    Hopefully people who want to discuss political systems will be able to
    carry on a reasonable discussion. But as soon as they start accusing
    people of various beliefs or traits that they find objectionable, then
    the discussion stops. Personal attacks are Ad Hominem.
    It is pointless to carry on attempting to discuss with someone who is
    making Ad Hominem attacks,
    Do not respond to Ad Hominem attacks!
    Report them to the List Administrator.

    One teensy problem is that apparently we don't have a List Administrator
    at present. See the mess that gets us into. :)

    Bring back E.Shaun! At least temporarily to clean the bodies off the
    battlefield and have a few executions, (pour encourager les autres).

    The original quote is by Voltaire in Candide

    Dans ce pay-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour
    encourager les autres.
    In this country it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to
    encourage the others.

    BillK

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