Author: Don Dailey
Date: 00:07:21 09/08/98
Go up one level in this thread
Hi Ed and Enrique, I'm going to make some comments but please know they are not directed at you guy's personally, I am simply venting a few of my frustrations here. Also I want to add that I am not speaking for Bruce and Amir although I may use the word "we" or "us" sometimes. Bruce and Amir may or may not agree with me, but I am speaking for myself. >On September 07, 1998 at 06:52:52, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: > >On September 07, 1998 at 03:07:57, Ed Schröder wrote: > >>My 2 cents. When somebody robs a bank he is put in jail. When he after >>some years is released there is no obligation for him to apology for the >>damage he has done to enter society again. For that he was put in jail. >> >>When out of jail the person gets a new chance and it's up to him to do >>better or to spoil it again. >> >>Why not copy this rule for CCC too? I mean it is a standard rule in every >>civilized country and the whole world since its existence (till now) wasn't >>able to come up with something better :) You are using the wrong analogy unless you are trying to convince me of just the opposite. At least in my country, the prison system is well known to be a miserable failure. But this really isn't the main point. In just about every decision we have made our integrity has been questioned one way or the other. There are a lot of different personalites here and no one will feel the same about any single point. But it is getting incredibly annoying because we have worked really hard doing this and we have also taken an incredible amount of shit. This is a purely voluntary thing for us, no money. It sucks a lot of our time because we have taken the effort to do the job really well, at least to the best of our ability. And contrary to what everyone seems to think, we do not have any power. You have to have some power before you can abuse it. But that is what this is about, several peoples viewpoint that we are having a great time excercising our mighty power or else the paranoid fear that we are sure to abuse it. If you do not trust me, then I can live with this. I will not lose any sleep over whether I am a moderator or not. I like the group a lot and would remain a happy member and active poster and I would remain everyones friend. But if you intend to constantly question our motives for every action we take, then I have to ask myself why the hell am I doing this? Life is short and I have a lot of things to do. Larry mentioned his awful experiences with the Manhattan Chess Club. From his description I could tell that it wasn't some specific rule he had a problem with, but instead it was a serious problem with the officers of the club and the manager. We are NOT the same kind of people that Larry described, but if we were, then the problem is us, not some silly rule. >>Measures could be: >>- Warning (email only) >>- Yellow card (email only), 2 yellow cards = Red card (1) >>- Red card (1), banned from CCC for (?) months. >>- Red card (2), banned from CCC for life. We do send the yellow warning by private email. It is usually friendly and not harsh at all but depends somewhat on the post(s) in question. We are not inflexible but treat each situation differently. I know that some will probably find this arbitrary on our part. We WANT people to come back. None of the moderators have expressed a personal vendetta to me and I KNOW that I have no vendetta against anyone. If Sean Evans sent email to me today saying he wanted back on the group and promised not to attack people that is all it would take. I am not angry at him, I am not out to get him or any such thing. Is this kind of policy so distasteful to you? I am not on the other newsgroup, but I have been told that Sean is constantly on the attack and has targeted several of you. He takes individual posts and re-posts them on the other groups to mock them. But you believe it would be productive of us to let him back on our group multiple times, increasing the time penalty in each case, but taking nothing else into consideration? And each time he will be sure to hurt someone if he can. All I am interested in is doing a good job. Begging him to come back is not doing a good job in my opinion, does NOT show good judgement on our part and this has nothing whatsoever to do with personal vendetta's we do not have one against him, it is just a simple case of common sense, which it seems to me a moderator MUST have some leeway to apply. >>I have no idea if it is wise to make "red cards" public. It maybe depends on the >>case and what has happened. All I want to say on this is that when people get >>a warning or a yellow card they (right or wrong) feel humiliated and putting it >>into public will make that 10 times worse. So I think email is the best way. I have generally been very careful about embarassing people publicly although I have made some posts in the past I am not proud of. But I didn't make these posts when I was moderator. I completely agree with you on this because once you embarrass someone you lose them. You must always give them a way to save face. >>If you have such a set of rules (not necessarily the above ones of course) then >>we can stop having this kind of discussions. >> >>In this respect there is almost no risk to invite banned people back in CCC. I >>mean they already have red card (1). As in real life everybody deserves a >>second chance. It's then up to them to spoil it again or not. Please don't paint me as unforgiving. I believe in second chances too. Just having a different point of view than you do does not imply that I don't want these people to come back. >>For what it is worth. >A lot, I think. At least, I totally agree with you. This asking for an apology I >find humiliating and unnecessary. If someone gets a red card, applying for >membership again after X months is already an implicit declaration of good will. >This should be enough. You misunderstood me. An apology would be nice, but all I want is an expectation of good behavior. I NEVER mentioned anything like a PUBLIC apology either which is implied by the humiliation part. Somewhere between all these posts, this idea has slipped in, that I was somehow looking to humilate someone publicly. Part of this is my fault I must admit based on my misunderstanding of a post by Larry. If you read the post and my response you may pick up on the fact that I misunderstood him. I thought he was advocating an apology when in fact he was against the idea. I thought at the time he was being terribly inconsistant but I responded in a way that I thought would please him. Instead it pissed him off. But it was my error. But even with that post there was only mention of a possible apology, not any kind of demand for one. I said "an apology would certainly go a long way" or some similar idea, I never said anything about a whipping in the town square at high noon. There is also this idea that we were looking for our own personal satisfaction, as if someone should come to us on hands and knees and bow down to us. I can assure you that someone IMAGINED this, no such thought or idea entered our minds. It bothers me a lot that someone thinks we could be such arrogant bastards. >I believe too that a first red card should mean exclusion from CCC for a given >period of time, say 3 months. After this, it should be up to the excluded person >to apply again, with no further steps involved. This was also the original idea >accepted in the founders group. > >I am talking in general, not specifically about this Sean Evans. > >Enrique > >>- Ed - I respectfully disagree. I certainly understand your viewpoint and I think I understand what its noble intent is, but I just think it is too inflexible. I prefer to be able to judge each situation according to the circumstance and be flexible. These are human beings, not robots. Why shouldn't we have the power to bring them back sooner than your 3 month mandatory period for instance if it seems prudent? Anyway I hope this post helps you understand my frustration here. I really hope I have not offended anyone but I'm sure there will be someone, probably someone I least expect. - Don
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