Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 20:59:23 09/23/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 23, 1998 at 23:43:36, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >The sortie of Thorsten has rekindled once again the old issue of how we pamper >the baby without killing him. It is clear CCC will not resist too much time as a >living and creative site if more people is going out due to his attacks on this >or that guy, followed in the next step by his expulsion. So pressing is this >that many post has been dedicated to the task to look for another method of >moderation: some of them, IMHO, are a lot worst that the illness they try to >cure. >I only can say that I have reached the following conclusion: in a discussion >group, moderation is not possible without killing the discussion in the long >run. >How could it be other way? Do you know a discussion where very soon personal, >vicious attacks does not arise? Even theologians are prone to shoot each other >discussing about the third or fourth attribute of Christ. How can you rule human >passions without killing human passion, a necessary attribute of any discussion >to begin with? >Easy to say you can discuss these matters without getting personal . Wrong: >every issue becomes personal when discussed long enough. Sooner or later EGO is >involved and war begins. Nobody wants to appear as the guy that shut the mouth >after a broadside was shot at him. Everybody want to say the last word. >Everybody is willing to scalate the conflict in order not to appear as the >defeated side. >What this means? >It means that if we are not capable of living with that, we soon will be not >capable of living with CCC anymore. We have lost Chris, we have lost Sean, now >we lost Thosrten. Who will be the next? Will this site, be governed undirectly >by the delicate skin of those that cannot sustain an attack? >I know I said something different a couple of days ago. I said that Thortsten >really went beyond limits and that the things had not remedy. And in fact it is >so, IF WE persist with the moderation kind of site CCC is now. Not that the >moderators has made a bad job, but they are trapped by the system; they are >compelled to do a job that is heading toward the peace of cemeteries. I cannot >see much sense in putting Amir, Bruce and Don in the task to look the site hour >after hour in order to detect undesirable material or answering petitions of >expulsions, etc. I think they have the right to live easy lives, quite lives, >programming lives and not expend his time in this unfruitful task. >What is the solution, then? >Is so easy or should be or at least is in words: nobody is coerced to read an >insulting post and nobody should feel idiot because a post say he is. My >experience in this is not exactly the same as that of those that were permanent >targets, BUT I have received here and there some post where I was treated as a >thief -the piracy thread- or a guy that was saying something stupid. Did I ask >some protection ? My system is take a look at what is said to me and >objectively see if what they say are at least partly right, if not entirely. If >so, even the harsh words are useful. As a chess player I have learned to learn >from my mistakes. I don't give a blow to Fritz each time he gets me badly and >besides he makes an ironic commentary. If the attack has not ground -and in my >profession as journalist I receive a lot of them, grounded and not grounded- why >should I became worried about? I do not care if someone thinks I was defeated or >mistaken; I am grown-up enough to feel confident in myself when I think I am >right and not to worry too much if I am in the wrong side. To commit mistakes is >the destiny of all of us even in the craft we best know and sometimes a good, >fresh, sharp insult and deprecation could be a good healing method to avoid them >next time. I am not stupid but I have been stupid many times. I have been stupid >even in the issues I handle best. Of course, as everybody else, I prefer to be >considered a bright genius, a wonderful guy, but that is not very useful after >all; an acusation of imbecility has been many times a great asset to improve my >work, a kind of purification even if repeated, wrong, malignant. Even these >serve a purpose if you are strong enough to put them in use. . >But then, if you are not strong enough to see things in that way, you always >have the resource not to read something unpleasant. I do that all the time >because I am not. There are people here whose style is very harsh when something >does not fit with his tastes and so, when the issue they are writing about is >non chess and computers and I see that they are going to the kind of sentences I >do not like, I just stop reading and go for another post. Ii is so difficult to >do so? >By example: maybe one of you will think this post is awfully stupid and they >will say it in a way or another. Well, if they do, I will get angry, of course, >but then I will see my post again to detect the stupid things that really were >said ; if I meet some, I will be thankful to the guy; if not, I will be >indifferent. And if I feel in the vein of waging war; I will launch my own >attack. Sometimes a good quarrel is very good for the spirit, kind of storm to >clear the sky. What I will not do is asking the expulsion of the guy. >I think this is the only way. >Fernando *IF* we can get a decent moderation facility, *NONE* of this need happen. No more expulsions. The reason is simple... we expel people to stop their posting nonsense and starting flame-wars. *IF* moderators could screen every post before it appears here, none of this could happen. Offending posts would never be seen, so there would never be a need to expunge someone... just that their offensive posts would go into the toilet. We need to make this happen. Then the problem goes away, totally.
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