Author: Don Dailey
Date: 00:31:45 09/25/98
Go up one level in this thread
Hi Fernando, I want to make a couple of points here. First of all your post is extremely pessimistic and I believe also unrealistic which I'll explain shortly. > 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 think you are going way overboard here if I may politely disagree. First of all, I believe it is nonsense that removing 3 people in several months time is tantamount to killing the creativity on this site. This site if full of creative thinkers, and creativity on this site is not threatened in any way. The way you make is sound, sooner or later everyone will be removed until only the 3 moderators are left standing, and if you dare say a single word in protest you might be next! I find your statements offensive but not you of course, I like you and consider you a friend and I hope to meet you someday. You are making the tremendous (and I think paranoid) leap of logic that agreeing and enforcing a no attacks policy is equivalent to stifling creativity. This I just cannot accept and will not stand by and let a post like this one go unchallenged. There have been a whole lot of posts very critical of every decision we have made. How many of them did we remove? Not a single one of them. Did we ever consider removing any of them? It never even crossed our minds. Is this consistant with the notion that we are interested in supressing your creativity and your ideas? What sort of creative expression would you like to make Fernando, that you feel you cannot make on this group? Do you think if you post a thought you are likely to be censored? I don't think you feel this way but perhaps I am wrong? You are a man of words, with unusual literary skills. It seems ironic to me that you do not seem to understand that words can do much more damage than any action can. It is criticism and personal attacks that suppress creativity and the expression of thoughts. I suspect you are a good parent, but do you suppose that if you were constantly critical of your children they would thrive because you were free to be creative and criticize them in any way you see fit? I susupect this would be a powerfully supressive influence on them and your children would grow up to be either inhibited or abusive. I know from talking to you that you are not this way with your children, so you do seem to have an intuitive grasp of what I am saying. The truth of the matter, even if you do not want to admit this, is that in a small society like ours, a certain level of politeness MUST be maintained in order to have the maximum amount of freedom to express yourself. Freedom is always a relative thing Fernando. You have the freedom to jump off the roof if you want to, but this is certain to encroach upon your freedom to live. A wild free for all where no discipline is maintained is no freedom at all. Why do you think so many people have chosen a moderated newsgroup and why do you think this one is thriving? I took this chance with you because I know you are one (as you say in your post) who can listen to some constructive criticism. I am taking you at your word and asking you to soften your viewpoint just a little bit towards a more human approach. - Don 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
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.