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Subject: Re: from the moderators...

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 10:39:16 01/18/99

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On January 18, 1999 at 10:58:02, Ernst A. Heinz wrote:

>On January 18, 1999 at 10:09:15, Harald Faber wrote:
>
>>On January 18, 1999 at 09:49:20, Ernst A. Heinz wrote:
>>
>>>>E-mails are s.th. special. They are private. And if you quote A moderator's
>>>>e-mail there are only 3 persons who can have written them.
>>>
>>>True, but just recall the current discussion -- if I had not *anonymously*
>>>quoted the moderational email in reply to my official protest, near to nobody
>>>would have believed me and the discussion would never have started.
>>
>>Personally I think there was no need to discuss this one special case here in
>>public with dozens of follow-ups.
>
>You still seem to not understand that this was no "one special case" as you
>call it -- it dealt with the moderators' general denial of allowing the CCC
>membership to discuss moderational issues in public within CCC.
>
>>>Therefore, I still think *anonymous* quotes of email messages from moderators
>>>with *strictly* moderational content are appropriate and thus must be allowed.
>>
>>So here we disagree. Keep in mind that only ONE of the 3 moderators is quoted.
>>Out of an ongoing discussion between the moderators maybe. This can be
>>misleading and misinterpreted etc.
>>
>>We 3 have agreed to not tolerate quotations out of private e-mails.
>
>This means that you deem the official email messages that you send as a
>moderator to be *private*?
>
>IMO, this is simply impossible without applying double standards. Either you
>act officially as a moderator or you act privately as person XYZ. There is
>no room to mix the two -- they are mutually exclusive. As a moderator you
>cannot hide behind the curtain of privacy -- everything you do is official
>and should be subjected to public visibility if necessary.
>
>>I think you should accept and understand this.
>
>I have no problems with agreeing to disagree.
>
>Yet, I do not see a real change of attitude as for the accountability of the
>moderators in your posts or the initial moderators' statement.
>
>Therefore, I am still out of active participation in this club for the
>time being.

I would like to make the following points.

1) I think it is understandable that you were upset that your posts were
deleted, so no, I don't think you overreacted or were wrong to react.

2) I think that forbidding discussion of any moderation issue is a bad idea.  If
a moderator deletes a post, and people complain about it, that's a perfectly
fine thing to do.  If someone is just trying to cause trouble, that's something
that may have to be addressed, but in this very case, policy was rethought
because someone complained about moderation decisions and policies.  Being tough
on off-topic nonsense and abusive posters is a fine platform, but preventing
people from criticizing moderators is a very extreme implementation of this.
The members need to know if weird things are happening, it is already too easy
to disappear posts and people.

3) I think that if I write a piece of mail to my congressman and he sends me
back something rude, in his official capacity as a government official,  this
could be a matter for legitimate public discussion.  If the moderators are being
rude to people I woud like to know about it, and in fact it was useful for me to
know about that piece of email because it made me realize that I wasn't the only
one getting email like that.  I think it would be best if the moderators sent
email that they would not be embarassed to see published, rather than making
publication an explicitly prohibited offense.  That mail was a nasty email and
if moderators don't want to be embarassed by publication of something like that
they shouldn't send it.  So I agree with you on this, Ernst.

Moderators, please concentrate on protecting this place from destructive people
and drunks, rather than trying to ensure that everyone has the same haircut and
well-shined shoes.

bruce



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