[Imc] Robert Meade "Bobby" "Israel" Deaf Messenger

[Mike Lehman]

Comments below.
Mike

Paul Riismandel wrote:
> 
> Thanks Mike for bringing this up.  I agree with you completely, and while I
> find him mostly harmless, it is clear that his intent is really not
> constructive nor cooperative, and does threaten to taint our website,
> despite our disclaimer.

I neglected to mention my conclusion about his aim in my original
message. I think he wants to have at least one entry from himself to be
constantly visible on the Newswire. I would have no objection to any
person who had even a modicum of news (especially local) writing ability
being rather constantly present there, but I think he is the exception
that makes the rule. I don't think our IMC exists for the purpose of
feeding anyone's ego, particularly with material like his. His posts are
totally irrelevant to our community and their frequency only makes this
issue all the more apparent.

> As the de facto website "editor" I think that this issue brings to the fore
> our need to develop some sort of editorial policy for the website that
> addresses the issue of weeding the Newswire along with choosing the
> Features.  I have an ad hoc features "procedure" that I use and would be
> glad to share.
> 
> Believe it or not, I enjoy doing the weekly features update, but I also
> recognize that my role as website "editor" is basically by default, and
> therefore not really by consensus by anyone.  I take the lack of complaints
> or other comments about the website features to indicate that I do a good
> enough job and exert reasonable judgement in doing so, but that does not
> mean that a more consistent and explicit method shouldn't be put in place.

I think the fair and excellent job that you've done with the available
material is precisely why there has been little if any complaint and the
corresponding lack of desire to come up with official policy regarding
such matters. I also think it's an excellent example of delegating
authority to people and, as long as they are doing competant work,
letting them do it without a lot of second-guessing and
sidewalk-supervising. I have no problem with this and wonder why anyone
else would either, assuming satisfaction on the part of those concerned.

> Other IMC's have editorial collectives that work on the front page
> features--I know at least Portland and Maidson do--though those IMC's also
> exclusively publish via their webpages.  We may want to have a collective,
> or maybe just a coordinator (which basically is what I do), or may want to
> put in into the purview of a working group--I'm agnostic on this
> question.  But we should at least decide our approach explicitly and
> actively--at least for the fact that it will withstand outside scrutiny
> better.

I think our method of dealing with problems on an individual basis as
they occur actually is a more even-handed course to pursue than trying
to write a one-size-fits-all policy. As for the transparency of the
process, we should simply make it clear that the policy that we've
already come up with, which puts the Steering Group at the center of the
process, applies to editorial decisions in the absence of an editorial
collective. No bigger than we are, with the Steering Group meeting
weekly and being open to all, I think the process if clear enough.

I think we should make permanent action regarding anyone to be dependent
on consensus of the Steering Group, with the subject of the issue having
a chance to respond, but I am comfortable with the temporary decision to
hide the story until Sunday. I am willing to entertain leaving him a
note to find (since he surely will, as he regularly recheck's them to
find them hidden at other IMCs that he's troubled and then issues
complaints about it) since the lack of e-mail makes contact difficult. I
see no point in responding to his snailmail addy, even if it isn't
bogus.

What do we ask for? Maybe we should offer to tolerate one Bobby rant a
week. On the other hand, his track record leads me to assume, based on
the abundant evidence Sascha has mentioned, that we are simply wasting
our time trying to dialogue with him. I think it would be ridiculous to
waste any large amount of time on this issue, as his reputation proceeds
him and there is no hope for rehabilitation based on other IMC's
attempts to engage him in dialogue.

> (I will note that the relative paucity of locally written stories published
> to the newswire doesn't exactly make the website update a terribly time
> consuming job.  At this point, I think updating more than weekly would be
> pointless, since we're lucky to get a total of 3 locally originated stories
> published in any given week.)

That's the only weakness in the Features now and it has nothing to do
with you, as you have done your part to write local news, along with
your other duties. Come on people, once again we know there's lots of
stuff being written and even more being thought about that never gets
posted on the Newswire, which is a shame.

> As far as dealing with Mr. Deaf Messenger, I think we need to write a clear
> purpose statement for the newswire, and develop a simple and unambiguous
> method for deciding that a post or posts are inappropriate.  I would like
> to see something built in that is similar in spirit to our personnel
> policy, whereby we at least attempt to reason with someone who becomes a
> nuisance.  This, of course, requires that the person leave a valid e-mail
> address, but I'm comfortable with the fact that one of the risks of
> anonymous posting is the loss of the ability to be reasoned with.

As for a purpose statement, I think simply asking for it to be NEWS is
good enough, although maybe making a little more clear what IS NOT news
might help the conceptually challenged to understand what we are asking
for when we say news. 
Sure people are bad writers at times, they forget to check for obvious
misspellings and errors (my own personal weakness), sometimes they even
have lousy reasoning, bad logic, or are just plain strange, with way too
much of their own, unsupported opinion. I think we can live with all
that on a case-by-case basis. But a REPETITIVE poster who makes little
sense other than to prove you can post any sort of BS, at least at
first, is asking to be an object of concern. So those are my two
criteria (lack of news content and repetitive abuse of the system),
which taken together, make a reasonably strong case that a problem needs
attention.

The only exception I can think of to this rule is the occasional "wacko
death threat against the Prez" or other character of significance, which
may require dealing with the issue of an individual post, as we have
done before. Otherwise, my approach deals with the totality of conduct,
at least electronically, and also addresses the issue of how to deal
with those who really don't want to engage in a dialogue of any kind.

I should note that we've had some other "interesting" posters that have
responded to the suggestion that Newspoetry or some other forum might be
a more appropriate place for their type of writing, so it is possible
that a reasonable approach can persuade the persuade-able. I think Bobby
is probably NOT in this category.

Mike Lehman

> At 05:26 PM 8/21/2001 -0500, Mike Lehman wrote:
> >I think this is a subject we need to bring up at the next Steering Group
> >meeting as it may take several discussions to come up with a solution to
> >the problem.
> >
> >Mr. R.M."B.""I."D.M. has been a plague on many IMC sites. His rambling
> >dissertations on vaguely religious subjects that constantly and only
> >refer back to his previous posts (and his daddy) create the impression
> >that the IMC is little more than a crackpot bulletin board.
> >
> >I was especially disturbed to encounter another of his posts, new on the
> >website, just after coming home from handing out 300 public-i's on the
> >Quad while urging the recipient to "be sure check out our website." If
> >folks on the Quad want to listen to that stuff, there's plenty to choose
> >from there. Reading Bobby's rants might be the primary impression that
> >someone might have of IMC if they read it today.
> >
> >I will note right here, for those that might consider taking any action
> >to be unacceptable censorship, that his posts generally violate the IMC
> >policy that is right there on the Publish page, i.e. they actually are
> >not news. I quote from that page, "please post news items only, leave
> >your comments for discussion areas".
> >
> >What prompts me to call for action now are two things:
> >1) His posts are hidden regularly at many IMCs, due to exactly the
> >problems I've mentioned with his posts simply not being news in any real
> >sense. We, who do not take this action at the present, are where he's
> >found to hang out. Like our own infamous brick & mortar hanger-out, I
> >believe we should act because Mr. R.M."B.""I."D.M.'s targeting of our
> >IMC now makes action necessary to avoid a damaging impact on the mission
> >and image of the U-C IMC. I wish to invoke the process that we developed
> >in our previous experience with intolerable conduct at the IMC. Now we
> >have an electronic version of squatting (not that I'm against justified,
> >sane squats, don't take me wrong) going on, so we will have to proceed
> >in a different manner.
> >
> >2) His posts now contain comments that indicate that Mr.
> >R.M."B.""I."D.M.'s only purpose is to see his story on the front page. I
> >quote him here:
> >"front page or bust"
> >"by bob 10:17am Tue Aug 21 '01  address: nn phone: na na nn na"
> >He has taken to appending this comment to every post he makes, an act
> >which seems to me rather revelatory of his intentions and motivations,
> >which are surely not to contribute to the IMC news effort.
> >Hiding his posts may be enough to discourage him and he may just go
> >away, as it seems that seeing his name up in lights is his primary
> >motivation.