[Imc-web] Please take this lightly...

[Mike Lehman]

dan blah wrote:
> On 4/8/07, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> SNIPPED OUT because I always go on gtoo long anyway...:)
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
> Thank you for the clarification Mike.  My purpose was just that.  As a
> new user on this list it is hard to find out this information without
> prodding.  I don't think i disagree on any points or how ucimc.org is
> generally run.
>
> I agree we do not want to be of the blog fashion but am still slightly
> concerned on how we handle the comments on the grey line.  Is it the
> original commenter, who's comment was part off topic and part on
> topic, who's at fault or the commenter who commented on the 50% that
> was off topic?
>
> Point is, that it takes as much effort to hide a comment for being off
> topic as it does to comment on an off topic comment being off topic.
> This also informs the rest of the community as to our guidelines.
>
Hi Dan,
It's always been a UC IMC tradition that we try to treat the commandment 
to stay on topic very flexibly EXCEPT for those who are engaging in 
obviously trolling behavior. Coincidentally, as I answer this, in the 
latest BD article that is drawing his predictable trolls, you can see 
where I've applied the existing interpretation of what is on topic to 
Ishmael.

Ishmael has always toyed with the existing interpretation. Wendy felt a 
need for us to be particularly cautious with editing him, because she 
said he should have right of reply as a cop. It was only later that it 
turns out that Wendy was digging into IPs to confirm this (and Ishmael 
is fooling no one about what his employment is, but we sure didn't need 
to confirm it), perhaps through ignorance of what policy on this is, but 
partly also because written policy needs to catch up with technology. 
That is what we're working on here. I personally was surprised that 
Wendy wasn't aware of existing policy on privacy, as I was under the 
impression that she has always read the lists and this was the topic of 
extensive discussion back in 2002. So I have been letting things run a 
bit wider than usual for Ishmael.

But this is a tradition when people felt the existing policy has been 
too constricted for a particular topic. For instance, several of the 
very obnoxious discussions of UC IMC and finances that brought in the 
bad network spirits were treated exactly this way. Things return to 
normal afterwards and it does have a certain cathartic effect. I would 
be more comfortable with a uniform policy, but so far given the limited 
amount of interest in doing the heavy lifting of editing, it's just been 
more expeditious to be flexible than finally decide how firm a line to 
hold on off-topic posting.

The situation with certain authors picking up their own personal trolls 
has happened before, too. Ricky, Danielle, Sandra, Darren, and probably 
some others I can't remember all have certain trolls that tend to pop up 
when they post. This generally makes dealing with these anonymous posts 
even easier, as you're expecting them once you've learned their routine. 
Brian's troll, Ishmael, is sort of a special case. For one, he's a 
registered site user and keeps one name, whether that forced him to or 
not. Second, he has actually tried to deal constructively disagreeing 
with BD, but this is really a hard act to keep up if your real 
intentions are more trolling than respectfully disagreeing with Brian. 
Brian has done exactly what he should have, which is to ignore Ishmael's 
obvious trolling. And it has been both obvious and often over the limit, 
but again I have made it a point to be especially generous in 
interpreting Ishmael editorially because of Wendy's (somewhat 
ill-gotten) identification of him as someone with a right to reply.

You might ask, well , why did Ishmael go over the line today? I suspect 
it's because Wendy gave the IP folk an invitation to come on over and 
that Ishmael knew he had a crowd to act out in front of and make his big 
splash, although I didn't realize that until I surfed over to IP after 
finally having to hide Ishmael and finding out Wendy had placed the 
Welcome mat out over there. Of course, maybe Ishamel had a bad day. If 
he chills out and starts working on critiquing BD's writing, instead of 
BD's existence, I'm OK with him still posting. But if he feels the 
martyrdom thing fits his purpose better than constructively dialogging 
with those he disagrees with, then I can see him also being on the 
agenda for at least a temporary suspension at the next Steering meeting.

Finally, I simply do not understand Wendy's motivation here. Maybe she 
thinks that all those folks over at IP will come over to UC IMC if we 
just had an editing policy like theirs and we'd be one big happy family. 
But our editing policy is NOT keeping anyone at IP from doing exactly 
that now.

In fact, I'd really enjoy some of those folks coming over here and 
acting like the good liberals over there who patient enough to try to 
explain a different side to those at IP. That would be something I would 
support and I would oppose -- at this point -- that we shouldn't allow 
them to do that. The problem is that the IP crowd is the dominant crowd. 
They think that they should be dominant at IP, they think the same thing 
at the N-G, Fox, Sinclair, I could go on. But when they come to UC IMC, 
guess what? The only ones who want to bother coming here are those who 
want to insist on treating discussion here like they are dominant here, 
too that ,we should acknowledge that dominance and if our coverage 
doesn't do that, then we are just fucked up human beings. And guess 
what, Bingo! Most of that quickly ends up in File 13. And it should keep 
showing up in File 13 even if we gained some at least marginally polite 
and thoughtful conservatives at UC IMC under present policy. I 
appreciate reading IP occasionally, as I've always been a big fan of 
understanding the opposition, and they do seem to be intolerant of much 
the same crap our policy is. However, even I think they let some of the 
discussion on Wendy's article to get out of hand, particularly some of 
the discussion about Finney's son. I didn't go back to check if any of 
it got deleted, but of course there is no way there for the casual 
reader to see what's hidden.

In summary, the same trolls who get kicked out now, should get kicked 
out in the future. Nothing in our policy now prevents someone engaging 
constructively and respectfully with authors at UC IMC, except their 
subliminal or intentional desire to troll UC IMC.

There's more to say, but I've got to heed the dinner bell.
Mike Lehman