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

[Wendy Edwards]

On Sun, Apr 08, 2007 at 06:43:34PM -0500, Mike Lehman wrote:
> 
> 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.

Nope, I wouldn't have had any reason to be on the imc-web list in
2002, and I wasn't.  But when we met a few weeks ago and I told
you about the IP information, you didn't seem to have any problem
with it.  How fascinating that you've now decided that it's "ill-
gotten."

> 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.

OK, I'll spell it out.  The "Get Off the Bus" post appalled me.  I found
it incredibly offensive that BD would claim that the president of the
local NAACP was "being used" when he dared to form his own opinion.  I
will also point out that Gina Jackson was there that night, and she
spent a lot of time investigating afterward.  Ironically, I felt most
comfortable expressing my sincere opinion on IP.

> 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.

You want to know what got hidden on IP on my thread there?  Try 
"nothing."  People saw the cheap shots at Finney for what they were,
and there were a number of posts pointing this out.  In fact, I almost
chose not to post the "Crash" story to UCIMC at all because of the
pattern of hiding dissenting posts.  Honestly, I'd rather have people
tell me that something I post is crap than have this surreal left-
wing echo chamber. 

> 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.

Excuse me, but I know something about trolling, and I don't perceive
disagreement as trolling.  The most skilled and destructive trolls are
often a bit more subtle.

Wendy