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40% - if you want to make personal allegations without support, have the moral courage not to halfpologise for them afterwards. I see no immediate reason to accuse Aus of anything other than prurience.
OK. Now, there is a degree of confusion here as to what is being discussed, which is why Aus, although he may indeed have a point, also has the wrong end of the stick (also, the idea that the distinction between "off board" and "on board" is artificial is as obvious as it is unhelpful, for some pretty obvious reasons). At the moment, there are two members of Barbelith who appear to be having problems with Barbelith as a result of actions occuring off the board. As such, this seems to be as good a time as any to work out how we deal with it.
The first one is the person who began the thread linked to above. Folk King Idiot is possibly a former member who was involved in a comparable but dissimilar issue on Barbelith. Whether or not this is the case, they are nonetheless welcomed or welcomed back as long as they are ready to behave in a manner generally distinct from being an actionable wanker. Was the post 40% objects to an instance of actonable wankery? I don't know. I abstained from voting, because I felt that I did not know enough to make an informed decision. If the person in question is one of the contributors to May's unhappiness, things take on a different cast, but there is no immediate evidence that this is the case. Honestly, this is chaff - if May wants to complain, then we can look into it, but at present it is at worst an unfortunate and unmerited deletion which might be apologised for and at best a previously banned member trying to get back in without revealing his previous identity, which may be quite sensible but raises some questions outside the purlieu of this thread.
Likewise, whothehell@where is not aware (yet) that being inept is not actually a deleting offence. This acceptance will hopefully come with time.
Meanwhile, the other issue is a series of posts by Leftylopez alluding to two other members of Barbelith. One of these was deleted from the Head Shop becaue it was threadrot. Another, I believe, was censured (and another possibly censored) in the Gathering. These little sallies are certainly dull, but are they a deleting matter? That's kind of the question, and to an extent it cannot be answered without revealing particulars of the case that only those involved might feel ready to reveal; that much is not my business.
What is my business, and our business as a community, is whether leftylopez has created another suit with intent to deceive (Lennox Lewis), which can be established using IP tracking. I sincerely hope that this is not the case. After all, people *have* been kicked off Barbelith for this before. That is a purely procedural matter; those are the rules. There aren't many of them, but we do ask people to observe them.
More generally, is leftylopez' contribution to Barbelith lately in itself a cause for deletion or harsher measures? Bed Head talks about safe space, as does Lurid Archive, but safe space for *what*, exactly? We do need to sort this out - otherwise, for example, Lurid might, in exercising his right to disagree with a decision, allow what is believed to be harrassment by others to continue, or others might delete posts which are actually legit, leading to arguments and shoving. We could do with a bit of thought on this one.
My thinking is that matters off the board should generally remain off the board unless all parties concerned are happy to have it discussed on the board. So, for example, some barbecouples are mutually happy to have their relationship mentioned on Barbelith. However, other people would rather not have matters from outside the board concerning them brought onto it. At the moment, at the simplest level, members of Barbelith are having matters from off the board brought onto it *without their consent*. Whereas, for example, if somebody were to post somebody's name or address without their consent that would seem very bad form indeed. Where those matters are in some ways in the public domain, for example in the case of the quote from May's LJ, this is understandable. Where it is not, this is less understandable. In those terms, since leftylopez' actions seem to be forming a consistent pattern, I think there is certainly a case, in the first instance, to ask him to desist.
So, here we go. Please stop me if you think I am out of line here, but in my personal opinion leftylopez' recent actions are undermining perceptions of him as a valued contributor to Barbelith. This is unfortunate. I would very much like to believe that a resolution can be achieved whereby all parties resolve to put their differences behind them at least on Barbelith, and resolve to ignore each other (possibly with the ignore button) if necessary. Because right now it's a bit like turning up at the pub and shouting; it may be cathartic but it isn't winning anyone over.
I sincerely hope that this can be done; Barbelith is meant, after all, to regulate itself, on an individual level and only after that through moderators and ultimately administration (i.e Tom). And one of the questions in that regulation is where something ceases to be acceptable venting or understandable unhappiness, and becomes what BH calls "form" - a pattern of behaviour showing a lack of interest in anything other than pursuing a personal vendetta. If it becomes clear that a suit is intent on pursuing a vendetta across reality and Barbelith (as opossed to the disputes, flare-ups and personality clashes that might be expected of peope who exist essentially in sentiment and syntax), then a case for moderation does seem to become more convincing.
So, hopefully we can sort this out through the time-honoured process of counting to ten and taking a deep breath. If this is not possible, I think the case for moderation becomes progressively more convincing. |
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