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1120. dusty - 2/27/2000 2:48:38 AM Oops, meant that to be italics, not yelling. My bad. I'll try to use "Check for dust" 1121. dusty - 2/27/2000 2:52:13 AM CalGal
You transposed. Read the number again.
I said 1107. I meant 1107. I missed the opening angle bracket, so it didn't create the link.
I'll try again. Message # 1107 1122. seguine - 2/27/2000 3:05:45 AM "And you yourself referred to "partisan" efforts, as well as my desire to control the forum."
Of course I have, for those efforts and your desire to control the forum are part of what is known as politicking, not "conspiracy" or "cabal". You enjoy politicking; others could give a shit, but nevertheless don't care to be dominated by a contingent voice.
As a partisan you are, in my opinion, about as fit to decide whether a consensus was ever reached (or whether sufficient antipathy to your version of policy exists now to warrant change) as any presidential hopeful is credible when he says, in public, that his campaign is poised to win a given primary. Claiming you have the will of the 'people' on your side does not make it true (or false, for that matter).
If, as you claim, you see no substantive difference in Irv's RoE from the one you drafted, then you should have nothing against putting it up for review. You should not be proposing to change it at all. ("I thought I'd propose a third option, with Irv's wording (more formal) and my structure.")
It should come as no surprise, incidentally, that I do not accept your explanations of your repeated questioning of the process of policy re-examination now under way. Were you truly disinterested--and in your controller-of-interface capacity you damned well should be--you should have no opinion about it one way or the other. 1123. CalGal - 2/27/2000 3:06:26 AM Dusty,
What the hell are you talking about? I referred you to an earlier discussion, since you claimed that no one had been notified of this thread and the discussion. I referred you to 1017 in Suggestions. If that's not what you're talking about, I'm uninterested.
As for the other, if you posted on your support for requiring transparency, please point me to it. I missed it. In any event, it is clear that there was one other person who is in favor of transparency. That still doesn't suggest the massive suppression or conspiracy to thwart the desire of the membership, which is what the accusation suggests. 1124. seguine - 2/27/2000 3:07:51 AM "It is the structure and the part about spelling out the action taken that I'm less happy with, so I thought I'd create a draft with those two things addressed, keeping the formal tone."
No. 1125. CalGal - 2/27/2000 3:15:19 AM Seguine,
Irv's draft is up for review, and has been so since he posted it. Is that not clear? There is no next step.
Of course I have, for those efforts and your desire to control the forum are part of what is known as politicking, not "conspiracy" or "cabal".
Actually, I don't engage in politics. I express my opinion. It's you who characterizes it as politicking, and it's really not that big a leap from politicking to conspiracy. I certainly don't think you are "politicking" for change, and yet you are doing the same thing I am--expressing your opinion.
Were you truly disinterested--and in your controller-of-interface capacity you damned well should be--you should have no opinion about it one way or the other.
I format the text and write everything until someone comes along and complains. I have quite often made changes that I don't personally agree with, and will continue to do so. It's not required that I approve changes--in fact, I have no authority to do so. I "control", to a certain extent, the look and feel of the site. Not the policy. 1126. CalGal - 2/27/2000 3:16:48 AM Seguine,
Message # 1124
Too bad. I am allowed to do it, just as you are allowed to do it. There is no "No". It is clearly on the table to propose RoE drafts, so that's how it works. Anyone else can propose one, too. In fact, I think you did, didn't you? 1127. CalGal - 2/27/2000 3:17:25 AM However, for now, this is getting personal--and tedious. So I'm checking out for a while to let the conspiracy mongers have at me. 1128. dusty - 2/27/2000 3:19:12 AM CalGal
What the hell are you talking about?
You quoted my request:
This time. Not in September. And I don't think a single announcement this time stated that silence would be considered assent. Please refer me to it, if I missed it.
Apparently you mistook my request for a reference to an announcement that silence=assent to a request for an announcement of something else. So when you starting making reference to things that had nothing to do with what I asked,
I did't understand. Was I unclear? Could the "it", in "please refer to it" mean something other than the prior sentence? 1129. dusty - 2/27/2000 3:30:55 AM CalGal
That still doesn't suggest the massive suppression or conspiracy to thwart the desire of the membership, which is what the accusation suggests.
Your word-twisting is tedious. I never claimed some conspiricy. That seems to be your favorite term. But you expressed the opinion that only two people "posted in favor of transparency", so I wanted to make it clear that others supported the concept. 1130. seguine - 2/27/2000 3:31:23 AM CalGal,
I misunderstood what you said you'd do. If you're proposing making alterations to Irv's text and putting them up for approval here, I can have no objection; although of course it will then be necessary for the Calgalized version to survive a critique, which must then bring you and your ever-present intentions into the discussion once again.
You already have an RoE version on the table. It's linked on every page. Irv's is a compromise of yours and others'. How many more with your input in them do we require?
1131. seguine - 2/27/2000 3:33:22 AM "I format the text and write everything until someone comes along and complains."
A terrible burden. Thankfully, Irving has offered to assist you. 1132. Seguine - 2/27/2000 5:19:48 AM CG: "Yet I see no acknowledgement on your part that the majority of people who posted here in this recent go-round expressed no agreement with your proposal or Angel's, but rather agreement with Irv's new wording or support for the existing RoE."
CalGal I am one of the people who support Irv's RoE. I support it because I think it can produce genuine consensus, it does leave application of punitive measures unspecified, and because of the reasons I've cited previously (clarity, emphasis on the ultimate authority of the moderator, rhetorical neutrality). I don't see why it should matter in the slightest that my RoE generated little support. It's sufficient that my proposal, along with A-5's, seems to have got the ball rolling.
As I said before, Irv's version addresses some concerns of mine; I count myself a part of the consensus emerging around it.
"This suggests the possibility that no misrepresentation took place, that those who told you that yes, the current Rules are supported by the membership weren't just making it up."
There was not previously a fully articulated alternative to the current rules. Now there is.
As has already been pointed out (by me, by A-5, by Dusty), the existing rules were written and codified in short order. Objections were apparently overruled. Silence was presumed to indicate assent.
One wonders why silence might not as easily have been interpreted to indicate the realization of sheer impotence. 1133. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 5:29:47 AM Actually, CalGal, the overwhelming percentage of participants agree with me that your ideas of consensus are erroneous. Because out of all of them who have since read or posted, like two or three has said anything at all about it... and silence, you know, means assent. As to you rewriting the revision: I say no. It's pointless and since you see no problem with your earlier wording, likely to be less satisfactory to the people who preferred Irv's version than Irv's version already is. You complain about the length of the discussion and then propose to take more time and offer another rewrite which will 'sound' more like Irving's? Why? What's the possible point? You of course are free to offer a revision. No one here is going to try to pull the 'well, there's no consensus to even discuss this new revision' garbage that you pulled on me. But if your only aim is to produce a document that a) sounds more like Irv's work and b) you yourself wrote, I really don't know what the point is.
Oops. Hear that? Crickets! The sweet sound of assent! I guess you're voted down again, I have the silent majority behind me. And these are their telegrams. 1134. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 5:42:22 AM Let's get something straight here. If we go out and announce in every thread that there's a policy discussion going on in Policy (which we never did before anyway) and that everyone who wants a say in what goes on in the Mote had better attend to have their say, and a lot of people can't be bothered to show up to read your RoE, CalGal, or the DO show up and have nothing to say one way or another... It doesn't mean that they agree. It means that they passed on their chance to offer their voice and that they tacitly renounced their right to help decide what happens wrt the RoE. Those people can't really complain that the consensus ignored them. They don't have much of a right to bitch about whether the RoE should have been initially adopted. But they aren't agreeing with the RoE; they're removing their ability to disagree. It is a totally different thing altogether. Totally. You would have it that they're supporting you, because you know that without that 'assent' the support you constantly speak of for the old RoE is so much foxfire. It'd be nice for you if all of them did support the old RoE, but I have to break it to you -- if they didn't say they do, you sure as fuck can't say they do. It is the wont of demogogues around the world to indicate that if someone doesn't vote against them, they support them, but most people know that's bullshit. Voting is positive assent or negative assent, but not voting is neutral. So enough of this silence = assent crap. Silence may equal complaisance but not assent. OR else, I believe, the silent majority has just supported me when I told you that your views on consensus are totally full of shit. 1135. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 5:52:57 AM BTW, CalGal: Irv himself indicated that both Seguine and I had a lot to do with the revision. Unlike you, I don't need credit for it... but the revision to the rules does incorporate the main thing I asked for, which is some attempt at clarity (which Irv achieved) and clear reference to the moderator as big cheese and final arbiter (which Irv also achieved). You natter on and on and on and on about transparency, probably because you've got nothing else to say. Transparency, transparency, transparency. How come Angel and Seguine like the new RoE but the new RoE doesn't force transparency? Yadda yadda. Transparency. You sound like Rosettastone. And each time you bring it up, I will again point out the obvious truth and make you look bad and illiterate, again. I've never asked that the RoE be changed to support or demand transparency -- not without the overwhelming majority of Motiers also asking for the same thing. So please feel free to bring it up again. 1136. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 6:02:11 AM Re: the FAQ
When, exactly, was it decided to sell books through the site? Last I knew that was off the table.
I think the FAQ can bear revision for tone, and I suggest that we draft someone to do that, but I like the general layout and almost all of the topics. 1137. Seguine - 2/27/2000 6:50:44 AM By the way, and pursuant to A5's 1135, I have also never argued for transparency of ID, and my argument for transparency of operations specified that it be achieved in the FAQ and not in the RoE. For Californians who can't read, my concerns about transparency are expressed in the questions "Who runs the Mote?" and "How do I propose a policy change?". I added yet another suggestion in Message # 1117:
"...a Q. that asks, "How are administrative decisions contested" and another that asks "How is Mote policy determined and implemented?" "
As far as I'm concerned these specific suggestions may be used, modified, or rejected out of hand, but I believe it's important that people joining the forum have a reasonably clear picture of how it operates and so I hope a FAQ will address that transparency issue. 1138. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 7:49:21 AM A hypothetical argument: Let's say I'm really good friends with Posters X, Y, and Z, we chat each other up on ICQ every day, know each others real names and jobs and lovers and pets and we've met IRL more than once and we get along generally pretty well in the Mote. We're close, for computer friends. And I come along one day and launch some horrendous proposal in the Mote. I don't think that I'm getting enough to do in the Mote, and I don't have my fair share of responsibility and authority, for whatever reason. I think that some kind of proposal is necessary for the Mote, but that's not the entirety of why I'm forwarding it. So I stand up and propose it for adoption by the Mote. X, Y, and Z are all aware of how I and the Mote Staff get along because I've bitched to them about it nonstop, and they have empathy for me. Moreover, they're my friends. They see that my proposal is pretty much harmless because it's so vague, but they don't like the way they think I've been treated and they think it's good if I have more of an apparent hand in events in the Mote. 1139. Angel-Five - 2/27/2000 7:49:40 AM So if they nod their heads are they supporting the proposal, or me? Or are they just politicking because (rightfully or wrongfully) they don't think I've been treated fairly? And all my other friends that didn't say a word (maybe they don't know the big picture, maybe they don't even know I'm putting something up for proposal, maybe they know but don't approve, maybe they don't like the politics of it) -- are they tacitly supporting me, or just refusing to get into the argument and get dirty because they don't think it's important or worth it? OR are they against my proposal but don't want to stab me in the back, as it were? It's a complex issue. You can't claim in this sort of a situation that anybody's reasons for supporting or attacking a proposal are simple to derive. It's certain that when you break it all down you can't claim that everyone who supported me or stood against me did so because of the strength of my proposal. It's also certain that if the powers that be assented to my proposal that they didn't necessarily do so because they thought I was right. It's politics. It's also a shame.
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