On Sun, 11 Aug 1996, Edward Reid wrote:
> > starting to act as if news.answers had an "aura of authority" would be a
> > VeryBadThing
>
> Failing to recognize that news.answers in fact has an "aura of
> authority" is simply denying reality. [...]
> In addition, any document labelled "FAQ" by its poster has
> an aura of authority, especially if posted on a schedule as is expected
> of an FAQ.
You may want to reconsider whether this second statement nullifies the
assumption that your "reality" is caused by news.answers ;-(.
> I often wish that aura were more difficult to obtain, but I
> don't control reality either.
But you're with the suggestion that the news.answers moderators try to
control it, even though the author may as well put up the magic "FAQ"
label all by himself...
> news.answers would not exist without the work of the moderators.
Good for them and us; this however has nothing to do with the content of
any posts in there.
> > It's not an accessory, it could not safeguard even if it tried, and
> > those mailbombers and their instigators have prefectly been capable of
> > doing it without news.answers in any event...
>
> As Al very clearly pointed out in his note, the fact that someone
> could and would have perpetrated an act without your assistance does
> not lessen your responsibility for your part.
The moderators just have no part whatsoever in assisting the attacks.
You're missing the point big time - the crap that PV is receiving is most
likely the product of the same handful of misfits behind creating the
bogus FAQ too. The situtation with his mailbox is not really worsened by
letting them post, with or without disclaimers, nor would it be improved
otherwise. Even if you banished them from news.answers, they'd be posting
to SCR all the same - part of the readers wouldn't notice or care that
it's missing from the "officialized" group, and the rest would consider
them victims of exclusion.
> > Well, no. They provided an open forum for presenting information.
>
> news.answers is not and never has been an open forum. It is a forum
> with very clear rules and requirements.
Principial among them is 'the moderators don't meddle with content' rule...
> Those rules and requirements do
> not include restrictions on who is permitted to post, but that alone
> does not make it open.
Yeah, I suppose we can wrangle the semantics of "open", but to what end?
They could make it less open if they wish, of course - but they haven't,
and it doesn't seem to make sense to do so (it certainly would not have
the benefits envisioned for solving the troubles with rogue FAQs).
- --
Zoli fekete@bc.edu, keeper of <http://www.hix.com/hungarian-faq/>
*SELLERS BEWARE: I will never buy anything from companies associated
*with inappropriate online advertising (unsolicited commercial email,
*excessive multiposting etc), and discourage others from doing so too!
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