Re: Politics and civility

Katharine wrote:

>>> The point is that our
>>> political opinions should not be of interest here, one
>>> way or the other, because this is not a political list.
>>> The only thing of interest here is alternative
>>> photography. Those who choose to continue making this a
>>> political list, will kill this list.

Richard wrote:

> Chris and Kathrine, I think the problem here is that
> some of the posts were pretty abusive.

* * *

> I certainly agree with the principal you state but also
> believe that abusiveness stops all reasonable discussion and
> must not be alowed here.

I agree with Richard -- we need to prevent abusive posts -- but in
practice, permitting political discussion inevitably leads to ugliness. At
least it always has here, as well as on three or four dozen other lists I
could name. The question appears to be whether to allow it up to the time
it turns ugly, or not. I'm with Katharine -- politics is off-topic, and at
best it detracts from the list. If people won't keep their politics to
themselves without help, we should terminate their posting privileges at
the very first mention of it (maybe letting them back on after a month for
the first offense). We should not wait for repercussions.

Further, we should construe "politics" broadly, to include expressing views
on any contentious, non-photographic social issues. For that matter, in my
view we should apply the policy to all off-topic posts, although I would
NOT advocate construing "off-topic" broadly. (That is, I would advocate
construing "on topic" so as to allow fairly wide departures, as long as
there was some relevance to alt.photo and the subject was not politics.)

Just a suggestion. I do not intend to debate it, and will most likely not
respond to further posts on the subject. But I do think it is necessary if
we are to preserve the list. Looking back over my 8 or 10 years watching
the list, I can think of at least fifteen expert and valuable contributors
who have left because of the sniping and the many off-topic excursions.

Best regards,

etienne
Received on 05/03/06-07:23:35 PM Z