Re: Politics and civility

On May 3, 2006, at 6:20 PM, etienne garbaux wrote:

> 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.
>

I'll just add that after I wrote what I wrote the other day, I didn't
read any more of that thread and deleted the whole thing without
looking at it, so didn't see Richard's reply; having seen this much
of it, I think I should clarify that I agree with Richard and
Etienne that Dave was over the line and that abusive language can't
be allowed. I wasn't arguing that Dave shouldn't have been
unsubscribed, although I would hope that he could be reinstated at
some point. What I was objecting to at the moment I wrote was the
liberal lovefest that ensued, the crowing and the hectoring of people
like Tom who spoke out against it. That seemed unseemly and
disruptive to me; it was disrespectful of those in the community with
other political viewpoints, or non-U.S. members. I like Etienne's
proposal.
Katharine
  
Received on 05/03/06-09:31:06 PM Z