Re: Politics and civility

''nous devons empêcher le --''abusif de poteaux
..............................
Mais, comment ? Avec le respect, J'estime que ce signalisation suivante est
art de l'auto-portrait contradictoire, mais pas sans elle est la valeur.
                Merci.
.....................................

''we need to prevent abusive posts --''
..............................
But, how? With respect, I feel that this following posting is self
contradictory, but not without it's value.
               Thank you.

John Grocott-Photographist- London - UK

----- Original Message -----
From: "etienne garbaux" <photographeur@nerdshack.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 2:20 AM
Subject: 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 05/04/06-03:39:59 AM Z