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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (36616)	5/2/1999 1:40:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Let's examine our premises for a moment. Is SI a publisher or merely a provider of a forum? It seems to me to be a premium forum, true, for which a membership is paid, but still a forum.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (36616)	5/2/1999 1:40:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

>I am not talking about censorship. I am talking about editorial policy. And it is not a tough call. The kinds of things EE publishes are clearly intended for purposes proscribed by SI's Terms of Use.< Your point is well-taken. I have always had the feeling (this is subjective and would not withstand judicial review) that SI has been run more like a public park than the private club it really is. There are rules against nudity and bad language in a park, and it's best to not be caught relieving oneself against a tree. But folks spouting prophesy and general lunacy from soapboxes are a fixture as well. If I had my druthers, the Terms of Use would be more loosely administered than they are now. Calling somebody a shithead has led to expulsion; I think that is a bit draconian. (At the very least, there should be a determination that the target isn't or hasn't been a shithead.) Let's assume for the moment that relief will not be immediately forthcoming from SI Admin. What do we do, left to our own devices? Rationally engaging the man fails each and every time. Telling him to leave is ineffective. Fighting fire with fire, as Ish and Steve have done, raises its own set of ethical issues - and I don't like it. Steve's other suggestion of laughing the guy out of town is imho the least bad of all these. What this requires of us thread regulars is enough of a sense of community that we can adopt a unified approach. PMs are wonderful for forming the necessary consensus.