[PLUG-TALK] The Banning.

[Robby Russell]

Jeme A Brelin typed this on 02/04/2004 02:47 PM:
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Russell Senior wrote:
> 
>>There are two important distinctions between the PDXLUG and PLUG
>>behaviors:
>>
>>  a) while the mailing list administrators took the action, they
>>     provided a venue to discuss its propiety and indicated that they
>>     would respond to the consensus here; PDXLUG didn't.  With PDXLUG
>>     there wasn't even a public acknowledgement that people _were_
>>     banned.
> 
> 
> Well, I'm curious to know why the folks who made the decision are not
> participating in this dicussion.  From my perspective, the decision was
> made in a vacuum.
> 
> The list administrators are not machines and the folks who made this
> decision did it, I assume, for reasons.  We can sit and speculate about
> what those are and we may be right, but we can't know until we get it from
> the horse's mouth and without KNOWING, we can't make rational decisions.
> 

What were the reasons? It's similar to putting someone in jail without 
any reason, once again..not to the same extent, but the same type of 
reaction was made.


> We DO have a situation where unwanted/uncomfortable opinions are the cause
> of the banning, however.  The opinions, in this case, are two:  that PLUG
> should not be used as a privately held DBA and that the method of reproach
> used by Robby is meaningful satire.
> 

Thank you. Anybody who read it should know very well that it was 
completely false and ridiculous.

> Has anybody attempted to address Robby about that issue personally?
> Despite all of his posturing and childish ridicule, I think he could
> understand the point made above about confusing the world with
> self-professed "official statements".
> 

Two people emailed me in response off-list. One person made a good point 
as to how I praise PDXLUG for being on-topic and I did the complete 
opposite on PLUG. Which is true and I apologize for adding more noise to 
the list. I know I am not the only one who pollutes the list though. :-p

> That's where you "step in and prevent the garbage can from being tipped".
> You reason with the person.  And if you can't come to an agreement, then
> you just have to walk around undoing each other's actions until somebody
> gives up.
> 
> Our FIRST step in resolving this issue should be to ask him why he's doing
> it and explain why we have a problem with it and see if we can't find a
> way for him to get what he wants without us getting what we don't want.
> 

I have happily addressed this on several occasions, but I doubt that 
your list moderators pay any attention. When responding to questions and 
accusations by certain list members of PLUG... I feel like I am being 
redundant and you guys almost wore me completely out. I have brought up 
the name issue on the PDXLUG discussion list and it's being looked at as 
we work on our site. I have publically stated this...and then legal 
actions/threats are made...and in my opinion, that just goes beyond the 
line.

>>Please don't blame Wil for this.
> 
> 
> Who did it, then?  If there's some secret society for whom Wil is the
> mouthpiece, I think we have a deeper problem than a couple of banned
> listmembers.
> 

Big Brother?

> 
>>Although, they seemed to be feeling quite self-righteous beforehand too.
> 
> 
> Self-righteous, perhaps, but without any justification.  They now have the
> justification.  They can now point and say, "you're no better than we
> are."  For Robby, this appears to have been a point of ego (or pride) and
> an inferiority complex.
> 

I will admit that I have not been very mindful throughout this situation 
over the past month, but I feel that I have been fairly open to 
discussion and have brought what I have learned from this to 
PDXLUG-discuss. No one is in a huge hurry to do anything as everyone 
feels that they are right on the matter and it's just a huge cloud of 
dust. When the dust settled, I assume that the issue will be dealt with.

> Quite frankly, I think it's EXACTLY what I described a month ago.  The
> authoritarians are trying to subvert the anarchism and force an
> authoritarian stance in order to prevent the subversion of their personal
> power structures.
> 

PLUG is OBVIOUSLY not an anarchist-based group. As much as you would 
like to believe it is, it is not. Your group has leaders who are 
interested in the business interests of your group, not in the will of 
the people involved. If it is this way, perhaps your involved leader 
will clarify this more for you.

> The only way to withstand such an attack is eternal vigilance of our own
> animal nature.  Intellect and understanding must win out over instinct and
> dominance.
> 

Vigilience, intelligence, mindfulness, etc.. all things that all 
creatures of this world must think about and work on. We make mistakes, 
we have habit energy that causes us to be reactionary. Anarchism, in the 
way I understand it allows for mistakes to be made. It's part of the 
learning process. I am learning from this experience and assume that you 
all are as well.

Cheers,

-Robby Russell