Re: Common sense

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Jim Meninno wrote:

> This whole mess is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth.  We've got more
> bickering than Celtics discussion going on here now.  I know Paul is
> attempting to do something about that, but we've reached a stage where
> people are being removed from the list for replying to flame seekers too
> aggressively.  This has gone beyond Greg Odegaard.
>
> My personal opinion, which admittedly means nothing in this matter, is that
> perhaps the list should be suspended for a few weeks if this continues.
> Maybe that would give people a little time to cool down and realize what the
> list is here for.  Maybe the people who only come here to make trouble would
> get bored and go find someone else to bother.  I have a suspicion that part
> of the problem is that this caustic atmosphere is driving away a lot of the
> people who used to sustain the list with intelligent, Celtics related
> discussion.  I think it needs to be stopped now, before there is nobody left
> besides a few of us flinging insults at each other.  We really do risk
> losing this list altogether.
>
> For my own part, because I think I need this myself, I will not be
> contributing to the list until at least the end of the month.  I'll lurk,
> and hope that the problems I've spoken of start working themselves out.  I
> think A LOT of people we love hearing from have done this themselves,
> without the fanfare.  I don't expect anyone to care any more about me doing
> this.  I only want to make a point that this is what is happening to a good
> many of the people that made this list worth reading in the first place.

    Now that you mention it......the past four days of posts also made me
seriously reevaluate if it was worth spending any more free time reading and
contributing to a list whose quality has sunk so far that it is embarrassing to
be associated with it. If our real, as opposed to virtual, friends read any of
digest lists for the first time over the past three days, I'm sure they would
tell us we are nuts and need to get a life. They were that bad. This is not a
very informative or good quality list right now IMO.

    This latest, on the face of it arbitrary blacklisting of obviously genuine
Celtics fans might not make the list anybetter. It won't improve the quality.
Basically, my read on what has just happened is that Cecil dodged a bullet in
not getting blacklisted, in large part because Bill Bird and others stepped up
in his place to challenge a flamer. Ryan Lee (whose "zeronaka" nickname for me
was IMO funny) may have also gotten guillotined for all I know, but the overall
effect was that 1) he managed to drag down with him a few good people who are,
at the least, much more obviously Celtics fans; and 2) he's helped establish a
thus far unchallenged and potentially arbitrary list policing structure whereby
people will be afraid to challenge the next Ryan Lee that subscribes.

    Under the new rules, the next time we get a crank, bombastic post, it could
be Paul M. that gets expelled for firing off a frustrated, sarcastic reply. Or
maybe Jim Mennino, although he usually bites his tongue in these situations
unless there is an open door to crack a funny. Rules of debate and etiquette
have already been tried by guys like Cecil but they clearly don't work against
certain posters/pest out there so you need a battering ram approach from a Greg
Ode or Bill to get them to slink away (thankfully for months at a time usually).

    Anyway, my point  is I am absolutely ready to quit this list now that it has
hit rock bottom (as no doubt people already have done or may be considering
doing like Bill Cooper, Theresa, Tom Murphy, Mike Dynan, and now Jim Mennino
etc.) but the real bottom line is I refuse to stay on if there is arbitrary
censorship, and again I say this not on idealistic grounds but for practical
reasons of "quality-control" and the right to open debate without fear. Sure
you'll have the same annoying posters coming back once in awhile, but the past
years have shown we have enough established voices of authority besides Cecil
and Dorine who can establish useful if not fully enforceable online guidelines
(the "take it off line, guys" approach) complemented by veteran Celts fans like
Greg who clearly (for the most part) defended the broader interests and goals of
the majority of  list members by getting bombastic pests to periodically crawl
back under their rock for months at a time. And the simply reality is that,
aside from the entertainment value they provided, guys like Greg Ode and Bill
Bird got more than their share of comeupance being on the list as opposed to now
being barred from it. I don't believe in any litmus tests, but they are also two
of only a handful of poster, myself included, who live literally multiple time
zones away from Boston yet whose love of the Celtics, at least, is hard to
challenge.

    As long as the list politics and quality have sunk so low that even Alex,
Kestas, Rich, Mike King, Dorine, Gene and Doug and others don't seem to feel
bothered to post, well I feel the same way. Get out doors, hang out with your
family, whatever. The list is already more quiet and dull, and I doubt if that
is what was really intended when Paul "Mike Mathis" Moriarty (I'm kidding!) made
the call yesterday. I think there is a lot of disgust out there for one reason
or another, whether it is against the quality of debate or the new climate of
one-strike-and-you-might-be-out.

    Like someone else said (maybe offlist to me I'm not sure) Paul Moriarty
seems unlike himself and has been an even-handed moderator for years on end. I
don't realistically expect Paul to reverse his decision but I do hope he will
step up and make an explanation of what happened yesterday to the list
subscribers and welcome open feedback. My underlying hope is that said
explanation will reveal to us that Paul just  had a crappy day at the office
and/or felt like testing out some cool new censorship shareware he painstakingly
installed, but now he's open to the idea of second chances, clemency, all that
stuff.

    My personal and strongly held view, FWIW, is that Paul should allow everyone
to be reinstated. Things will take care of themselves in the free market of idea
exchange and this list is and should again be the best resource around for
sincere Celtics fans. Let's admit it, it was really a great list a few years
back. It's hard to believe what an embarrassing, waste-of-time it has gotten to
be with the juvenile posts and worrisome events of the past few days. JB Metz,
who just subscribed a week or so ago, mentioned offline that the AOL Celts list
is the best he's seen (if that's the case he's probably long gone by now). Is
that a proprietary list?

    I'm sorry to be off-topic. I have a lot to say about the Celtics and am
excited about the coming weeks, but I'm inclined to play it by ear as far as the
list goes and see who else continues to contribute. I'm with Jim Mennino on this
one. I need a small break, at the very least.

    Big game tonight. Go Celts!

 Joe