Text 45195, 217 rader
Skriven 2006-12-28 11:21:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 45059 av Matt Bedynek (1:106/1)
Ärende: Kindergarten
====================
Hello Matt!

On Wednesday December 27 2006 01:58, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> balance between respect and fear and a general consensus that a
 MvdV>> moderator request was to be honoured. well that obviously is a
 MvdV>> thing of the past.

 MB> I guess what you're suggesting is that we have a reversion.  Fidonet
 MB> is anarchy once again.  You, Ward, and many others were part of the
 MB> act thhat unseated the status quo.  That status quo may not have been
 MB> the best system but it did keep some semblance of order.

That status quo you mention never existed but in part of Fidonet. Here in Z2
the moderator was never invincible. What Roy did was attempt to ban a user
"just because he could". Here in Z2 no moderator would have gotten away with
that. The user would have appealed to the ZEC and the ZEC would have reversed
the moderator's decision because the moderator was unable to show what rule had
been violated.

With increased interaction between the zones such a conflict was bound to occur
sooner or later.

 MvdV>> Who says it was unforeseen?

 MB> I guess you're right.  I predicted bad things would happen 2-3 years
 MB> ago.  I believe we are only at the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, you said bad things would happen. I still say that you are wrong in your
assessment that a precedent was set because the status quo was broken. I say
that status quo never existed other than in what is now a small part of
Fidonet.

 MvdV>> Because the chain of cause and result goes back a lot further
 MvdV>> than when Roy was booted out as moderator of FN_SYSOP. To you
 MvdV>> it may look as if it started then and there, but it isn't.

 MB> No.  That was the catalyst.  That showed that any concerted and
 MB> organized effort can bypass long standing social contract and
 MB> agreement.

Fortunately yes. Otherwise we would still be stuck with tribal culture where
the medicine man deflowers the maiden....

 MB>    Roy may not have been the best moderator but he would
 MB> have ran his course and been voted out the next cycle.

If it had been done maintaining the (Z1) status quo. The majority of
participants choose another path. It s no use crying over spilled milk...

 MB> Just like I wrote to Jeff, it takes just as much effort to write a
 MB> message as an article, so nobody, I mean nobody has any excuse to
 MB> complain about the lack of articles.

I am not the one complaining about lack of articles...

 MB> Likewise, you see how easily the bulk of conversation has floated
 MB> between fn_sysop and fidonews over the years; just as it does with a
 MB> handful of other conferences.

The Cheyne-Stokes breathing od FidoNet echomail....

 MB> There was absolutely *no* reason to exert all the effort required to
 MB> break tradition

Your opinion. It was only your tradition....

 MB> and turn order into chaos of a simple issue of pride.

That's an oversimplification.

 MB> Was it worth all the side affects that have ensued?

I tend to a "yes". It showed that a moderator is not God and it set in motion
the freeing you from the dictatorship of the elist.

 MB> Roy attempted to moderate too many *Cs and the *Cs lashed back doing
 MB> things they would and should not normally do...

No. Roy abused his power and made the error of doing it against a participant
who had enough support to stand up against it. Roy overplayed his hand.

 MB> After all, they are the big *C and are not going to let a petty
 MB> moderator tell them what they can and cannot do...  If I am not
 MB> mistaken, Ward voted for Roy?

Not that I recall.

 MB> Should the lesson have been to be careful who you vote for rather than
 MB> "we will bend the rules if needed"?

The lesson should be that someone who has been voted in can be voted out if
he/she abuses the position.

 MB> You cannot bend the rules simply because you find someone undesirable.

Rules that exist only in part of Fidonet....

 MB>  Nobody forces you to remain a fidonet node.

And nobody can force me to submit to rules I never was part in creating and
never agreed to follow...

 MvdV>> .. clear to me that the days of moderation as we knew it were
 MvdV>> over.

 MB> And you only have yourself and a handful of others to thank for that.

It is the way things go. You presume a cause and effect relationship that isn't
there. As I see it, this would have happened anyway. The presumption that there
is a general consensus that Fidonet style moderation is the preferred way is
wrong. When you look into their hearts, most people do not want to be
moderated. Why else would so many have left for the anarchy of usenet?

 MvdV>> Forums can be strictly moderated. And ever so often they are.
 MvdV>> If th moderator is not the owner of the server he at least has
 MvdV>> full control over the forum software and so he rules as a
 MvdV>> dictator. he may be a benevolent dictator but a dictator he is.
 MvdV>> He has to power to fully censor the forum. Some like that, and
 MvdV>> some don't. So what you sometimes see is people voting with
 MvdV>> their feet and creating alternate forums.

 MB> To be honest, I find many privately owned formums (vbulletin boards)
 MB> desirable than portions of fidonet.

I can understand that POV, but I think the reality is that when push comes to
shove many would disagree.

 MB> Sure, they are privately owned but I find many more pleasnant, on
 MB> topic, and on track, and much of fidonet.

So why are you still here?

 MB> Why would someone invest time into building an echo and establishing
 MB> it today if all it takes is a faction of echomail terrorists to
 MB> destroy and take it over?

Good question. OTOH, why are the echos with anarchy so popular? Remember
FIDO_SYSOP? Created as an alternative for FN_SYSOP.  In theory it is run
exactly the way you and Jeff and the others who complain about the anarchy
want. In practise... it is dead. So why is that?

 MB>>> I hang on because I guess that there is some hope that might
 MB>>> develop some new technology that will bring life back to fido
 MB>>> and make it more in sync with internet style forums.

 MvdV>> What makes you think that is what people want?

 MB> Fidonet as we knew it is dead and lost forever.  There is no reason
 MB> for people to revert back to hotkey menus and CLI to type messages.
 MB> The need for content propagation is also gone.  Why do I need to echo
 MB> my messagse to your system when the user who wants to type a message
 MB> with users on my forum can join my forum just as easily as those other
 MB> users?

Indeed. It is what I have been saying for years: Fidonet has outlived its
usefulness. The conditions under which it thrived no longer exist. It is a
museum piece.

 MvdV>> As I see it, the success of FidoNet was due to the fact that it
 MvdV>> gave affordable access to a global network. users submitted to
 MvdV>> moderation because they had little choice. When the InterNet
 MvdV>> became affordable for the masses that changed. They left en
 MvdV>> masse. To me that is a sign that many were not all that happy
 MvdV>> with what we consider its greatest asset: moderated echomail.

 MB> The only way fidonet could ever hope to succeed is to : appeal to the
 MB> hobbiest and offer a level of quality not found in other areas of
 MB> fidonet.   We do okay in the first category but are beginning fail
 MB> because people refuse to work together to implement and standardize
 MB> new technology.

There is no more need for new technology in FidoNet. It is a museum piece.
Better accept it. You do not "rice up" a museum piece.

 MB>   We fail miserable in the second category (moreso now
 MB> than ever before) because we've lost control of the network.  It has a
 MB> mind of its own.

Yep.

That has been going on ever since most of the technicians left leaving the
polictians in the driver's seat.

 MB> If the wrong people decide they want to take control of my echotag,
 MB> they will find a way to seize it, if they want it bad enough.

The echotag never was yours in the first place. That is your error. The
consencus that a moderator "owns" and echo never was network wide. It existed
only in your part of the world. In other parts of Fidonet en echo is not
"owned". On those other parts the moderator is a user tolerated care taker at
best.

As I see it you simply have failed to adapt to the reality of globalisation.
;-)

 MvdV>> Depends on what policy you talk about. If you mean P4, yes a P4
 MvdV>> violation may lead to excommunication. But P4 does not apply to
 MvdV>> echomail. Not here. For that we have EP1. AFAIK, no one has
 MvdV>> ever lost a node number over an EP1 violation. In theory,
 MvdV>> someone giving a feed to someone who has been banned from a
 MvdV>> conference by the moderator could have his nodenumber revoked,
 MvdV>> but that is only theory, it has nver happened (AFAIK).

 MB> And someone, even a *C, accessing a conference for which access is
 MB> forbidden, could also be excommed.

No. You miss the disctinction between feeding a banned user (not being banned
oneself) and the banned person forcing access for himself.

No one can be excommed for refusing to accept one's own ban.


Cheers, Michiel

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