Text 45610, 127 rader
Skriven 2006-12-27 01:58:00 av Matt Bedynek
     Kommentar till en text av Michiel Van Der Vlist
Ärende: Kindergarten
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Hello Michiel.

26 Dec 06 16:05, you wrote to me:

 MvdV> BOC! You have watched it yourself not so long ago when a vocal
 MvdV> participant here had his Zone independent number revoked.

[...]

 MvdV> Now what is the value of a statement like "I will honour moderator
 MvdV> requests" if you have it followed by "but not this time, as this
 MvdV> time I do not agree with it"?

 MvdV> If even ZCs openly defy a moderator - simply because they disagree
 MvdV> with his decision - how can you expect the system that you describe in
 MvdV> your latest snooze article to keep up? It functioned as you rightly
 MvdV> point out because there was sort of a balance between respect and fear
 MvdV> and a general consensus that a moderator request was to be honoured.
 MvdV> well that obviously is a thing of the past.

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

 MvdV> Who says it was unforeseen?

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

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

No.  That was the catalyst.  That showed that any concerted and organized
effort can bypass long standing social contract and agreement.   Roy may not
have been the best moderator but he would have ran his course and been voted
out the next cycle.   Just like I wrote to Jeff, it takes just as much effort
to write a message as an article, so nobody, I mean nobody has any excuse to
complain about the lack of articles.  Likewise, you see how easily the bulk of
conversation has floated between fn_sysop and fidonews over the years; just as
it does with a handful of other conferences.  There was absolutely *no* reason
to exert all the effort required to break tradition and turn order into chaos
of a simple issue of pride.  Was it worth all the side affects that have
ensued?  Roy attempted to moderate too many *Cs and the *Cs lashed back doing
things they would and should not normally do... After all, they are the big *C
and are not going to let a petty moderator tell them what they can and cannot
do...  If I am not mistaken, Ward voted for Roy? Should the lesson have been to
be careful who you vote for rather than "we will bend the rules if needed"?

 MvdV> What should have been done by the Z1 community is to yank his node
 MvdV> number. But they didn't.

From my perspective, you, Roy, and many others have done unethical things that
would warrant losing a node number if we are to use the litmus test you
suggest.  You cannot bend the rules simply because you find someone
undesirable.  Nobody forces you to remain a fidonet node.

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

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

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

To be honest, I find many privately owned formums (vbulletin boards) desirable
than portions of fidonet.  Sure, they are privately owned but I find many more
pleasnant, on topic, and on track, and much of fidonet.  Why would someone
invest time into building an echo and establishing it today if all it takes is
a faction of echomail terrorists to destroy and take it over?

 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 and
 MB>> make it more in sync with internet style forums.

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

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

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

The only way fidonet could ever hope to succeed is to : appeal to the hobbiest
and offer a level of quality not found in other areas of fidonet.   We do okay
in the first category but are beginning fail because people refuse to work
together to implement and standardize new technology.  We fail miserable in the
second category (moreso now than ever before) because we've lost control of the
network.  It has a mind of its own.  If the wrong people decide they want to
take control of my echotag, they will find a way to seize it, if they want it
bad enough.  To hell with creating a new echotag.... thats no fun! :-)

 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 ever lost
 MvdV> a node number over an EP1 violation. In theory, someone giving a feed
 MvdV> to someone who has been banned from a conference by the moderator
 MvdV> could have his nodenumber revoked, but that is only theory, it has
 MvdV> nver happened (AFAIK).

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

Matt

em: matt [at] thunderdome.us | icq: 16568532 | yahoo: mbedynek

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