Text 27922, 62 rader
Skriven 2012-04-15 07:51:12 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 27913 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Non sysop as moderat
============================
Dale Shipp wrote to Robert Bashe on Saturday April 14 2012 at 23:40:

DS>> What I don't understand in that example is why folks did not just
DS>> abandon him to his own ramblings and start another echo to discuss
DS>> the topic -- sanely.

RB>> If he had gained control over any other echo, I think that would have
RB>> happened. But just try and find a general, simple and pithy
RB>> substitute for "Hardware.ger". Enough people tried to, but it just
RB>> didn't work. Hardware is hardware is hardware, and there are not a
RB>> lot of good synonyms for that.

DS> The type of thing that has been done is to name the new echo something
DS> like hard_ware.ger, i.e. some play on the original name.

You forget that this was R24. English word plays are hard to bring across here,
but "Hardware" is a term most technically-minded Germans are familiar with. And
there is no common German word that conveys the same meaning.

RB>> Like I already asked you, why don't you simply start up another echo
RB>> to empty "Fidonews"? It's not that easy if you get a really key echo
RB>> under your control, otherwise it'd be done.

DS> You ask: "Why didn't I start up an alternate echo?"
DS> I answer: Because I really did not care enough about it to step in.

And I add: You wouldn't have gotten very far, since this echo is at least as
hard to replace as Hardware.ger was.

Anyway, you don't depend on this echo for information, in contrast to the
people who tried to ask questions in Hardware.ger. Remember, this was in the
time before the Internet had taken off, and practically the only place you
could ask for help was in fido.

In our case, there was an alternate echo, all right, but it never got off the
ground. Too many people know what "Hardware" means and had never heard of this
other thing. And Helmut was generating so much bad blood among nodes, points
and *Cs with his constant PCs that effectively the whole region stood up and
shouted "STOP!" We didn't make it easy for ourselves, either (remember German
thoroughness?) - it took two full years of this abuse for us to act, and then
we argued about the text of the removal procedure for a full day in a meeting
in Kassel.

Care enough? A lot of us drove several hours to attend that meeting, which the
RC24 and REC24 had called together. All available NCs and NECs of the region
were present, plus RC24 and REC24.

You seeem to think this was some minor matter among reasonable people. It
wasn't. Ask Ward sometime about being sued (by a German, in Belgium) by Helmut.

If he hadn't acted and the R24 moderator removal procedure had been implemented
on him, our REC24 (and others) might have been sued instead. Helmut was an
expert in interpreting Policy and could convince you black was white if you
listened to him long enough. He was the first and thank heaven only example of
such a moderator R24 ever experienced. I'm grateful to Ward for acting as he
did, and I think anyone else in R24 who was involved in this situation (except
for Helmut himself) feels the same.

Cheers, Bob

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