RE: [ga] NC members, censorship and other absurd things

[R.Gaetano@iaea.org]

Javier,

You wrote:
> 
> Dear NC members,
> Dear ICANN Board members
> Dear NEW elected Icann Board members
> 
> Maybe your silence is building an atmosphere of Censorship.
> 
> Please, we need YOU spend some time to establish
> a politic about the management of the list related to the ICANN
> process.
> 
> This kind of "nobodie's land" is not helpfull to the ICANN
> process.
> 
> Please, put some rules to avoid this air of censorship that
> I understand that comes from your silence.  I understand
> that there is a TON of things to do, but to preserve the
> integrity of the open mailing lists would be one of the first
> tasks that we must took in our hands.
> 

I have found myself several times in the position of defending the right of
my opponents to express the reasons for their disagreement, but I will not
stretch it to the point of endorsing the right of insulting other human
beings under the excuse of free speech.

No to censorship of ideas, but yes to civil discourse rules (something like
http://www.open-rsc.org/lists/rules/ as a basis for discussion).
A warning: already other DN-related lists have been abandoned by people who
wanted to get some work done and not to read insults, with the effect of
practically prevent any results to be achieved.

> When I say "establish a politic" I mean set rules to avoid
> censorship.  We, all, are grown people that know very well
> how to use filters and to read what we want to read... we dont
> need a BIG FATHER that can tell us what we can and what
> we cannot read... 

Right, but when you start receiving messages faking up the identity of the
sender, the average filtering process fails to function properly.

> 
> I hope a public statement about the open, no censorship,
> nature of this and all list related to the ICANN process.
> 

.... plus a decision on civil discourse rules.
I think that the reason for having a mailing list is to discuss about a
subject.
To have a policy that does not allow to post subjects that have nothing to
do with the scope of the list, just to make an example, has nothing to do
with censorship, but only to preserve the reason for the mailing list to
exist.
The same holds for insulting people.
You say that we are all adults. Well, in this case we should be able to make
a point without being abusive in the language we use.
Again, don't forget that other mailing list have being disrupted because
they failed to decide (and/or enforce) civil discourse rules. 


Regards
Roberto