Re: [ga] [Admin] Removal of posting rights

["Roberto Gaetano" <roberto.gaetano@voila.fr>]

Dori Kornfeld wrote:

>Regardless of the content of messages and whether some messages are 
more
>"appropriate" than others, I think the GA is losing sight of its 
mission by
>engaging in censorship.

I probably miss your point.
Are you saying that GA is "losing sight of its mission" by trying to 
react to gratuitous libel and slander, and lack of civil discourse?
I think that GA would be even more "losing sight of its mission" by 
allowing this kind of accusations, or the publication of messages of 
pornographic contents, or the forging of E-Mail, or all other amenities,
 without reaction.
I confess I do not understand the disclaim "Regardless of the content of
 messages and whether some messages are more "appropriate" than others".
 This is exactly the point. The sanction is applied "precisely" because 
of the contents of the messages. Do you think that this attitude of 
moving the focus of the debate from DNS-related argumentation to 
personal insults is more in line with the mission of the GA than the 
attempt to limit these insults?
This reminds me the story of the lawyer defending a serial killer by 
asserting that "if we make abstraction from the murders, the defendant 
is a nice person and not a danger for the society".

I am personally inclined to give to the authors of these postings the 
importance they deserve (=zero), but I cannot ignore the sentiments of 
people like Jonathan Cohen (or Elisabeth Porteneuve, that had also heavy
 personal attacks in the past). 


> The GA has already lost many valuable members and
>will no doubt lose more as the arguments continue.


In fact, a lot of people had already left the GA in the times when we 
(Chair & AltChair) have been at the window, looking at the events 
without taking responsability for the management of the civil discourse 
rules.
The (regrettable and regretted) loss of people following the adoption of
 the current rules has been largely offset numerically by new 
subscriptions (including returns of former members who had left because 
of our inaction).


> ICANN, in theory, is
>supposed to be an open process and the GA a forum in which interest 
parties
>and individuals may deliberate.


IMHO, "open forum" is not synonimous of "wild west", and "democracy" is 
not a synonim of "anarchy".
To allow the Wild West rule to govern the GA is, still IMHO, worse than 
take sanctions.
In this respect, may I suggest to read the valuable work of the Berkman 
Center - see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/deliberation/ - 
reference already posted by Diane Cabell to this list.

I guess that the Berkman Center will welcome comments, BTW.


> Perhaps a better method of "regulating the
>noise" would be to send out notices that the GA list monitor suggests 
that
>subscribers make individual filters for particular people. At least 
then
>the GA members would be able to control their own content, and the GA 
could
>become a more credible and legitimate forum for open communication.
>

GA members are *already* able to control the content. They have freedom 
of choice between subscription to the unabridged version of the GA 
postings, or to the "list with rules".
As I commented to the NC in the open meeting in Cairo, the fact that 
only 3 (three) individuals chose to enjoy the traffic on the list in its
 integral version clearly indicates that the vast majority does not 
think that the sanctions applied are liberticide.

Please note that I am not claiming that the application of these 
sanctions and rules are "perfect". What I am claiming is that they are 
better than to assist without doing anything to the progressive 
deterioration of the debate and to the multiplication of the insults and
 attacks "ad personam", that already caused the death of other mailing 
lists.

Best regards
Roberto
--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html