Re: [Paddlewise] Thank the gods above and Jackie!

At 04:35 PM 2/5/01 -0800, Dave Kruger wrote:
>
>I hope someome lays out the "legend of Paddlewise" for Rich Dempsey,
because it
>is worth knowing how this forum came to be.  It was a lesson for me, as a
>person normally virulently opposed to censorship.  My sometimes off-the-wall
>paddling buddy refers to things like this as a "community of discourse."
As in
>all communities, there need to be agreed-upon operating principles ... and
>operating principles require enforcers, perforce.

I'm probably not the one to talk about "the legend of Paddlewise", since I
wasn't around when it started. But, as I understand it, we do have Mr.
Ingram to thank for this peaceful meeting place. The predecessor to
Paddlewise was the old Wavelength listserver, which this Ingram discovered
and discovered and bombarded in the same way that he's currently hitting
the newsgroups. The Wavelength list owner, while not happy about Ingram,
also was unwilling to do anything to shut him up for fear of "censoring"
him. The list rapidly became unreadable. My understanding is that Jackie
and a few others conferred off-list, and decided to start up this list
server as a semi-moderated affair as an alternative, just a little over
three years ago.

Jackie is not one to toot her own horn, and every now and then some of the
rest of us have to do it for her. Over the last three years, Jackie has
built an exceptionally civilized meeting place, and only occasionally has
she hinted at the measures she goes to in order to keep this place
civilized and spam-free. Normally the flow of information is free, albeit
with filters that keep out annoying attachments (especially MIME), e-mail
viruses and other nasty stuff that runs free on many less well organized
listservers. She has on occasion hinted at the existence of some fairly
elaborate spam traps. But, past that, the flow of information is free. Once
in a while, things get a little heated and Jackie is forced to take
measures to tone it down, but that's pretty rare. And, we all appreciate it.

But the issue of censorship is sticky. I don't think of what is being done
here as censorship. Paddlewise is not a government agency, but a community
of friends. Ingram and other pests are free to peddle their spam . . . just
not here. Ingram is free to send out all the messages on USENET that he
wants to -- over 1100 in two months, someone commented yesterday, if I
recall correctly. I don't see much of them, though, thanks to filters and
liberal use of the "Ignore Thread" button. Am I censoring out Ingram when I
read RBP? Or Muskie on alt.great-lakes? Or Vandemann or the other nutcases
on rec.backcountry? No, I'm just choosing not to listen to them, the same
as I'm choosing not to listen to, oh, Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern.

Imagine yourself in a bar with a bunch of friends, when some pest comes
over and tries to pick a fight. You can ignore him, or you can fight, or
you can ask the management to throw him out, or you can leave. None of
those alternatives involve censorship; they just involve your right to
peaceful discourse.

Now, I run a weekly newspaper. We have a nutcase here in Michigan that
gripes about property rights in letters to the editor to papers all over
the state. Constantly. Though he's tailed off a bit in recent years, we
used to get two or three letters to the editor a week from him. It got to
the point where I can recognize the handwriting (he always hand-addresses
the letters) and pitch the letters without opening them. Am I censoring
him? Well, while we are a business that deals with the public, we are not a
public entity. I have a right and a responsibility to choose what I present
to my readers. Frankly, if I present too much of the wrong stuff, or not
enough of the right stuff, my readers lose interest, circulation drops, and
if I don't change course we could go down the tubes. I do allow a certian
number of nutcase letters since it keeps things interesting, but I refuse
to let them get out of hand. And, while I usually don't place restrictions
and let the local nutcases rant a bit, a couple times over the years I've
been forced to say, "I think we've exhausted what there is to say on this
subject." Am I censoring these people? They claim I am, but I contend that
as the editor of what ultimately is a private publication, I'm merely being
selective of what I'm going to run in the limited space I have to work
with. If they feel that their voice is not being heard, they are welcome to
purchase space or go elsewhere. I'm not shutting off their right to speak
to the community; I'm just refusing to be the vehicle, especially for free.

I realize this has strayed a ways off topic (sorry, Jackie!), but just
wanted to comment that sometimes it takes someone with some discretion to
keep a friendly community from deteriorating into a barroom brawl. We are
here on Paddlewise because we accept that fact, and accept the person
that's using their discretion to keep it that way. We are free to go
elsewhere if we wish.

But, for myself, I appreciate the work that Jackie has gone through over
the years to keep this a peaceful, informative and friendly place. I'd like
to thank her very much for going to the effort.

Thanks, Jackie!

-- Wes


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