At 04:18 PM 11/10/2002 -0800 Nick Arnett wrote:
>Now I will bow out of this discussion. To be frank, the continuing
>self-examination of list governance feels somewhat excessively
>self-involved.
Indeed, this whole thing is very much a bit of protracted navel-gazing.
On one hand, there are some people who envision Brin-L as some kind of
Libertarian Paradise. (Sing now: We've been spending most out lives,
livin' in a Libertarian Paradise...." :)
On the other hand some people just simply recognize that brin-l is not a
public good, it is a private good that exists solely because of the actions
of private actors and the commitement of resources by these private actors.
As such, they have certain rights to act as benevolent dictators, since
the list simply dies without the commitment of their resources and their
efforts. Should we fear this benevolent dictatorship? No, we should
not. For one, the list administrators have demonstrated a very light hand
in the past, and have demonstrated a significant commitment to letting the
community sort out its own problems. Moreover, it is the nature of the
Internet that there exists a ready-made check-and-balance system, anyone
who does not like how the list-administrators perform their duties is free
to leave and start their own mailing list through the commitment of your
own resources. Lastly, if anything the list-administrators have shown too
light a hand in the past, letting many valued member of the Community
unsubscribe because of the actions of certain other list-members like Mark
in the past before taking action. Again, there seems no evidence that we
should fear the list-administrators going out of control.
More importantly don't pretend, however, that your act of subscribing to
this List somehow gives you a "right" to a say in the manner in which the
list-administrators commit their resources to this List. That is, don't
pretend that this above arrangement should *by*right* be anything other
than what it is. The list-administrators are private holders of private
goods, and indeed should be commended for giving us, the subscribers, as
much say in the disposition of those private goods as we have.
Additionally, for me the task of defining inappropriate list behaviour is
analogous to defining pornography. Its very difficult to do it with clear
rules, but we know it when we see it. I personally am more than happy to
let the current list-administrators make that kind of determination -
again because of their prior record, and because it is their right as the
private holders of the private resources that make this List run . None of
us can pretend to have any *right* to control how they use their property,
simply because we subscribed to a List.
So anyhow, I know that I speak for a lot of us when I say that I subscribed
to Brin-L to read discussions of the real issues that the owners of the
resources necessary to run Brin-L wanted to promote (ie just about
everything), and not the navel-gazing of some lonely campaigners for some
kind of bizzarre Libertarian Paradise who seem to not grasp the same
reality (described above) that most of the rest of us do. So please, to
everyone who is engaged in this campaign - please drop it to an off-list
forum. Thank you.
JDG - Who is now dropping this himself.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
People everywhere want to say what they think; choose who will govern
them; worship as they please; educate their children -- male and female;
own property; and enjoy the benefits of their labor. These values of
freedom are right and true for every person, in every society -- and the
duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common
calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across the ages.
-US National Security Policy, 2002
_______________________________________________
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