Cheers Dears
By Augusto Pinto
Moira-Nutters Net
Dears,
Did you think Moira was a village of wise fools as the legend goes? A
village full of of bumpkins? Think again. The place teems with tech-savvy
savants and intellectuals. While the rest of Goa was eating 'pez' the
Moidekars were battling with BSNL to ensure that they were given broadband
ahead of everyone else. And they got it. And thus began to flourish
http://groups.google.com/group/moira-net?hl=en-GB - the coolest village
mailing list in Goa.
Started by the foxy, Saligao based independent journalist Frederick Noronha,
who is famous because of his beard, and not because he is a Moidekar,
Moira-Net counts among its members nuclear scientist Silvestre Nazare,
computer wizard Edgar D'Souza, historian Dr.Teotonio De Souza, translator
Bernhard Thamm, engineer Jose De Gama Pais, the missionary nun in Burkina
Faso Sr. Margaret Coelho, the President of the only political party based in
Moira - Floriano Lobo, the film-maker Aljais Singh, artists and writers like
Venita Coelho and Jerry Pinto, and Cecil Pinto and so on and so forth. The
moderator is ex-headmaster Tony D'Sa. It's not that all these people live in
Moira, or were even born there, but if you interrogate them closely enough
you will realize that they were all at one point of time or another touched
by the moon after which they went bananas.
Anyway to come back to the subject, whether dinosaurs like me who who were
brought up on, and love the printed word ,like it or not, the internet is
the communication medium of the future, and ten years down the line,
everyone will have access to it through the mobile phones they carry in
their pockets. Therefore we should all be readying ourselves to use this
medium responsibly. Or else we may have to face similar consequences that
have befallen upon those who have misused their mobile phones by sending out
pornographic MMSs and lewd SMSs.
Moira- Net very early in its existence initiated a debate on the manner in
which such village mailing lists should conduct their affairs. Frederick
Noronha wrote:
"As a journalist who believes in both free speech and responsible speech
(which is fair to those involved), I would like members of Moira-Net to give
their opinion on where we should draw the line:
* On an endless thread that goes on, and on, and on without showing signs of
stopping.
* On posts that stoke flame-wars, without the potential of much positive
coming of it.
* On posts that might be defamatory.
* On posts that contain obscenity or which contain links to the same.
* On posts that don't trim the earlier messages, leading to a waste of
bandwidth.
* Any other debatable category of posts which you might like to mention
here.
I believe in giving maximum scope for free speech. Yet, to me, initiatives
such as these (Moira-Net) also have the responsibility of aiming at
attaining something positive. I'm sure all of us would not be wasting our
time if the goal of this list was merely to bog us all down into controversy
and endless name-calling. Such a mailing-list would only be boring for the
bulk of its members."
The respected historian Dr. Teotonio de Souza replied with what he thought
Moira-Net should be;
"(1) It should be a learning place: about past and present
(2) It should have the capacity to engage in dialogue and seek the truth -
without having to seeking to cover up wrongs
(3) There should be no intimidation over matters discussed in the forum
through private mails!
(3) It should leave <> to private mails.
(4) There should be total respect for the decisions of the moderator."
However if you have two Moidekars you'll have three mailing lists, and as
you might very well have expected, a rival mailing list called Moira-Nutters
Net is expected to go online soon. The moderator of this list is an
anonymous publicity seeking sockpuppet named Xanno Moidekar. In case you did
not know a sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception
within an Internet community. Earlier the term used to refer to a false
identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks while
pretending not to, like a puppeteer manipulating a hand puppet. Nowadays
sock-puppeting is defined as "the act of creating a fake online identity to
praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one's self, allies or
company."
Xanno Moidekar has his own blog site, and like all Moidekars is hungry for
publicity. So be kind to the sod, and do visit his blog whenever you want to
know how naive our fellow Goans can be. Hey so at last you are famous
Xanno - will you stop bugging us now?
Till next time then...
Cheers (ENDS)
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The above article appeared in the October 22, 2008 edition of the Herald,
Goa