"Since I was actively involved in fighting the hotel, I intentionally
saved all emails on that topic for reference. A similar email search
using the term "campus inn" produced the first 400 emails, dating from
April 28, 2008 until June 8, 2009. All of the list-generated posts came
from UC List; not one of the 400 emails had "UCNeighbors" in the "from"
heading."
Good analysis! Record abstraction was a very good way to look at this
data. Your report of your methods is also perfect.
My interpretation of your data suggests that we should consider the
chilling effect of censorship at the neighborhood level. I've seen
increasing reports about "moderation" and how it discourages anything
approaching discourse. It is a tool for exclusive clubs or deceptive spin.
As soon as Penn drops UC Neighbors without continuing any links, I could
also wish their club well! Cassidy and Tony can moderate a club on
google or many other places.
But using the massive Penn network to set up censorship of controversial
UC neighborhood topics was very problematic. It was hard to believe
that any university would promote a closed censored list as a public
list, for such a long time. The implications of censorship over the
adjacent neighborhood, at the time the university was ostensibly
"partnering" with the neighborhood, are extraordinary.
Wilma raised that alarm as soon as Cassidy/Melani made the
announcement. Penn employees need to be trained on the open expression
policies that most responsible universities put in place!
Good analysis,
Glenn
On 4/13/2010 2:49 PM, Karen Allen wrote:
Since we're discussing the relative merits of the two primary
neighborhood listservs, I'd like to make one observation:
The actual reason UC Neighbors doesn't have rancor or hostility on its
list is basically because they rarely talk about anything
controversial there that would arouse rancor or hostility. They
created that list with that in mind, and serves a defined audience.
None or very few of the controversial issues that burned hot on
UC List were even mentioned on UC Neighbors. I observed that once in a
while someone would cross-post a response to a UC discussion to
UCNeighbors, but usually no further discussion took place there.
I remember that UCNeighbors was spawned by Kyle Cassidy in (I think)
2006 because there had been some really nasty exchanges going back
and forth on UC list over UCD's BID proposal. UCNeighbors
was definitely around during the Campus Inn fight (that controversy
first arose when an article appeared in the October 12, 2007 edition
of UCReview, and was finally resolved in early June, 2009).
I did a search of my undeleted email with the term "ucneighbors", and
found 12 pages (over 400 emails) of UC Neighbors posts dating back to
August 2007. Overall the consistent topics were: missing pets,
recycling, home repair and contractor recommendations, meet-ups,
clean-ups, crime alerts, schools, cultural events and general
announcements; basically the same things that appear on the UC
list. There were no posts mentioning "Campus Inn". The only somewhat
controversial discussion there had to do with the closing of the
Kingsessing branch library.
Since I was actively involved in fighting the hotel, I intentionally
saved all emails on that topic for reference. A similar email search
using the term "campus inn" produced the first 400 emails, dating from
April 28, 2008 until June 8, 2009. All of the list-generated posts
came from UC List; not one of the 400 emails had "UCNeighbors" in the
"from" heading.
By contrast, UC Listserv talks about controversial issues, which in
turn have aroused passionate, angry, hostile, exchanges from the
people, on either side, who care about an issue. I regret having lost
friendships over some of the things that have been fought out on this
listserv. But the reason that there is no homeless shelter, UCD
tax, or ten-story hotel in this neighborhood is due in large measure
to the existance of this list.
I don't intend this to be an attack on the UCNeighbors listserv,
because they serve an audience. I'm merely pointing out that UC
Neighbors and UC Listserv have different audiences and fill different
niches. Neither one is better than the other, and neither one is a
substitute for the other.
From *Franklyn Haiman */_The American Prospect _/*| */June 23, 1991:/
"As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis advised, in his famous
/Whitney v. California/ opinion in 1927, "If there be time to expose
through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by
the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech,
not enforced silence."
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