Hi Ed,
Thanks for your reply.
First of all, the CMNS list is not protected from the media. The media
can, as I explained previously, learn of anything that is said. If a
reporter wants to publish anything, he can do this and we cannot stop
him. You, on the other hand are not the media and you are not any
ordinary reporter. You are trying to help the field. In addition, you
have important friendships and relationships in the field based on
trust and respect. When you propose to act like an ordinary reporter,
you damage that trust.
You've expressed some interesting ideas about who and what I am. I'll have
to think about that a bit before responding further on that point.
As for the advantage to the CMNS list to maintain privacy, this is a
requirement for open, frank and sometimes critical discussion. For
example, I would want to be able to tell a person that his data is
wrong without that information being made public. Such public
disclosure might cause embarrassment to the person or his loss of
support. I would want to discuss the situation and have my concerns
addressed so that the work could be improved in the future.
But Ed, that makes no sense at all. Why on earth would you send something
potentially embarrassing to an Internet list which is so loosely regulated
as the CMNS list instead of sending the email directly to the person and
only that person?
On the other side of the coin, I want criticism from other people about my
work without having to feel the risk of a public display of my
faults. I could do this by private e-mail, which I sometimes do, but
the list takes advantage of the different ideas and experiences that a
group provides.
I certainly see and agree with that benefit of the list.
But you say, you would not reveal such information. Perhaps not, but
you are already blaimed for shutting down Ross' work by showing its
flaws in public. While I agree, you were not the cause of Ross'
problems, nevertheless you showed a policy that other people fear.
What policy was that?
An ordinary reporter can get away with this because he works on a broad
range of issues and with a large group of people. You, on the other
hand, are in a narrow field and have to maintain relationships with a
small group of people. This requires a more careful and nuanced
approach.
Careful and nuanced approach: You mean like what you told me on July 19?
"Your article about George and later about Macy created an impression that
you are more concerned with the 'truth' than with people. This makes people
uncertain about who might be next. Consequently, you need to be more
careful in how you reveal the truth about the field. Eventually, the field
will be big enough and so well accepted, a little plainly spoken truth
would not cause you any problem."
I hope this makes sense without the distraction of feeling that I'm
being hostile.
Well, I'm not sure about your personal assessment of who and what I am
(media,) - I will need to ponder that a bit - but in general I do
appreciate your polite message.
Normally, I would send this as a private response,
since it does not concern anyone on Vortex.
However, you sent this to
me through Vortex so I'm responding the same way. I apologize to
people who find this exchange unimportant.
I think this is a valuable topic to be discussed on Vortex since it
pertains to some key aspects of how CMNS is reported. I for one, benefit
from the ideas and critiques from the members of this list. And I certainly
have nothing to hide.
Best regards,
Steve
