I support Steven's action. I have not contacted Mr. Beaty, and my
position in general is that individuals should not be banned from the
list without a violated warning from someone speaking with authority.
But that's normative, not prescriptive, and the matter is up to list
owner discretion. I do support letting the list know when someone is banned.
And banned list members do have the individual email addresses of
list members (from before they were banned, if they keep their own
received mail), and can still submit anything appropriate to the list
through such a channel. Of course, a list member who forwards
inappropriate material would themselves be subject to scrutiny. If
the fellow in question were to send me a mail and I were to forward
it to the list, in order to respond to it, I'd be responsible for that.
I actually need to be careful about this, because it can happen
inadvertently. Suppose a banned member sends me an email that is cc'd
to the list, and I respond with "Reply to All" as I normally do, not
noticing that it was sent personally to me. Even though the banned
member's post would be bounced, *my reply* would not.
I've previously erred in similar ways.
Here, after a long period simply ignoring this fellow's posts, when
it became clear that he was using this list almost totally to troll,
I started responding again, initially by documenting what he'd been
doing, showing how he was lying about his own behavior.
And I also responded in detail about his claims about Islam, and
there is a purpose to that (and when it was pointed out that any of
this should have the [OT} tag, I started to add that.) My reason:
what this fellow claims are myths believed by a surprisingly high
number of Americans, probably because of the publication in certain
religious circles.
At 10:42 AM 12/22/2012, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote:
I just sent off a brief message to Mr. Beaty asking if he could take
a moment of his time to assess whether what I personally perceive to
be an increase in trolling activity originating from certain
anonymous individuals (whose names shall not be mentioned here to
avoid email filters) might need to be addressed.
It's generally not my policy to pester Mr. Beaty as we all have busy
lives that need attending to. However, I am getting concerned.
It was just my own personal opinion that I expressed to Mr. Beaty.
As a single opinion I don't carry that much weight. It's more likely
to be the collective opinions of the Collective that will carry the
necessary weight. Therefore, others who might feel concerned about
recent trolling activity might want to drop Bill a line. Be sure to
express your own opinion. BE BRIEF!!!
I did mention the fact that, IMHO, posting clearly marked Off Topic
[OT] discussions is a perfectly healthy activity for Vortex-l
participants, as long as the intention is not to incite undue
aggravation among other members. Unfortunately, certain trolls have
been abusing that privilege. IMHO, it might be time to address the
matter, administratively.
My 2 cents
Regards,
Steven Vincent Johnson
www.OrionWorks.com
www.zazzle.com/orionworks
