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  My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
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   Author  Topic: My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?  (Read 1299 times)
LenKen
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My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« on: 2004-06-18 01:37:00 »
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Perhaps it would be prudent if each of us were to ask ourself whether we still approve of the ban on war talk on the mailing list—and then revote if necessary.  When I first cast my vote, I chose to continue the ban, but I didn’t fully think through all the possible repercussions—that someone might get silenced for merely mentioning the war in passing . . . or for just posting someone else’s war-related post (and, yes, I realize my vote in the CoV doesn’t count any more than my vote in the last presidential election did—since I refuse to play the reputation game—but I’d like to think that some people are at least mildly influenced and/or entertained by my accompanying sound bites [sight bites?]).
    Instead of silencing everyone who has (probably inadvertantly) broken the rules, maybe we can reach some sort of compromise: Maybe just ban Joe Dees for six weeks or something (I’m kidding, of course).
    The most annoying aspect of the whole deal is that I just started subscribing to the Virus mailing list again.  (I was on it for the first two days that I was a member of the CoV, but I soon began worrying that all of those messages might wind up clogging up my inbox before I got around to sifting through them.*)
    And now some of the most interesting posters are prohibited from posting for at least a week.  Oy vey!




*But now Yahoo! offers 100 MB storage capacity on their free email account?  I swear, if Hotmail doesn’t get its shit together (they’re currently giving chumps like me 2MB of storage), I’m just gonna switch everything over to my Yahoo! email account.  I think Hotmail’s only real redeeming quality is that they let me manage my email account through Outlook Express for free (and I’m sure that has nothing to do with Microsoft’s ownership of both—they’re just genuinely good people, that’s all).
    And when Google eventually gets their email started (as you may have heard, they plan on offering 1GB of storage), Hotmail will probably go the way of Homo erectus—that’s right, they’re gonna die out from having too much gay sex in the bathhouse.
    And you heard it here first.

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David Lucifer
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Re:My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« Reply #1 on: 2004-06-18 07:51:42 »
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Given that your suggested alternative was not serious, I'd like to hear some real alternatives.
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rhinoceros
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My point is ...

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Re:My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« Reply #2 on: 2004-06-18 08:33:27 »
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[LenKen]
<snip>
I realize my vote in the CoV doesn’t count any more than my vote in the last presidential election did—since I refuse to play the reputation game—but I’d like to think that some people are at least mildly influenced and/or entertained by my accompanying sound bites [sight bites?])
<snip>


[rhinoceros]
But doesn't this mean that you *are* playing the reputation game? It is inevitable, I think. What do you think is wrong with quantifying it and casting it as a vote, rathen that appealing to David for everything?

Besides voting, the reputation rating also gives a hint of what the people here want to read and discuss, and it is possible that this is going to be used soon in one form or another to make sure that any "disruption" will be weighed well for its value.

There have been cases in the past -- not always about politics --  that a "zero-weight" disruption went of for months, chasing away interesting people and topics.

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LenKen
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Re:My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« Reply #3 on: 2004-06-18 20:55:15 »
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Quote:
[David Lucifer, Esq.]  Given that your suggested alternative was not serious, I’d like to hear some real alternatives.

Oh, c’mon, there was a serious suggestion in the first sentence of my post: All Virions who haven’t already done so may wish to rethink the issue of whether we should continue the prohibition of war talk on the mailing list . . . only this time think of the specific repercussions—the pragmatic, real-world effects—of the ban rather than trying to analyze it from the standpoint of abstract, general principles that might work in a perfect world but rarely do in this one (Sorry, Herr Leibniz).
    The solution to annoying emails is simply to delete those emails.  I know it’s a waste of time, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s merely a trivial and temporary inconvenience.  Maybe the real problem that needs to be dealt with isn’t so much external (i.e., people wasting too much time arguing about topics that will never be resolved to either party’s satisfaction—e.g., war and terrorism) as internal (i.e., people’s low frustration tolerance, mine included).
    As the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, more than 2,100 years ago, “Men are disturbed not by things but by the views they take of them.”

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David Lucifer
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Re:My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« Reply #4 on: 2004-06-18 23:02:34 »
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Quote from: LenKen on 2004-06-18 20:55:15   

    The solution to annoying emails is simply to delete those emails.  I know it’s a waste of time, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s merely a trivial and temporary inconvenience.

I think you missed the part where war discussion completely dominates the list for months on end and pushes out almost all other discussion and many interesting subscribers too. Why can't we just move it to the BBS?
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LenKen
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Re:My Lucifer, My Lucifer, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
« Reply #5 on: 2004-06-19 00:32:44 »
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Serendipitously, I did miss that part.  Though I wish I’d joined the CoV almost five years ago—when I first heard about it in Richard Dawkins’s Foreword to Susan Blackmore’s book The Meme Machine—from what I’ve seen (in the archives) and heard (from little birdies), that’s one CoV chapter I’m glad I didn’t have to read.
    Sometimes I overestimate the capacity for (some) people to police themselves—so they don’t have to be policed by others.  As much as I hate to admit it, this is probably the lesser of the two evils: Though I’d prefer that no one be temporarily banned from the mailing list (well, maybe not no one), I’d prefer even more that the mailing list remain interesting.
    So, on second thought—or is this the third thought—maybe I should re-revote on the issue, reechoing my original decision that talk of war and terrorism remain in the Serious Business section of the BBS.
    Though I may seem indecisive—even fickle—on this issue, I’d like to think that I’m merely changing my mind after viewing further facts and arguments . . . and thoughtfully considering those facts and arguments (though, in hindsight, maybe I should have mulled over those facts and arguments a little longer before making a decision in the first place).
    ¡Ay caramba! 
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