Re: [NOISE] If the shoe fits, wear it [VULIS]

Rich Graves Wrote:

>Yes, this gets to my point. Private censorship tells more about the 
>censor than about the censored. In this case, John acted properly, and 
>his credibility has only been enhanced. You are of course free to rant 
>and rave about his hypocrisy, but expecially since you'll always be able 
>to post to the list, at least under a nym (the only thing he's prevented 
>is your reading the list under your own name), you're only proving 
>yourself to be an idiot.

The nature of the Internet means it is extremely difficult for John
to prevent Dr. Vulis from either posting using a pseudonym or
having messages forwarded to him.  IF it were possible to prevent
Vulis from either reading messages or posting do you think John
would have done that too?  Just curious.

Alan Majer
networks@vir.com

networks@vir.com wrote:
> 
> Rich Graves Wrote:
> 
> >You [meaning Vulis] are of course free to rant and rave about his 
> >[John's] hypocrisy, but expecially since you'll always be able
> >to post to the list, at least under a nym (the only thing he's
> >prevented is your reading the list under your own name), you're
> >only proving yourself to be an idiot.
> 
> The nature of the Internet means it is extremely difficult for John
> to prevent Dr. Vulis from either posting using a pseudonym or
> having messages forwarded to him.  IF it were possible to prevent
> Vulis from either reading messages or posting do you think John
> would have done that too?  Just curious.

I think that gets into "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" 
territory, because it just isn't, and I certainly don't speak for him. 
But...

1. None of the "it was the right thing to do" crowd, which runs the
   gamut from my perspective to Sandy Sandfort's (concurring in
   conclusion, but radically different in reasoning), has said
   to indicate that such action would be totally wrong.

2. In my opinion, such action would deserve strict scrutiny -- not in   
   the legal sense, because it's a private matter, but from interested
   parties, yes. The "hypocrisy" and "arbitrary and capricious"
   judgements should be made and discussed by the users of the list. If
   they(we) think the action is wrong, we'd protest or leave. This is
   a question of persuasion or "voting with our feet," though, not of
   law.

Personally, I wish Vulis would just go away, permanently, and I would 
not consider any nonviolent, non-net-abusing means to stop his ravings 
inappropriate. However, I do not believe that there are any nonviolent, 
non-net-abusing means to stop his ravings, so we're at an impasse, as 
far as the cypherpunks list is concerned. I think that if this became a 
forum for Vulis-bashing, and he were unable to respond, then that would 
be very wrong; but I just don't see that happening. I can think of 
several examples where that kind of thing has happened, some of which I 
thought were reasonable (given the way the relevant forums were 
advertised), others of which I thought showed the moderator to be an 
intolerant, hypocritical asshole.

Given the facts of this case, I do not consider John to be an 
intolerant, hypocritical asshole. Given your hypothetical, and speaking 
only of Vulis, not of "others similarly situated," I would think no less 
of John if he were to decide to implement the technically impossible, 
provided that there was procedural transparency. I.e., announcing what 
had happened and allowing discussion of what happened was the right 
thing to do. Only if he kicked people off without telling the list, or 
lied about his reasons for doing so, or suppressed dissent with his 
actions -- which has happened in other moderated forums, but not here -- 
then would I have a serious [moral and personal, not legal or 
philosophical, since people have the right to be hypocritical assholes 
if they want to be] problem with it.

-rich

Rich Graves <rcgraves@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> Personally, I wish Vulis would just go away, permanently, and I would
> not consider any nonviolent, non-net-abusing means to stop his ravings
> inappropriate. However, I do not believe that there are any nonviolent,
> non-net-abusing means to stop his ravings, so we're at an impasse, as

If you use procmail to filter out whatever I say, then it may seem to you that
I've gone away. But that's not what the "libertarians" want - e.g. the lying
shyster from Florida, with the Harry Browne plug in his signature, wrote that
he already killfiled me, but wants me silenced so others can't read me either.

> far as the cypherpunks list is concerned. I think that if this became a
> forum for Vulis-bashing, and he were unable to respond, then that would

Evidently Timmy May would like very much to continue posting lies about me
and his other "enemies" on this list without our being able to refute them.

> advertised), others of which I thought showed the moderator to be an
> intolerant, hypocritical asshole.

You sure come down hard on John Gilmore. :-)

> provided that there was procedural transparency. I.e., announcing what
> had happened and allowing discussion of what happened was the right
> thing to do. Only if he kicked people off without telling the list, or
> lied about his reasons for doing so, or suppressed dissent with his

You may know something that I don't know for a fact, and I would appreciate
an explanation from you:

First, John tried to ban me from the list in a sneaky manner, as befits a
small-time petty blonde bitch. He did not tell me that deleted my address
from the mailing list and instructed majordomo to "play dead" in response
to any requests from me. I just assumed that toad.com was down; it took me
a little while to figure out John's sneaky games, at which point I posted
a note about that to c-punks. Timmy May immediately posted a denial. John
Gilmore's public admission of his censorship only came days later.

Second, how do you know that I was the only person so censored? I may well
be the only person tenacious enough to stick around afterwards and to expose
John Gilmore's hypocricy and total lack of credibility, but I recall a few
incidents when other high-profile posters suddenly disappeared right in the
middle of conversation without even saying goodbye. Names like Fred Cohen,
"high crime" and David Sternlight come to mind... Did John Gilmore silence
them or others whose writings he didn't like the way to tried to silence me?

You're definitely wrong about the "announcing" bit, but I'd appreciate any
evidence that I was the "only" person censored on this list as you claim.

> then would I have a serious [moral and personal, not legal or
> philosophical, since people have the right to be hypocritical assholes
> if they want to be] problem with it.

Yes, and how do you know how many times John Gilmore exercised his right?
I sure don't, and would like to know.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps