[Theforum] ballot not complete (and perspective)

Chris Spruck cspruck at mindspring.com
Sun Dec 30 13:48:26 CST 2001


At 06:32 PM 12/30/01 +0000, Martin wrote:

>>>Option B:
>>>     All other evolt public spaces join #evolt in being unarchived,
>>>     including thelist, thechat, thesite, thetips, theforum and Admin.
<snip>
>>Option C:
>>      The channel is a public evolt channel called #evolt which follows
>>      the same rules as the rest of evolt's public spaces, which is to
>>      say, the same standard of behaviour.
>>      This forum will not be archived unless it is used for an official
>>      meeting of the evolt.org Board of Directors, in which case it will
>>      be archived an made publicly available on www.evolt.org.
>>      No previous archives held by bot owners may be made public.

>That's essentially the same as option B, but with less consistency.

First let me say I'm a "will do A if forced, but prefer C" person, but I 
have to respectfully disagree with that statement. I think B is quite 
ridiculous and don't think anyone would seriously consider it, which seems 
to force the issue to A. C needs fair treatment or otherwise it's a case of 
"here's one option that only some people want while others may feel is not 
an option at all (A) or a really crappy option that no one wants (B), so 
now go vote" - sort of predisposes it to A, huh?. I think C is a perfectly 
fair option to at least add to the ballot.

Obviously things like the lists need to be archived because that's the real 
point of evolt and is the primary impression that new people may 
experience. I've been using #evolt for a week or two now and 98% of what 
I've seen in there has been stuff like what someone had for dinner, what 
temperature it is where one is, and (mostly from me) how the local hockey 
team is doing. I really can't believe that it's important for the world to 
know that I was eating sushi the night it was 53F/12C and the Thrashers 
beat the Leafs 5-4 and for that information to take up space on somebody's 
server. All this uproar for a handful of people sharing snippets of their 
daily experience? If there's some serious business issue, don't you think 
it'll get escalated to admin or theforum if it's serious enough?

>but as the evolt policy is for openness, it's not valid to have openness
>in some public spaces, but not others.

How could an IRC channel be any more open? Anyone has the option to log or 
not log. Why force another layer of logging?

>I don't know if you saw it, David, but Adrian
>quoted some abusive behaviour which didn't seem to be criticised
>by those in the channel at the time.

I didn't realize it went to this extent and am disappointed to hear that. 
You might get an abusive person in there now and then, but you'll get that 
in any bar or public space or on a mailing list too, and people hopefully 
ignore it and move on.

Maybe this is just a "rose-colored new-guy perspective", so skip this if 
you aren't interested in my thoughts.

I too, agree that it's time to get over this and move on to what the true 
spirit and intent of evolt is all about - helping fellow web-folk and 
fostering relationships and community. #evolt has definitely done that for 
me in the past few weeks and I hope to get to know more of you as well as I 
know the first couple people I've "met" and to continue on with the spirit 
I entered into this with, as well as be able to contribute back to evolt in 
some way, which is the real reason I give a damn at all. It sure would be 
easy to just go back to thelist only to lurk and not add any more stress or 
tasks to my life, but I won't give up that easily. I almost did, but over 
something this stupid? I'm still here.

I wonder how many new people *have* given up on evolt after witnessing all 
the bickering and enforcement arguments. Hope it's not too many. If you're 
new and reading this, evolt IS worth the effort and the friends you'll make 
will be rewarding, so don't get bogged down - write an article or start 
with some tips! Come say hi in #evolt. I felt so much better about things 
after just a couple of sessions of talking with people in #evolt. It's 
funny to me to see people become softer, a little less edgy and more human, 
but only around this time of year - which gets explained away as due to the 
holidays and particularly after the events of 9/11. Maybe folks ought to 
try it year-round - I know I sure will be. Hope your holidays were wonderful.

+1 for C

Respectfully,

Chris





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