Original Message Date: 03 Jun 92 03:28:06 From: Dave Rawson on 1:102/341 To: Tom Jennings on 1:1/1 Subj: 3 of 3 ^AINTL 1:1/1 1:102/341 To Tom Jennings 1:1/1 5-16-92 6:55:46 pm > And for you personally -- last but not least in this message -- I > can only apologize for the mess, my only excuse being that I am > editor in the position of making something out of nothing. I understand your position. I understand your INTENT. But your criteria for what you publish is unintentionally at odds with your desires. You have given great impetus to a vast wrong. In my tenure as an InterUser Moderator, a literally Global Echo - Irkutsk to Israel - which allows the discussion of anything (!) as long as it is without rancor, THOUSANDS of participants have posted therein. Is it any wonder that a tiny handful of individuals with a HISTORY of provocative violations and practised character assassination should be thrown out? Their only recourse is to continue trying to polarize the FidoNet community, as they did InterUser, into a miasma of confused misinformation. And you have unintentionally aided the very "bullies" you say you wish to protect against. The credulous took their smears at face value, Tom. Though some individuals did question the specious assertions, not one - NOT ONE - individual seeing those hundreds of posts asked for a QUOTE substantiating allegations of what I "did" or "said". As I said before: The de facto platform of FidoNet "truth" for many appears to be "j'accuse!". > I'll put an apology in the editorial, with a very brief > explanation that Anne was far, far out on a limb. Is that article still available? If so, by what file name? > If you can come up with a response, it will be the FINAL WORD, as > I told Daan. Hear you have it. About two weeks from receipt of your offer. I trust this remains timely. I am sorry I did not respond more quickly, but maintenance on the echo comes before my unnecessary defense of unsupported, unproven allegations. I am also busy writing Justice League (you know - "Truth, Justice, the Americam Way") comic book stories here in the States, and for an audience of 2,000,000 readers a week, Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories for the dozen or so language groups of Europe. This burden was recently compounded by the failing health of a long time friend which resulted in death 24 hours ago. I trust you'll recognize that I have better things to do than continue (for more than two years) to cross swords with a small coterie of disaffected bullies who cannot stomach the Global cooperation that hallmarks the InterUser Echo during my tenure of responsibility for its character. "Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled." Edmund Burke [Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol - 1777] Just one tiny speck in a vast Universe Bahia del Sur de los Angeles *~>DR<~* Original Message Date: 03 Jun 92 03:27:55 From: Dave Rawson on 1:102/341 To: Tom Jennings on 1:1/1 Subj: 2 of 3 ^AINTL 1:1/1 1:102/341 To Tom Jennings 1:1/1 5-16-92 6:55:46 pm > Tom Jennings To Dave Rawson 26-Apr-92 re: Have you no shame?! > No -- there IS NO PROCESS for dealing with this. The written > policy is "we publish everything". Would this include incitement to riot, overthrow of the government, racist diatribes, credit card numbers, how to crack security systems, etc.? I believe Tom Jennings DOES draw a moral line at some internal point, if only a vague subjective process is involved. > What you saw was the rewrite. If ACCUSATIONS are made against an individual, why isn't SUBSTANTIATING evidence required? How is it that someone may simply invent whatever damaging remarks they wish, and are not held to BASIC civilized precepts of accountability? The burden of proof is upon the accuser to PROVE their point. NOT on some poor schmuck to perpetually be called onto carpet after carpet to repetitively defend themselves against what has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere to the satisfaction of local levels of FidoNet. > ... does not mean I believe it, agree with any of it, or dont know > crap when I see it. I see that I have an obligation to allow > people to publish stuff, even bad stuff. Are you saying that you have an "obligation" to print untrue, unsupported accusations, accusations leveled not in the abstract, but against a named individual?! And then because it does not convince you, you are therefore relieved of ANY responsibilty for providing the credulous with ammunition with which to create a bandwagon by which they join together to escalate the unsupported accusations until literally hundreds of messages have passed through FidoNet [MODERATOR and NET-POL] with my NAME and reputation being impuned for no reason beyond the instinct a flock of birds have to rip apart a bloodied member of their pecking order?! Again, I say: SHAME on you! > As far as "research" -- flatly impossible. So because you are unable to substantiate the veracity of unsupported accusations you FORCE the innocent accused to defend themselves in a manner which you yourself refuse to do? UNFAIR! > when I took over FIdoNews, I had the task of keeping it honest, I submit that in the future, any article you publish with specific factual allegations against an identified individual has, by all non-Napoleonic measurements of fairness, included in it substanting quotes purporting to demonstrate the charges. Had you done that in this instance, FURTHER investigation would have been rendered moot. > I will tell the author I will send their writing to each person > named, and when I get responses or a reasonable time passes, I > will run the whole thing (possibly edited) as a piece, ONCE. Tom, you're still missing the point of fundamental fairness. When not ONE quote is provided to substantiate FACTUAL accusations, why should an unsupported charge be defended at ALL? Why should the innocent be burdened by proof? The individual pleading their case has the obligation of doing so. Not the individual unfairly accused! Original Message Date: 03 Jun 92 03:27:42 From: Dave Rawson on 1:102/341 To: Tom Jennings on 1:1/1 Subj: Try, try again ^AINTL 1:1/1 1:102/341 To Tom Jennings 1:1/1 5-28-92 3:03:43 pm Hiya, Tom! I NEVER heard back from you regarding my response to your request. So I'm reposting the reply you requested. Hope it reaches you this time. I'd appreciate a "receipt" even if you don't have time to respond otherwise. Thanks! Dave Rawson InterUser Moderator Zones_1_4_6 Sabre_Mail_HST 1:102/341 Original Message Date: 16 Jun 92 08:47:59 From: Daniel Pisano on 2:248/4.10 To: Tom Jennings on 1:125/111 Subj: FNEWS918 and my netmail ^AFMPT 10 Hello Tom! 24 May 92, Tom Jennings writes to Daniel Pisano: TJ> re: the reason your message was quoted "anonymously". TJ> It isnt a big deal, really. I thought so. TJ> Obviously your message contained information and opinion on the TJ> INTERUSER problems in FidoNews. I needed to complete the discussion TJ> that week (instead of letting it drag out for weeks... or worse...), TJ> you are in Zone 2, and the zonegate had been not-working for 20 days. TJ> I couldnt wait util it was fixed (3 days ago!)... That sounds very reasonable. TJ> Why anonymous: because it was originalyl netmail, to me, and not a TJ> public message. There is an expectation of privacy in netmail, which TJ> fully support. TJ> "ANonymous" doesnt mean "sneaking around", if that is what you think I TJ> meant to imply. Ther eare many reasons to use anonymous, simply to TJ> protect privacy is a main one. I now see your point and I agree. It was O.K. although I would not have had serious problems (I think) in getting replies on that mail. TJ> Using your name would subject you to getting more responses from TJ> INTERUSER people, and if that happened by my act of including your TJ> name, etc, then it would have been my fault. I said "zone 2" simply to TJ> show it was not from my area, ie. not someone I knew locally, etc. TJ> I hope this explains it... Yeah. Ok, thank you for your explanation. I hope that the matter will be solved soon. Meanwhile, Would you like to have some articles from me (I've been working on some) on the fidonet? They are a kind of 'written thoughts' with titles like 'FidoDemocracy' and 'About Rights and Duties' which should start some discussions (or get them going) on some things in Fido that always were some kind of 'weird' or lacked of presence in the net. bye bye from Wiesbaden, Germany. Daniel --- GoldED 2.40