Re: Please abandon this forum

John LaCroix wrote:
On Mar 23, 7:09 pm, "Reza Ganjavi (www.rezamusic.com)"
<ganj...@xxxxxx> wrote:
John LaCroix wrote:
On Mar 22, 4:31 pm, "Reza Ganjavi (www.rezamusic.com)"
<ganj...@xxxxxx> wrote:
This is the most refreshing thread I've ever read on this forum,
although today I subscribed to this newsgroup after being absent for a
long time (and have read just about five posts) and will soon
unsubscribe again for the very reason Paulpods discusses.
I believe all unmoderated cyber forums are problematic. Dialogue and
exchange is good but these unregulated forums under the outdated
technology known as "usenet" (developed some 30 years ago) are
completely open to abuse. Add to that the current state of cyber law
which is far behind law in the real world (but quickly catching up).
The only hope for an unmoderated open forum is the decency of
participants and respect for civility. I do not know of any unmoderated
forum where this decency fully exists and know many moderated forums in
which it does. The simple reason is, there are a lot of lunatics out
there who abuse the unmoderated forum in a variety of ways to achieve
fulfillment of their boring life, to be somebody in a cyber-group when
their lives are empty and devoid of rich relationships, to fulfill a
dream and pretend to be something they could never be in real life, to
get a kick out of kicking people, you know, there are so many sick
people out there and even after taming themselves to the max in order to
win public sympathy, so called friendship, and so on, the vulgarity that
they never grow out of keeps showing up.
Now you got people like Angelo Gilardino and Stanley Yates and other
civil, good, yet less well known folks posting on a forum like this and
this helps its spirit -- the "pub" gets a bit more civil and rational
but the fact remains that there is always the possibility of vulgar
attacks not only at a superficial level but at a highly criminal and
illegal level. In a real world pub at least the bar tender is sober and
call 911.
I completely support Paulpods' call for abandonment of such forums in
favor of moderated forums until both the technology and regulation
improves enough to make such forums a safe place. As it stands today,
all unmoderated forums including internet in general is an extremely
dangerous place. I am writing a book on the subject presently.
I wish all civil good "humans" to have a happy & safe spring.
ag wrote:
On 21 Mar, 03:27, paulpods <paulp...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Classical Guitar has a hard enough time in the world anyway. Anyone
searching for information about Classical Guitar might happen on to
this list. What an embarrassment if people find this list where
anonymous posters with no accomplishments can create havoc.
I'm begging the people of some accomplishment on this list, Matanya
Ophee, Angelo Gilardino, Stanley Yates, Andrew Schulman, etc., to stop
posting to this forum. And I'm begging the rest of us to go to forums
where there is some moderation or at least a bit of self-policed
decency. There's delcamp, acousticguitar, guitarsalon and others.
Consider the negative effect this forum has on Classical Guitar in
general, and the negative effect this forum has on your own health.
Let this forum die. Stop using it. Leave it only to the unbalanced and
no one will want to peruse it anymore. R.I.P.
Thank You.
For a professional musician who work in the area of classical guitar,
there is nothing to earn from sharing his knowledge in a newsgroup.
Yet, it may be a sign of a certain attitude toward life not to close
himself in an ivory tower with claiming "I am too important for these
guys": like the music one writes, also his words are addressed to
humanity, not to people, and there is a lot of humanity here, albeit
mixed with a lot of people.
ag- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
<sarcasm>
Yes, what we need it a world where all discussions, both online and
otherwise are moderated so no one's feelings get hurt.
</sarcasm>
What then will you do when the 'moderator' rubs you the wrong way?
John L.
John, that's an interesting point despite your being sarcastic.
In a perfect world everyone would have freedom of speech including
freedom to speech anonymously, and nobody would abuse those rights. Of
course we don't live in a perfect world. For one thing, many political
systems don't give their people that freedom but take a society that
does provide those freedoms, like the US, where those freedoms are
protected by the 1st Amendment and its derivatives (i.e. court rulings,
e.g., the ruling that protected the right to speak anonymously). No
right is absolute and in the same society, when those rights are abused
they're lost. This was exactly the case which I litigated as discussed
in my upcoming book and various filings as discussed on:

http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/RezaGanjavi_vs_JeremySmith_ToddTipt...http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/3rd_amended_complaint_IL.htmhttp://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/misc_filings.html

A person abused his right to free anonymous speech by carrying a number
of attacks on this very newsgroup such as using my email address and
name and website URL to pose as me and then to publish posts that
sympathized with terrorists, insulted people of African origin, and
attack my personality, products and services in every unimaginable way,
setup website that mocked mine, publish stuff I hadn't written as my
writings, and attacks which a minute fraction of would make most people
break down. He used numerous aliases and attempted to remain anonymous.
After going through hell, I got a hold of his ISP and subpoenaed them
for his identity. Around the same time, I came upon a clue and with help
from a friend who used to read this newsgroup, nailed down who the
attacker was, but still needed legal proof, so pursued the subpoena and
the guy tried to still remain anonymous and prevent his ISP from
releasing his name. So I got a call fomr a top notch lawyer at a freedom
of speech advocacy group wanting to know if my case had merit. His
threat was, if I could not show my case has merit, he will file a motion
to quash my subpoena and for the guy to remain anonymous.

I sent him the evidence document I had compiled (at the time, some 90
pages which was and is not public as a Federal judge had agreed to have
it filed under seal). Upon reviewing it he decided not to file the
motion and the ISP sent me the guy's name and address in Chicago as
indicated in the public filings. The rest of the details are out of
scope here, but the point is, there are limits to freedoms when freedoms
are abused.

Now, in the "real world" (vs. cyberspace), the laws governing abuses of
rights are much more present and intuitive than in cyberspace. In the
real world, a discussion group may or may not be moderated but no forums
allows one of the participants to pose as another participant and
threaten to kill another participant (which was one of the things that
happened in this case -- one of the guys I had no choice but to sue in
the case referenced above, did exactly that). Furthermore, it is more
intuitive in participants in forums in the real world that there are
certain things they can't get away with, but somehow, naively, many
people think just because it's in cyber world, they can get away with
it. This is a very serious problem in our époque. Cyber stalking experts
know all about this. Serious crimes happen within these contexts and
legislation and law enforcement are a step behind but are catching up as
more people raise awareness to these matters which is exactly why I have
been prompted to write a book about the hell I had to go through and the
successes I had, which many victims of these kinds of abuses are not
capable to achieve for a variety of reasons...

So, yes, I would say, a cyber-space based free-for-all, open forum where
anybody and their mother could participate, around a topic which is
general enough to attract a large cross section of society (e.g. guitar)
vs. a very specific one (e.g. syntactic structures in nominals), needs a
moderator, and there are many such groups with moderators (e.g.
rec.music.beatles.moderated) which work perfectly, and ideally, a
moderator's role is minimal and mainly limited to weeding out abusers.
Otherwise, abuse is to be expected because there are people out there
who do not respect other people's rights -- plain and simple.

So I'd revise your remarks you clearly posted as sarcasm, if I may, as
follows:

"Yes, what we need is a world where online discussions in forums where
people post using their real-identity, are moderated so no one's rights
are abused."

You notice I replaced "feelings" with "rights" because the dangers are
not about people just hurting other people's feelings by saying I don't
like your playing or the sound of your name, but serious offenses that
can literally destroy people.

Regards
Reza Ganjaviwww.rezamusic.comwww.rezajournal.com- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, you have spelled out what had happened to you before and I don't
condone it. You can replace the words 'feelings' with 'rights', but to
me
that is the danger: people's 'feelings' supassing my 'rights'.

Exactly. When someone gets a crooked feeling that they may get a kick out of kicking somebody or get a sick pleasure out of seeing another person suffer, they may actually go deliver that kick or cause that misery. The point I made in the original post was that it's more difficult to do that in the real world than cyber world because people often think they can get away with it in the cyber world, that they can remain anonymous, that there is no law in cyber space, but this subject only relates to the crooked sick mind or one that is dumb enough to put its own feelings ahead of another person's rights. A rational, sane, civil person would not have those sick urges anyway and if he did, his civility would win over his sick desire to go kick another person, and for a civil person the superficial anonymity that internet provides is irrelevant if he's willing to stand behind everything he said anonymously, which I assume most civil, good "humans" (vs. "people" to use Angelo's terminology) would.


This is
happening all around us in the world today. For example, I am not a
smoker and do
not condone smoking. I agree with laws passed prohibiting smoking in
public places like libraries, but when such bans were extended to bars
and restaurants
I did not agree. I might not like smoking, but I can choose which bars
and restaurants I patronize and do not need the government to make
them 'safe' for
my sake. Now, the city of Burlington VT has passed a ban on smoking in
public parks and beaches. Again, I'm no fan of the smoker but INMO
this is going
way over the line.

In days passed, a person sitting next to you on a bar stool would ask
if you minded if they smoked and wouldn't smoke if you minded. Common
courtesy. If some
one insulted you and refused to apologize, you could punch them in the
nose and that would be the end of it. Now we go running to our lawyers
at every opportunity.

I can't comment on the smoking issue because I'd need a few pages and it'd be OT, but your last point in the above paragraph refers to how the society has become litigious. I've lived in several countries and can say with certainty that the US is the most litigious country in the world, followed by UK. This is one of the negative images of US in the eyes of many Europeans but my take on the subject is that

a) yes, US is way too litigious -- people run to lawyers too quickly -- people fail to try to work things out before they sue each other - and unfortunately it's become the norm in many organizations to sue and the talk.

b) That was one of the difficulties I had. I was coming from a background of growing up around judges and lawyer since childhood as dad uncles grandfather etc. all had law careers, and in my book, suing somebody was and is out of the question unless I really really really have to, and I really tried in every step of the way to do that but the facts I was not left with any choice... full explanation of details will be discussed in my book. In this day and age it seems when you tell someone "don't let me resort to law" they take it as a sign of weakness because there are so many others who sue first and talk later.

c) There is a positive aspect in the US legal system which makes it possible for anybody to claim their right in case of abuse. I saw in the pro-se office people coming in with handwritten pleadings and they were helped. In Europe, it is very difficult and very expensive to do that. In the US you pay a few hundred bucks of filing fee and you get endless access to a senior Federal judge who was appointed by the President whose time is probably worth $500/hour. In many parts of Europe you have to pay for the judge's time like you would for a lawyer's time. So, many Europeans have lawsuit insurance, and there are several layers of arbitration before you see a judge.

Bottom line is, the system is more streamlined and accessible in the US but it is not to be abused, but it is abused. Anyway, a discussion on the difference between different judicial systems is certainly off topic. How did we get here?


It would be nice if everyone posted using their real names, but it's
not necessary.

It's a matter of civility vs. vulgarity. The content is important not the name.

I treat everything I read on the net as seriously as
what I see on TV. It's loaded with
hyperbole and advertising. In general, the crap to valuable content
ratio is about 80:20. If people want to hide behind sock puppets while
they insult and slander me that
is fine.

Insulting and slandering are two different things. I could care less about insult. But the dangers that users of this technology face, specially a user of a unmoderated usenet group, is far greater than just slander. I have elaborated on this in depth in my book. Take a real world example. A crazy guy walks in the bus and calls you every word under the sun. You might get upset or you might just walk out and be perfectly ok. I just walk away. That insult is unimportant. But then all your neighbours might get a letter one day signed by you with your letter head and your very name and address in which you say things you would never ever say, like threatening to kill another neighbour.

I bet anything you would mind that, or at least you'd mind it for a while. And this doesn't include the likelihood of getting arrested, having to post bail if you're lucky, and then proving somehow that the signature was forgery, it was someone who's dead jealous, is mentally ill, or whatever the motive may be, and prove all this, and eventually get off the hook. You would very much mind being in a situation like that in the real world. The cyber world is no different. If you have the opinion that it is different, that it's the quality of television, and so on, I can't argue with you, I respect your right to that opinion, but fact is, FBI tracked and arrested Jihad Jane through her internet activities.

It's not like I am going to drive across the country to
confront them even if I know who they are. It simply
> isn't that important.

Of course, it depends on the severity of the matter. There are many cases out there where it is so severe that the person is willing to drive to the end of earth to get the abusers to stop.

There are always those who feel empowered
by attacking from positions of concealment - that was the case long
before the internet, and I suspect it will be around long after.

True. We've seen this in many gang movies in Old Chicago Town. The modern gangsters try to do it on the internet. There are equivalent of gang stalkers in the real world these days on the internet, and it's absolutely no fun being a victim of a cyber gang stalkers. It all boils down to civility vs. vulgarity.


Finally:

"You notice I replaced "feelings" with "rights" because the dangers
are
not about people just hurting other people's feelings by saying I
don't
like your playing or the sound of your name, but serious offenses
that
can literally destroy people."

I once had a commanding officer call me something very demeaning in
the presence of a large public group. I told him that I appreciated
his sentiment but that frankly
I had been called worse names by better people. Lesson #1 from pre-
school: "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never
hurt me". Some day, in the future,
if I live long enough I am going to be a dribbling old fool in a
diaper wharehoused in a nursing home and the last thing I am going to
care about is what someone wrote about
me on the web 30 years before.

John L.

It is very difficult unless you get victimized by a severe case to have any idea what it's like. It's very easy to sit on the side lines and say names will not hurt me, but the kinds of cases that get prosecuted these days are far more severe than someone calling another a harsh name.

Good wishes to you.


.

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