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Re: SRH Reorg: No Personal Vendetta : Inconclusive "Proof"!
The benefits of the SRH reorg RFD are many - it provides more
moderators to ensure a faster response, it provides guidelines for
what moderators can and cannot do, it discusses what sort of articles
are appropriate to the new groups, and it generally provides a lot of
direction as far as making SRH a religion-oriented newsgroup.
Many times, people have claimed that this reorg was an attempt to
"destroy" SRH because its current moderator expressed an opinion.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and that's why my last
posting on this thread examined some of the events surrounding SRV. I
merely wished to summarize why I thought the "conspiracy theory"
claims were without merit, and I don't wish to drag on old issues ad
nauseum. In any case, Ajay Shah is still welcome to join as a
moderator in the SRH reorg proposal, so any claims of "vendetta"
should hereby be put to rest.
The reorg RFD will not only expand SRH, but it will make it more
responsive and a more enjoyable place. The hate and the pure politics
will vanish from SRH.moderated, and hopefully, more religious
discussion will take place. I support the RFD, and I encourage others
to take a look at it. It can be found at
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/srh.html
and I welcome people to comment about it.
The following response wraps up any loose ends about the SRV issue,
and I hope that this will be the last time I need to discuss the
SRV creation process on SRH.
In article <4cgeub$k5a@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ajay Shah <editor@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Vivek Sadananda Pai wrote:
>
>> It should not be surprising to anyone who has followed this thread
>> that one of the goals of the RFD is to make the moderators "mere
>> mortals" - in other words, the moderators are the peers, not the
>> overlords, of the readers of this group. This is why the reorg RFD
>> has specific statements about what moderators can and cannot do. It
>> is designed to limit the power of the moderators, and to prevent the
>> moderators from abusing their positions.
>
>But SRV, a newsgroup proposed and supported by the same moderators does
>not have any such rules and regulations about the people who maintain the
>software and hardware of the bot moderated newsgroup. So, naturally, the
>question still remains, why these double standards?
They aren't double standards, and your sentence indicates why -- these
people maintain the hardware and software of the moderation
robot. They are "mere mortals" by definition - they have to follow the
same rules as every other participant in SRV. There is no way they can
abuse their position, since the SRV charter is very explicit about how
the group is to be run.
Might I ask why this comes back to SRV so often instead of focusing on
the RFD? Do you believe that the guidelines for the behavior of
moderators is somehow bad? Do you believe that the clauses which make
a moderator a "mere mortal" are somehow wrong? If not, then why argue
about this issue at all - if the rules governing the moderator are
acceptable to you, then say so and let's move on. If they are disagreeable
to you, say why, rather than changing the subject to SRV.
>> This is a blatant lie - what was at issue was not what beliefs Ajay
>> held, but his unethical campaigning during the _CFV_ stage of SRV. In
>
>Vivekji, perhaps I can refresh your memory. Here is a sequence of events.
>
>1. I *did* post during RFD (on news.groups), surely, with your expertise in
>DejaNews search, you can dig out my post?
Please show me the post during the RFD phase. If it was the post
during the Shah/Bemra/Bhatnagar burst, then that was after the RFD
phase but before the CFV.
However, the main portion of that paragraph was the unethical
campaigning during the CFV.
>Hindu unity was underscored, so I posted a **personal** opinion regarding
[...]
>more constructive dialog. In any case, surely, even moderator of SRH has
>freedom of speech to express his personal opinion.
You posted messages from your SRH accounts, and you noted you position
as SRH moderator in the messages. Why didn't you list your employer,
or use your company e-mail account instead, if these things held no
significance?
>3. But surely, must know, the post about my personal opinion about SRV was
>made from ajay@mercury account, perhaps one of the subsequent posts was
>made from srh@rbhatnagar account. Once again, your expertise with DejaNews
>can help you in this regards.
Well, at least now you're no longer claiming that this whole issue
revolves around just your personal opposition. The rules for the
behavior of a moderator should be clear, and that's what the reorg RFD
attempts to do. So, now, let's move on and if you have any comments
about it, please make them.
>4. Afterall, I did not post my views to SRH. So how was I misusing
>moderator privilages?
>
>> moderator's accounts to send out his messages against SRV, and he
>> signed his notes indicating his position as moderator of SRH. All of
>> this, once again, took place in the stage where campaigning is _not_
>
>There are enough Ajay Shahs in the world, and all I had done was say
>which Ajay Shah was posting this message.
Your e-mail address provides that information.
[lots snipped, because it's a re-hash of the past]
>Since the first and major posting was done from my personal account, and
>since that posting was not made to SRH. it should be pretty obvious that
>there was no abuse of moderator position
Using the moderator account for the subsequent postings would seem
to be an inappropriate use of the account, unless you wish to claim
that your position as moderator of SRH was somehow relevant to the
SRV discussion?
>> |> 3. The proponents have failed to provide a single example of posting
>> |> that was unfairly rejected from Soc.Religion.Hindu
>>
>
>Once again, challange remains. Provide a single unfairly rejected posting
>from soc.religion.hindu. After all, we are debating SRH re-org aren't we?
Snipped my response entirely on that one, eh? Whatever you wish - I
don't see a need to keep putting in that response to have you snip it
repeatedly.
Anyway, I think that this exchange shows why clear guidelines for the
moderators are essential, and I hope that some of the confusion
regarding the "conspiracy theories" has been cleared up. I don't want
to rehash SRV, but since the claim was made repeatedly that this was
an attempt by some Vaisnavas to attack a Hindu newsgroup, I wanted to
clear the air. It definitely is not an attack on a Hindu newsgroup,
and in fact, the "worst" thing that this RFD does is make explicit
that the moderator is just "one of us" and not a "speaker of the
house".
-Vivek
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