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Moderator Incompetence (was Re: Animal killing and Soul merging condemned)
In article <4gd7da$qiu@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>I am eagerly awaiting your commentary on the aformentioned poetic
>>composition. And yes, this is a serious request.
Actually, this was a request for the moderator, Mr. Ajay Shah. It was not
intended for you. I am still waiting for Ajay's version. But meanwhile, I will
answer yours.
>"It has EXACTLY the same relevance to Hindu Dharma as your gratuitous comment
> 'Sigh! I thought human beings had evolved out of this chest-beating stage
> thousands of years ago'
>"
>
>You could have poked fun at specific things in Advaita and I would have
joined
>your laughter. Instead you chose to indulge in personal attacks, albeit in a
>humorous way. So I saw it fit to respond in the same manner.
And if you will recall, my comment about your "chest beating" was in response
to a certain set of personal attacks on your part. Unfortunately, due to the
utter incompetence with which the SRH archives are being maintained (the
January folder has not even been set up yet), I cannot pull out the exact
quotes of yours from the relevant message. However, I very clearly remember
you stating that the beliefs held by the Gaudiya acharyas regarding Sankara's
identity were 'absurd,' 'utter tripe,' etc etc. At least if you had given some
kind of argument in that posting, it might have been taken as a well thought
out reponse. Rather, all you did was vent out your frustrations. It was a
clear example of a personal attack.
All I wanted to
>say was that the Satha Rudra Samhita has no verses talking about the
>incarnation of Shankara. I framed it in the same way you framed your "chest
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>beating" comment. The only difference is that my poem was longer than your
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>comment.
^^^^^^^^^
DEAR AJAY SHAH: Please take note. Mr. Balasubramanian has now *admitted* that
his long lyrical composition was in effect an extended personal attack. Are
you going to admit that it was wrong of you to post it? Or are you going to
play the blind man and still insist that there was no personal attack there,
even though Ramakrishnan has explicitly stated that "I framed it in the same
way as your... The only difference is that my poem was longer than your
comment."
A good moderator would admit that he made a mistake, apologize publicly, and
then remove the offensive post from the archives. A bad moderator, by
contrast, allows several rounds of personal attacks to be aired, and then
arbitrarily decides at a certain point that no more will be allowed under the
premise that he only just *then* saw a personal attack.
I believe that Mr. Shah's problem is that he does not carefully screen all
posts for personal attacks. As a result, when he sees that a thread becomes
heated, he starts excercising his moderator privileges, all the while claiming
that he saw no personal attacks in the articles he allowed for posting prior
to that point. This case is a perfect example. In an earlier post on the same
thread, Ramakrishnan wrote an extensive commentary that was nothing more than
a personal attack against myself. However, Mr. Shah approved it for posting,
stating privately to me that he saw no personal attack within it. But now,
Ramakrishnan has admitted that it was in fact a personal attack. Now, what
will Ajay do? Will he swallow his pride and admit his mistake? Or will he go
on pretending that he did nothing wrong? My experience with him tells me that
he will opt for the latter.
When I wrote to Ajay about why he accepted personal attacks for posting during
the earlier part of this thread, I stated that this delayed use of censorship
privileges made him inconsistent in his treatment of personal attacks.
However, in typical Ajay Shah style, he misunderstood what I was saying and
pleaded that "I do not think that I have been inconsistent in rejecting
articles. After all, articles on both the sides on this debate were rejected
yesterday. I show absolutely no bias." In other words, he assumed that because
he rejected another article by Ramakrishnan, that he was therefore in the
clear. But that was NOT the point. The point is, the moderator of a newsgroup
can't allow one person to make heated, provocative, personal attacks, and then
prevent another person from responding in kind. The moderator of newsgroup has
a responsibility to STOP personal attacks before they start. Much of the
articles in this thread, starting with Ramakrishnan's eloquent statements to
the effect that the Gaudiya beliefs were 'absurd' and 'utter tripe,' (with no
support whatsoever) should have been rejected as personal attacks. The only
reason arguments get heated in the first place is because the moderator does
not diligently pay attention to the posts he approves on SRH.
Interestingly enough, the article of Ramakrishnan's which Ajay told me
he rejected for personal attacks (he told me this to try to prove to me that
he really was a good moderator after all) was a response to my posting "What
is Maayaavaadam?" Guess what? The response which was alleged to have been
rejected made it to SRH. And sure enough, it was full of arrogant remarks and
clear-cut personal attacks.
So why am I bringing this up? Ultimately, Ajay Shah won't change. Whenever
challenged, he always asserts his innocence. More often than not he
misunderstands the criticisms being made against him(or pretends to
misunderstand). This has been going on since the days of alt.hindu. For a long
time Ajay has rejected articles of mine which allegedly contained personal
attacks. Admittedly, he was correct on one or two occasions. But the vast
majority of times his rejection completely surprised me. I would often write
back, explaining what it was in my posting that he construed as a personal
attack, but I would get no response (I also know that the same thing happened
to several other netters).
On the other hand, Ajay has never been too concerned about the personal
attacks made against me on SRH. This culminated in a remark made by Bon
Giovanni on the "Milk for Ganesha" thread wherein he stated that I was "a
complete ass." Anyone with a meagre amount of intelligence could tell from the
context who he was referring to. And yet, Ajay insisted that he saw no
personal attack there, even after I laboriously explained to him that it most
certainly was. He then informed me that personal attacks come in "X is a Y"
form, and for that reason he approved Bon's post. I gave up at that point,
satisfied at least that he came up with a consistent definition of a personal
attack.
But more recently, he displayed his inconsistency again by throwing away his
own definition. One of my responses on this thread "Animal killing...." was
sent back to me with a note saying that some of my remarks *could* be
construed as personal attacks. Not feeling the desire to rewrite the whole
thing, I wrote back, pointing out to him that there was nothing in my response
in the "X is a Y" form and that he therefore *had* to post it, according to
his own standards of what is and is not a personal attack. I also pointed out
that Ramakrishnan's remarks on the same thread were also offensive, but he
nevertheless allowed them to be posted. However, not feeling compelled to
follow his own dictates, Ajay rejected my posting anyway.
Personally, I really don't care if someone chooses to offend me personally. I
can take that sort of thing. What I cannot stand is when a great acharya is
blasphemed by some arrogant upstart who can't even put together a coherent
argument. A Vaishnava is supposed to be meek and humble, and yet he has to be
highly intolerant towards any blasphemy directed against the Lord or His pure
devotees. Ramakrishnan might argue that I have been similarly offensive to
Sankaracharya, but if you take a look at the archives of my previous postings
(assuming Ajay ever gets his act together and finishes it) you will see that I
have never spoken out against Sankaracharya the person. I can't, since we
Gaudiyas understand him to be Shiva. Nor have I blasphemed those persons who
are sincerely following his philosophy. If an advaitin wants to believe he is
God, then avoids female association, goes into the forest, and does severe
tapasya, then he will get my respect, since that is what Sankaracharya
would have wanted. It may be misguided from my perspective, but it is at least
worthy of some respect.
On the other hand, I have and will always continue to challenge all those
so-called advaitins who preach oneness philosophy while simultaneously
engaging in, and sanctioning materialistic behavior. It is a fact that Hindu
culture is becoming corrupted by advaitin yogis who tell everyone that they
are God but fail to inform them that they have to do tapasya. The result is
that Hindu culture these days simply means making material advancement on the
plea that we can become God in this way. I don't regard it as blasphemy to
challenge such so-called spiritualists. If they have a problem with me putting
their theories to the sword, it most likely has to do with the fact that I
have exposed their materialistic world-view. Even Jaladhar Vyas, himself an
advaitin, publicly criticized certain groups like Chinmaya mission and
Vivekananda Vedanta Society for this very same reason (if you don't believe
me, check the 1994 alt.hindu archives, near the early part of the
"superstitions" thread).
>It's not the first time you have indulged in personal attacks. I can remember
>your post with Ken's name on it "Move over aachaaryas ..." which was a
flagrant
>violation of netiquette.
It was a sarcastic posting, designed to point out that Ken was feigning
acceptance of the teachings of the acharyas (like Madhva, Caitanya, Ramanuja)
while flagrantly contradicting them with his own pet theories. If you had read
the context, you would have seen that. And if you really were as good-humoured
as you claimed, then you probably would have laughed as well.
I have certainly attacked dvaitic doctrines, and
>lots of times if not always, in a sarcastic tone. In fact, I just did that
once
>again. You could do the same with Advaitaa. Believe it or not, I'll join your
>laughter.
I will take this as encouragement to repost my response, only this time on
another newsgroup... maybe soc.religion.eastern or soc.culture.indian.
-- HKS
