With regret, Canadian Watcher has been banned.

[8bitagent]

CW was one of my favorite posters on here. My only gripe was the flirtation with Boston hoaxerish stuff, but we all believe in kooky angles. I don't get the ban at all unless there was some crazy uncalled for thread that got deleted.

[seemslikeadream]

CW was one of my favorite posters on here. My only gripe was the flirtation with Boston hoaxerish stuff, but we all believe in kooky angles. I don't get the ban at all unless there was some crazy uncalled for thread that got deleted.

well it should have got deleted after page 20

[82_28]

"Immune defense" being membership. Pipe up when you see something and let bygones be bygones. We're all adults and I feel Canadian Watcher should have been given at least one more reprieve and not banned. She was a firebrand and I think it was ultimately another mistake by the board going further. That's my opinion. Sure I wish she would have handled herself a little differently, but she was more personal and more kindred spirit than an "information spewer" -- both are welcome. She was personal here and I don't think she meant any harm. We populated a place she came to that she can no longer get in. Which is cruel and this BANISHING should not, especially at Rigorous Intuition, be left to stand.

We are not just having ONE squabble, we are discussing things and speculating on MANY issues and subjects. If shit should become a squabble then it does. Again, all are adults. We all learn here and also contribute. Banning Canadian Watcher was an existential mistake in my view if we want this place to exist.

I think she even contributed to the fund drive.

I do not begrudge the moderators and owner of site the stated and known wherewithal of maintaining integrity. But this does, go too far. Cutting someone off from her online community is lame and shows our underbelly of insularity that then goes on to show that we really, as members, are not really say who we are, as a community.

Canadian Watcher, if you're still watching. Get me back at the contact info at http://www.earlyclues.com. We might be able to use some of your art. We just applied for an art installation that I have no idea about what the other guys are thinking. I work in the RI department.

[Wombaticus Rex]

"Immune defense" being membership. Pipe up when you see something and let bygones be bygones. We're all adults and I feel Canadian Watcher should have been given at least one more reprieve and not banned. She was a firebrand and I think it was ultimately another mistake by the board going further. That's my opinion. Sure I wish she would have handled herself a little differently, but she was more personal and more kindred spirit than an "information spewer" -- both are welcome. She was personal here and I don't think she meant any harm. We populated a place she came to that she can no longer get in. Which is cruel and this BANISHING should not, especially at Rigorous Intuition, be left to stand.

I think those are all excellent points.

Moderators are not a Junta. This thread won't get locked.

[seemslikeadream]

what do I know

we got a fuckin Mr. Build A Burger

and lost CW



what I do not know

who is responsible for that thread running 74 pages?

how in the world did anyone here think that thread would end any other way but a disaster?



In the past it seemed we would avoid this rotten situation by locking or moving a thread before it would get so out of hand...that way avoiding such heated exchanges that would inevitably end in a banning.

If that thread had been locked on page 20 CW would still be here

If that thread had been locked on page 50 CW would still be here

If that thread had been locked on page 70 CW would still be here


There is plenty of blame to go around for this one..... CW shouldn't be the one carrying all of it

[82_28]

"Immune defense" being membership. Pipe up when you see something and let bygones be bygones. We're all adults and I feel Canadian Watcher should have been given at least one more reprieve and not banned. She was a firebrand and I think it was ultimately another mistake by the board going further. That's my opinion. Sure I wish she would have handled herself a little differently, but she was more personal and more kindred spirit than an "information spewer" -- both are welcome. She was personal here and I don't think she meant any harm. We populated a place she came to that she can no longer get in. Which is cruel and this BANISHING should not, especially at Rigorous Intuition, be left to stand.

I think those are all excellent points.

Moderators are not a Junta. This thread won't get locked.

But it is locked to her. She can't get back in to say what is being said about her. Even if she did she is being forced to apologize before she would resume. This is not a fair position to put another person in.

[conniption]

Well, I hope you all might reconsider. I enjoy C-W's wit and spunk. I don't know what she did the other six times she was banned, but I thought it was pretty funny when she tried to get brekin arrested by the NSA...I mean, I thought she was trying to be funny...no? Where's your sense of humor? It was a joke. It must have been a joke, because it cracked me up.

Anyway, we all make mistakes. I think she likes RI a lot. She puts in quite a bit of time here.

Please reconsider.

[Jeff]

This wasn't just because of the Icke thread, and it wasn't a decision arrived at lightly. The regret is sincere.

CW's contributed a lot here, and I still like her. She served as a mod, and our guideline on gender and sexism was her initiative. But there had also been numerous occasions, over years, to speak to her about disruptive behaviour on the board, particularly with respect to personal attacks. She had been suspended before for this reason, but the behaviour persisted.

We're sorry, too.

[Ben D]

Well, I hope you all might reconsider. I enjoy C-W's wit and spunk. I don't know what she did the other six times she was banned, but I thought it was pretty funny when she tried to get brekin arrested by the NSA...I mean, I thought she was trying to be funny...no? Where's your sense of humor? It was a joke. It must have been a joke, because it cracked me up.

Apparently the NSA don't have a sense of humour...

[82_28]

This wasn't just because of the Icke thread, and it wasn't a decision arrived at lightly. The regret is sincere.

CW's contributed a lot here, and I still like her. She served as a mod, and our guideline on gender and sexism was her initiative. But there had also been numerous occasions, over years, to speak to her about disruptive behaviour on the board, particularly with respect to personal attacks. She had been suspended before for this reason, but the behaviour persisted.

We're sorry, too.

Jeff, that's the way she is. She is entitled to her own personality and if it comes out it does. We all don't put on our suit and ties and sit down to post or just check out RI. Some of us do it in our underwear.

CW was perfectly able to navigate the various personalities assembled here as a human. She did not ever piss me off and some others have stated likewise. Thus I think this decision is bullshit and ultimately cruel. I'm not saying you, Jeff, are cruel or any of the mods are cruel. But cutting her off from some people she may have conversed with is cruel.

[coffin_dodger]

It's hard to stomach the stench of selective authoritarianism in a place where such highly emotive subjects are discussed on a moment-by-moment basis. Banning C_W is socially lazy, as engagement is always preferable to ignorance, regardless of whether it's objectives are met. It's a great shame that the fear-based compliance of thought of our own desperately sick societies has festered to the point of banning passion.

Just another black day for freedom of expression and community spirit.

[slimmouse]

Coffin Dodger sums up my own sentiments entirely. Keeping emotionally centred is extremely difficult sometimes when talking about the kind of stuff we do.

[Sounder]

Thanks people for speaking up for C-W.

That said, this is a reminder for all of us to examine our trigger response strategies.

C-W led the charge from the front lines. Unfortunately the mortality rate among this group can be quite high.


I find this to be a difficult medium to navigate in, but I’m learning and am convinced that our differences aid that learning more so than do our points of agreement.

I miss hugh, even though he detested folk like me, and if this stands I will miss C-W also.

Still I respect the moderator’s position because C-W seems to have little consideration for the virtues of restraint. (A friend once told me that the best strategy for dealing with the sensation of anger is restraint.)

But this is difficult to express to a passionate person, and after all passion does have its own virtues.

[semper occultus]

...if you've managed to accumulate six suspensions then you're basically flipping board admin the digital avian and have pretty much decided to go the suicide-by-mod route....thus endeth the path of the exiled manatee...so mote it be..

[Searcher08]

My instinct was to let my post roam - so I have... it turned into constructive ideas for R.I. and the C_W issue...


What are we doing here at the R.I. system?

If you apply the POSIWID ("the purpose of a system is what it does" ) frame as a thought experiment:

R.I. is a system that takes as input intelligent widely-read people interested in paraculture along with information on a wide variety of subject from a wide variety of sources and provides an online venue and where, in the context of discussing this information they can
experience (both totally INtended AND totally UNintended)

personal pain, insult, attack, passive-aggressive snark, hate propagation, selective hearing, complete misunderstanding, binary thinking, and upset to the extent of rupturing of personal goodwill, personal relationship and on-going communication.

R.I. -
the place where we dont just TAKE the wrong end of the stick, we beat the living crap out of each other with it!!
http://adamblakemore.com/wrong-end-of-the-stick
or not

Around Canadian_Watcher - what do you do with a person who contributes a lot in many areas, who is naturally feisty and who doesnt do it very often, but when she goes off does it only more so than the rest of us? Can there be more alternatives that the rock of letting it go vs the hard place of allowing the totally out of line?

Seriously, is there no way that this can be a discussion of everyone getting their needs met, so the community can get together and look back from years hence and laugh about the The Great R.I. Icke Wars of 2012-2013???

Here are some ideas:

1) Be clear on the specific behaviours that will get an instant ban - I would like to suggest that included in that list is 'deliberately attempting to bring a person to the attention of the authorities' - specifically what C_W said to Brekin

2) This is for Jeff and the Mods - In the cases of what have been two of the most difficult and ultimately incredibly destructive threads on the board (on Atzmon and on Icke), there were multiple calls to lock the thread earlier on and the decision was made to not interfere. This was like having a nuclear reactor with the moderator rods removed. It's fate was sealed.

3) Would you consider the following?
a) Ban Canadian_Watcher for a symbolic month
b) Make it clear to her that behaviour like 1) above is potentially dangerous - like *real life dangerous*; ask her to publicly apologise to Brekin ; Jeff to invite Brekin back. After one month invite C_W back on a final warning basis.
c) Have a new forum rule for a two month trial:
If two members of good standing (i.e. say >100 posts) ask for a thread to be locked on the grounds of it bursting into flames, then the THREAD GETS LOCKED - regardless of how many people want it to stay open. IMHO the worst thing to do is block discussion of the subject area after the event, when this is as much a process issue as a content issue.

"Sometimes the needs of the Two outweigh the needs of the Many"

d) That if a particular topic is potentially 'flammable' that a simple protocol is adopted.
At the top of the first post, the
"THIS IS A POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE FLAMMABLE COLOUR TOPIC - EXTRA MODERATION REQUESTED"

e) Good practice: the person who starts the thread also says what they want from it - what their outcome for posting it is:
"I am just sharing this info - that is it"
"I am looking for factual information and thoughts on MiLABS"
"I want a discussion that focuses on how to prepare my children for living with sentient A.I.s"
"I want ideas on how to engage the paraculture community in activism"
"I feel frightened by New Atheism's certainty and fundamentalism -how do others feel?"
"I want to map out in detail the big picture of the US justice system that the Treyvon killing has surfaced and create engagement points"
"I want to share how to do scenario planning"
If a thread is started with no outcome in mind - how is one supposed to know the best way to contribute???

e) That there is a 'good practice' for thread titles
"Put on some weight, you skinny whore" = maybe not
"Black women in Mauritania - a different form of gender pressure in a slave society" = maybe better, regardless of whether it comes from an article of that title in the Journal of Gender Studies.
"Words of crazy Satanic panic conspiritards" = maybe not
"Abuse survivors on finding their voice" = maybe better

Start as one means to continue - as Princess Irulan said at the start of Dune

"A beginning is a very delicate time... "

These small changes might add up to a more constructive, harmonious , more difference making and lighter place...


4) A true story -

A Chronology of Filofax
by Kevin Hall is licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

The Early Years
In 1921 a London-base stationer, Norman & Hill imported the American personal filing
systems to the UK at the suggestion of temporary secretary, Grace Scurr[1]. She could
see the potential of the system in Britain and decided to have it manufactured in the
UK. She invented the name “Filofax” as a contraction of the product being a “File of
Facts.” At this time Filofax’s main customers turned out to be numerous professions
such as the military and clergy (up until the end of the 1980s Filofax still sold “Church
Family Records” and “Troop Commander’s Bible” inserts[2]). By 1930 Filofax was
registered as a trade mark.
In 1940, when the firm’s premises were destroyed during he Blitz, Grace set about
rescuing the company[3]. The bomb destroyed the firm’s records and a nearby florist
told her[4]: “You’re finished - you’ll never start again.” However Grace had kept the
names and addresses of all Norman & Hill’s customers and suppliers in her two Filo-
faxes of her own. She rebuilt the company, was rewarded with a shareholding and
eventually became chairwoman, a post she held until she retired in 1955

Access to R.I. information as a backup in event of system shut down :

Where is the R.I. 'Filofax'?

PLEASE can you create a backup of relevant tables of the R.I. mySQL database using phpmyadmin, RAR it and Torrent it?

5) Making the best use of the information; turning it into knowledge:
Taking a juicy thread and extracting value from it - my metaphor at the moment is lots of people pressing grapes in a big tub - what about 'bottling'? what about an R.I. Tumblr site?
What about starting sharing knowledge rather than accumulating information?

A question I have for the Mods and Jeff on this is - if I start a thread and want to include a summary e.g. a MindMap (probably a JPG file) in the first post, is there any way of being able to edit that first post as one goes on - in a similar way to good web content creation where there is a summary of what comes later - ie

Nanotech and Ecology
<Summary e.g. mindmap that can be edited by the thread originator for the life of the thread>
Outcome: Create a detailed map of the facts issues dangers and intuitions that occur at the intersection of nanotech and ecology.
<Original Post: Article by Eric Drexler follows>