Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!harnad
From: harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (S. R. Harnad)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION.scat: sci.psycoloquy.moderated
Summary: On moderators, moderation, scatology, open-ness, peer review...
         And now let's get back to discussion of content and substance
Keywords: psychology, scholrly-discussion, Bitnet-Psychology-Newsletter
Message-ID: <13144@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 21 Jan 90 17:35:47 GMT
References: <13106@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1990Jan21.072353.17735@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 130



gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu (Gene W. Smith) of
Garnet Gang Gems of Wisdom, Inc. wrote:

> In my opinion Harnad is psychologically unsuited to the job of
> moderating anything, and should *NOT* be the moderator of this group if
> formed. He is the sort of person who assumes anyone using a four-letter
> word is mentally ill, and his remedy for this is to get that person and
> anyone else in the line of fire thrown off the net if possible, by
> means of whatever kind of libel seems suitable.

peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) of
Xenix Support, FICC replied as follows:

> Well, Gene, how many four-letter-words typically show up in postings to
> moderated groups? Inappropriate affect in this somewhat restricted area is
> unlikely to be a problem.

In response to this, Gene W. Smith added:

> My point is that Harnad's reaction to Michael Ellis' use of words such
> as "fecal" was so excessive and, so to speak, anal-retentive that I
> wonder if he is up to the job of moderation. His prose style is always
> stuffy and prolix, as if he were writing a journal article whose
> editors enforced a high boredom content. A natural or vigorous style
> would be, I suspect, anathema. This is based in part on the *fact* that
> he accused Mr. Ellis of being mentally unbalanced because of his use of
> words like "fecal".
>
> Of course, I have a personal grudge which I should be up-front about.
> Harnad's writing to the sysadmin here at Berkeley, complaining that
> insane street people were posting from Berkeley accounts, led to me
> having to convince people that no, I wasn't breaking into other
> people's accounts nor forging letters, despite whatever it was Harnad
> was saying. His behavior was irresponsible, libelous and contrary to
> the spirit and best interests of the net. I do *not* think he should be
> allowed to moderate a newsgroup.

A couple of things to set the record straight for the reader whose
interest may have been caught by this diversion from matters of
content: Mr. Smith is much too coy, making it seem as if the discussion
in question four years ago might have been about gastro-enterology. The
opening line that caught my attention at the time was "You have shit
for brains," not "fecal"; the topic of discussion was gender in Urdu, and
the rest of the posting went downhill from there (I have the whole
thing archived, in case anyone has a prurient interest...).

I rightly surmised at the time that someone may have been using an
account illicitly at Berkeley for those postings, and the sysadmin
confirmed it, saying the real poster was not the name that
appeared on the login; he had previously had his posting privileges
revoked and was using someone else's userid. To prevent him from
continuing to do this, the sysadmin then closed the account. (Whatever
local repercussions this may have had for others who likewise fit the
profile, I cannot say, or assume responsibility for...)

And that should have been the end of the matter. But look, the
population of the Net, like every population, is a Gaussian
distribution, which, as we all know, has tails at both ends. Instead of
letting the matter drop, a vocal minority called my response an attack
on free speech and demanded that *my* userid be revoked! For a while,
the net, and even moreso my email, became like a global graffiti board,
with these people demonstrating their right to be as coprolalic as they
pleased.

Now it may come as a surprise to some that I have no allergy to
four-letter words -- I use 'em myself, and sometimes even in writing,
but not in learned journals or scholarly correspondence. I have been
the "moderator" of an international journal specializing in peer
controversy in psychology and related fields for 12 years, and I've
never allowed scatological or ad hominem remarks to appear there -- and
rarely have I had to exercise my editorial veto, because serious
scholars and the field as a whole happen to share this desire to focus
on objective content rather than pulling out all the personal stops on
form. And quality control in scholarly communication is called "peer
review," not censorship; peer review has many flaws (and I'm a critic
and have published research on the subject), but the universally
accepted insistence on not being rude, vulgar or personal to one's
fellow scholars is not one of them.

Because it is such a new medium, and because of its initial demography
(dominated mainly by the representatives of the computer-related
fields that created it, and the students and hackers who
were the first to come aboard and avail themselves of it), many people
have become confused over what "Skywriting" (as I've called it) is
or can or ought to be like, and I've heard countless scholars say
they would have nothing to do with it because it was clearly just a
global graffiti board for flaming and trivial pursuit by
know-nothings.

I disagree. I think Skywriting is potentially as revolutionary a
development in human communication as the advent of language, writing
and print, one in which scholars and scientists can interact, advancing
knowledge at a global scale and lightening interactive pace that no
other medium can produce, and that matches the potential of the human
brain better than any other.

Now you make your own decision: Smith's posting has put the proposed
psycoloquy group at a symbolic crossroad, just as scholarly skywriting
itself is: We can allow the discussion to be diverted to whether or not
everyone should be allowed to say shit-fuck-piss to anyone he likes,
whenever he likes, on the net, or we can turn to more serious questions
about ways to allow this remarkable new medium to move on toward
realizing its vast unexplored potential.

(One of the ironic quirks of this medium is that the foregoing is
likely to trigger a burst of noise from the tail-end of the guassian
again, rather than putting a plug in it; this is why moderated groups,
a step backward to the old land-based media, are probably the only
way to get scholarly skywriting launched initially. I've accordingly
affixed a ".scat" to the header, so that those who are not interested
in this side-issue can skip it; I myself will be skipping the
".scat" postings because this is about as much prolixity as I
want to waste one the subject.)

One last point. I did make a clinical diagnosis at the time (though I'm
no clinician), and I think subsequent events confirmed that I was right
about that too. There seems to be a borderline personality type that is
irresistibly attracted to acting out, often abusively, on the net. This
may even be an appropriate topic for discussion on the proposed
psycoloquy newsgroup, but not by its practitioners (or their
advocates), demonstrating it, so to speak, but by professionals who
have some objective data and clinical experience to bring to bear on
the problem, and by the peer review and computer security specialists
who have practical ideas about how to control it.
-- 
Stevan Harnad  Department of Psychology  Princeton University
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu       srh@flash.bellcore.com
harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu    harnad@pucc.bitnet    (609)-921-7771