Xref: utzoo news.groups:17591 talk.religion.newage:5671 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: news.groups,talk.religion.newage Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: talk.religion.pagan (UNMODERATED) Message-ID: <10147@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 10 Feb 90 01:42:07 GMT References: <4093@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <10081@hoptoad.uucp> <24170@ut-emx.UUCP> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco Lines: 91 In article <10081@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >#All I know about him is that he never tried to address the >#inclusiveness issues I raised, made a ridiculous claim that ten votes >#out of thirty showed a strong consensus for his position, and acted in >#an underhanded manner when he posted his call for votes a day or two >#before my informal poll ran out. Not exactly the behavior one would >#hope for from a would-be moderator. In article <24170@ut-emx.UUCP> olorin@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Dave Weinstein) writes: > 1) I still find it incredibly amusing that you will in the > same breath condemn me for actually using a poll which > was conducted to resolve the name/moderation issue *and* > then condemn me for not following your precious poll. You and your little friend Billy need to go back to remedial reading class. I condemned the fact that you took a weak plurality (ten out of thirty) as establishing consensus. Read the above quote, read the other things I've written on the subject, and then tell me with a straight face I wrote anything else. I didn't condemn using a poll; I condemned interpreting its results in a plainly fallacious manner. > 2) There was nothing sneaky about the call for votes. It was > sent out exactly one month after the call for discussion (as > the call for discussion had said it would be), there had been > no arguments over the proposed name or charter or moderation > status in over two weeks, and your bloody poll was still > ostensibly about renaming talk.religion.newage. But then, > considering your initial flames about the newsgroup, I'm not > sure if you ever *read* the initial call for discussion. It was not a poll about renaming; it asked as one of several questions whether the group should be renamed or a new group established, as well as whether a new or renamed group should be moderated and what its name should be. Your statement that it was only about renaming is another bloody great lie. As is the claim that torpedoing my poll before consensus was reached was in no way underhanded. Suuure it wasn't. If you really have any doubts that consensus had not been reached, look at the way the votes came out, you blithering idiot! And no, I never saw a call for discussion on the issue. If you sent one, it seems not to have reached this site. >#Unfortunately, the Neo-Pagans here obviously are never going to address >#the inclusiveness issues. They don't want inclusiveness -- they want >#exclusivity, which is ever so much more emotionally satisfying to a >#certain kind of person -- but they are unwilling to come right out and >#say so. > Actually, it still comes across to me as "I led the fight to have >talk.religion.newage created and I don't want to let any similar newsgroups >get created"... the same theme which has been (at least to my mind) underlying >all of your posts on this subject. We've already seen how accurate your little interpretations are. Perhaps you should consider simply responding to my points rather than to what you seem to see scrawled on the inside of my skull. >Inclusiveness is *not* the be all and end >all you are making it out to be. The fact that there is a newsgroup with >a narrower focus than you'd like does not mean that groups already in >existence (like talk.religion.misc and talk.religion.newage) which do have >wider scopes will wither away and die. There is room for both, Tim. By >your logic, we should only have one newsgroup, stuff.all, because anything >else would be factionalism. Your points on inclusiveness haven't been ignored, >they've just been irrelevent. But then, you first flamed me for trying >to rename talk.religion.newage (something which was never even under >consideration), so I don't know why I expect you to actually address the >issues of what was *specifically intended* to be a newsgroup with a >narrower focus than talk.religion.newage. Yes, it was specifically intended to be narrow-minded. Does that mean I have to respect your narrow-mindedness, or that you don't have to give even a slight approximation to a *reason* for preferring narrow-mindedness? There is not the merest attempt at a justification for this narrow focus in your message. I never again want to hear from anyone about the supposed eclecticism and tolerance of Neo-Pagan religion. Lip service is trash. -- Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com "In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address