[IMC-Boston-Editorial] Ed issues

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

I've been really long winded lately, unfortunately this is no
exception...fair warning.

Sounds like some good solid self definition is in order to clairify
both our goals and methods.

Anonymous editing is also an interesting topic.  I can see why someone
would want to dissociate their physical life from their editing, but
for the sake of transparency internally and externally I think we
should at the least use consistent login names so that if someone says
editor1 is being too this or too that  we can make an intelligent
review as a collective of the decision patererns of that editor and
either affirm them with counter evidence or discuss the choice pattern
with specific examples.

I'll try and make it Sunday, but betwen my daughter's birhtday and my
Wife's final papers thinks are a bit crazier than usual.

So here for reference should I not make it are my thoughts on hiding
comments...or at least some of them.

* Hiding is a degree of censorship, let's face that, it diminishes the
  range of someone's speach if we hide or delete their post.  I don't
  think this is always a bad thing and is far from absolute censorship
  in that it's usually available if one looks for it and certainly
  there's plenty of free web posting opportunities we don't deny them.

* We are, or claim to be, a public media outlet.  To this end I think
  we should try to allow the public to post so long as the discussion
  leads to an exchange of ideas and avoids threats

* Threats, name calling, personal attacks, and regurgitating the
  information in earlier comments with no new information are all free
  game for hiding, along with clearly unrelated posts (nonsequiters,
  commercial posts, etc..)

This encompasses alot that people currently hide, specificly the area
of "subtle" racisms (from the point of view of the person expressing
them they're subtle, I doubt they are that to the communities that are
the object of their statements).

I belive the recent Rosa Parks article comments are a positve example
of this. "R. Lee" posted some racist assumptions that were (more or
less) civilly refuted and I think some readers may actually have
learned something from them.

I feel very strongly that if you want people to change you need to
address them.  If we pretent the world is the way we want it, we can
all feel very secure in our little "radical" world but we will have
zero connection with and zero influence on the other 98% of the
population.

The counter point I have heard is that we want to be a safe place for
<fill in oppressed class here>.  I have generally deffered on this
point and am certainly willing to listen to longer explaination, as I
basicly fit the priveleged white male mold an first glance which is
the point where bigoted assumptions are usually formed.

My thoughts on this point continue to push more stongly toward the
idea that a sense of safty is not what we should strive toward on the
site in general.  In our dealing yes, in what we choose to feature
yes, but not in comments.  What leader of a rights or justice campaign
has done what is safe?

for our resident lurker(s) why don't you engage in the decision making
process here rather than posting dumb stuff on the site? And BTW john
brown writes better tham me and thinks much more highly of the public
school system than I do...you have my email address and google will
give you my office address and probaly my work phone number, so I'm
far from hiding if you wish to take personal exception.  That's my
last direct answer to inderect kvetching, and is likely too much.

-Jon