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Forwarded by steve duffy <[log in to unmask]>
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From: "kent johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 18:57:27 -0500
Subject: Re: Announcement (from Kent)
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Dear Poetryetc members,
I don't know how many of you will read this, since Candice Ward,
freedom-of-expression-defending-moderator of Poetryetc, has already
suggested that list members set their "filters" against me. But I feel I
need to say something, and this will be my last post until I am no longer
singled out under this so-called "Special-Review Status". I will not stoop
to post directly to the list under such circumstances, so I've asked Steve
Duffy to forward this for me, as he has had the decency to at least raise
questions about the fairness of the current situation.
As many of you know (though I'm well aware that this issue is of minor
importance to some), my postings have been subject to special surveillance
by the moderators before being cleared for release to the list. The
purported reason for this is that moderators wish to ensure that I do not
violate "Copyright" by forwarding posts from another list (posts on poetry,
which I believed would be thought-provoking to others), thus potentially
"endangering the integrity" of Poetryetc, and its parent body, Jiscmail.
I believe this is essentially a bunch of red-herring shit, and I'd ask
members to please consider the following points in judging whether the
aggressive action against me is justified.
1)While her message may have made it seem that I have been trying, in
defiance of the moderators, to forward posts from another list, and that the
moderators were thus only taking last-resort measures in placing me under
"review status", I have not attempted to forward any posts. The change in
list subscription status arrived suddenly and without any back-channel
warning whatsoever that such a measure would be taken. There was a
front-channel exchange, quite pointed on both sides, in which CAndice Ward
expressed her alarm, and to which in reply I demurred with some indignation,
offering specific reasons as to why there should be no "copyright" issue
with forwarding the posts. Why was there no attempt to communicate with me
b-c on this matter? Isn't this standard practice for moderators when there
is a concern about disagreement or misunderstanding?
2) When I inquired b-c about the very impersonal Jiscmail message I had
received, I received reply from Alison Croggon that the "special status"
decision had been made for three basic reasons: a) I had been overposting,
b) I had been "rude" to the list moderators, and c) my insistence on wanting
to share material from another list had gone too far. Candice Ward wrote me
back channel, copying the other two moderators, indicating (and with some
glee, I felt-- this before she gloatingly wrote me, in second of two very
bizarre b-c's, to ask that I buy her a "Harvey Wallbanger"!) that she
wholeheartdly agreed with the "reasons" outlined by Alison.
There are some things to be said here. As to a) It is unarguably the case
that I have been posting too much. I apologize. But I NEVER RECEIVED ANY B-C
WARNINGS FROM THE MODERATORS IN REGARDS TO OVERPOSTING, nor from any other
list members. To the contrary, a number of list members wrote to say that
they enjoyed reading my postings, and I developed some fruitful b-c
exchanges from these contacts. But in any case, so I am wondering: If this
question of post-quantity was a concern leading up to the rather
earnest-faced decision taken against me yesterday, WHY WAS THERE NO ATTEMPT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME ON THE MATTER?
As to b) This charge is, in some ways, the most disturbing, for aside from
the fact that Canidce Ward has made malicious and patently false remarks
against me in the past months (and in particular during the infamous Hess
carpet-bombing, for which Ward, in a flight of paranoia and confusion,
blamed *me*), and that an edgy dynamic has indeed developed between us,
there is a larger question raised here about the discursive parameters
enjoyed by list members. Are the list moderators under certain special
protections from direct criticism? Can list members not speak with irony and
barbed conceit when engaged in debate with them? Do not most of us live in
G-8 nations? And I would ask: WHAT EXACTLY DID I SAY TO CANDICE THAT WAS SO
RUDE AS TO JUSTIFY MY SPECIAL SURVEILLANCE? No one has yet told me, and I
am waiting, because I would very much like to show how her ad hominem slurs
against me have far exceeded in impropriety anything I might have said in
return!
The fact of the matter is that the rancor Candice (and, to an extent, Alison
and Randolph Healy) holds against me goes back to the history of another
list. And that, as they say, is another story in technicolor, even though
they'd like to paint it in black and white. (But if you want to see what
really made them blow their psychic tops, go to issue #3 of VeRT
http://www.litvert.com
As to c) I want to state a very simple and important point again: I have the
permission of the poster to do forward his posts, and while the posts
*belong to him* in any case, THEY ARE REVISED FROM WHAT WAS INITIALLY POSTED
AT POETICS. What exactly is the problem here? Even if there were a
"copyright problem" with Poetics if the posts were sent in their original
textual state (the notion is absurd!), there clearly can *not* be one if the
posts being forwarded have been revised and rendered, ipso facto, into
different posts. And one must ask: Why is there apparently no problem with
the forwarding of other posts to Poetryetc.? Why aren't the moderators
concerned about copyright issues with these posts, which may have well
appeared on other lists? Why is nothing apparently said to other Poetryetc
members when they have (and they certainly have on various occasions)
forwarded their Poetryetc posts to other lists, and yet I am reprimanded b-c
by Candice Ward and specifically threatened with removal if I continue to do
so?
The clear answer, in my opinion, is that the "copyright" issue is a smoke
screen to hide the primary motive for my "special status". And that primary
motive is a punitive one: to submit me to a kind of censorious threat and to
make me feel excluded from normal participation. Again, there is a bigger
history behind this, and it is a history in which those now deploying
censorious spirit are very much complicit.
May Poetryetc prosper.
Kent Johnson
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