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Forwarded by steve duffy <[log in to unmask]> ----------------------- Original Message ----------------------- 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) ----------- 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 --------------------- Original Message Ends --------------------