[cratylus]

I think the unedited thread is more educational to
a newbie than the edited thread. Someone now reading
that thread will see an example of transgressive
behavior by a newbie, and know to avoid it.

She will also see the community actually caring
about the way it responds to newbies and attempting
to establish norms.

And she will also see that strong disagreement
can be registered and competing opinions debated
about interesting topics, even in the newbie area.

Also she'll learn a bit about what's expected of
her before she asks a question, and how she should
ask it, and also some information about a
particular mud.

All in all, I think that restoring the posts leads
to a thread that is of good value to a newbie. The
thread may contain material that some folks consider
irrelevant, but such people can start developing
the filters they will need to navigate elsewhere
here and on other forums and on the internet, where
meta-discussion and digression is as normal in
text communication as in spoken conversation.

To believe that newcomers need meta material removed
infantilizes them, and I don't think there's a
lot of point to it. If they really really can't
handle scanning past tangents (and really, if
they asked a question, they should be expected to
put in a little bit of effort in reading the
result) then perhaps they're just not ready to
handle the internet at all, and I don't see this
forum's mission involving such fundamental education.

I think I resent being lumped in as a "usual suspect"
complaining about censorship because I don't
believe that is a fair characterization of me
or what I was doing. I believe I was defending
the value of the thread which *benefited*
from the digressions. Making me sound like a member
of a group of anarchists agitating against
oppression has the insidious implication that my
argument is invalid because my position is fundamentally
political. I reject this implication and point
to the facts of my arguments, which have been
reasonable and made in good faith.


I'd got the feeling people wanted to avoid the
sort of bitchslapping that matt/sarapis/thelogos/whatever
seemed intent on engaging in. Taking it elsewhere
seemed the polite thing to do.

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with that
sentence other than explicitly paint me as someone
interested in anarchy. If that is what you were
up to, I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the
disregard you apparently have for the validity of
my specific arguments, washing them away with the
sort of "YOU want ANARCHY" dismissal of a Fox News
commentator.


"That said, I agree Steve was rude and deserved what he got "

I think he got much better than he deserved, and I
think Brody deserves kudos for that, not deletion
of his posts.

-Crat