Some clarifications...
I got two personal reactions and I read all the comments.
At 2002-09-09 22:19 +0200, Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
At 2002-09-09 10:19 -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
After much deliberation, and after due consideration for all of the arguments and discussions here, and taking into account what appears to me to be a general consensus, I have chosen to ban Helga for a period of 3 months.
Banned from what? This list? The English Wikipedia. All Wikipedia?
Jimmy Wales explained to me that she was banned from all Wikipedia and therefore not from this list.
What I object most to, it that the subject itself may have been disallowed to right to rebuttle.
Perhaps I overreacted a bit, but I was thinking about cases where people were removed from mailing lists in days when the mailing list was the medium and the meta medium or a case of a political debating mailing list where people objected to a mailing list becoming linked to a public and archieved newsgroup and someone changing that after only a very short period in which the people who were against it didn't have enough time to discuss it and after the list was made public they didn't want to/couldn't discuss it in public anymore. There was even a vote, but it turned out to be handled very badly.
After that time, she can reapply to me personally for re-instatement.
Sure, and some sex on the side.
Of course I didn't mean sex literally her, as at least one other person understood. Most of you Americans are so tight-assed about sex.
I know that not everyone will be happy with this decision, although the vast majority will be.
Not me.
By the way, I'm not against banning Helga if she causes the trouble that she seems to do. I just object to aspects of Jimmy's email about it and I have doubts about the procedure and about the period of banning. Personally I saw that fact that Helga joined this mailing list as a very good sign. And over time I'm sure she will learn how to quote correctly... ;-)
And she responded very reasonably to various remarks by others.
I have also looked at some of here articles among one in German and didn't find much bias in it.
She seems indeed to be in denial of the holocaust as most Germans and German media were during several decades after the war (and perhaps still), at least they didn't report about what actually happened during the war. We can receive German television here in the Netherlands and it's amazing how 'closed' the German media still are in some regards.
By the way, the first time I encountered 'revisionism' around 1996, I was also puzzled for a while. Was it really a big lie that our elders had tought us about the war? As a scientifically trained professional I didn't immediately believe the new 'evidence' of course, but what struck me most was that I had never seen foto's or film's about actual gas chambers. After focussing on this some more I did find foto's etc. the fact that there is relatively little material available is probably due to the fact that most of the extermination camps were located to the east of Germany and they were liberated by the Soviets who didn't have much camera's and film to spare at that time.
As regards an international jewish organization declaring war on Germany: The first time I heard about this was from revisionist sites. I never heard about this from all the stories told by older family members, but of course it may have been true and for the time being I assume it's true, but it doesn't allow a government to take the measures against jews as the German government took.
Of course a government has to be careful. The USA put all Japanese inhabitants in camps in world war 2 and rightfully so. You don't want to be backstabbed when trying to win a war. After the terror attack of september 11'th last year a lot of muslims were arrested in the USA without proper legal reasons, but these things are justified by the unclear situation I think.
Such is the nature of consensus.
The nature of consensus is that you achieve it first.
The problem with consensus which isn't properly measured is that the person 'measuring' the consensus may have a bias and may interpret what people say in his own subjective way.
I propose that some sort of voting mechanism is installed. Just give all people on this list an opportunity to vote.
One should write a message saying: I propose to ban person X because .... Person X can then explain him/herself and votes will be counted durign a week or so.
I can't wait for unanimity, or we will wait forever.
Is there some voting mechanism or did you just ask your friends?
This is the hand-on way I tried to express the above notion of 'subjective'.
Even here, on the mailing list, where I invited her to discuss these issues, she prefers to ignore discussions about her posting style
Huh, you expect someone obviously new to the mailing list fenomenon to immediately reflect on her own behaviour?
I noticed that Helga didn't quote 'very efficiently' and that is often a sign that one is new to mailing lists.
I manage several mailing lists and have also followed the personal progress of people new to mailing and noticed that most of them catch-on very quickly, just by copying what they see others do.
In order to contribute to a restoration of the peace, I will be mostly avoiding further public comment, although everyone who likes is more than invited to write to me privately to support or decry this decision.
And since this was done in public, I do this in public.
The problem with taking discussions like these to the personal level (and I have years of experience) is that one forgets what one has said in private and what in public. The same goes for crossposting to several mailing lists by the way.
Helga, in particular, is welcome to write to me to discuss this,
Sure and in exchange for sex perhaps?
Again, I meant that I dislike the notion that she would have to discuss these things with you personally. You shouldn't take this as that I suggest that you were trying to extort sexual favors from Helga.
And no, I don't imagine Helga to be a blonde teutonic goddess as someone suggested. ;-) If I remember correctly Helga is already quite old.
Greetings, Jaap
PS. Would it be possible that people use their real name on this mailing list and in personal email? Please use something like I do in my 'from address'. I don't think it's civil to presend oneself as a movie with Philip Glass music in it, however good the music is. I have the CD...