Oh-oh.... Mailinglist Voltaire!

[jorn@chinet.com (Jorn Barger)]

When I started the WarmRoom mailinglist last year, it was for the single, 
simple reason that half-a-dozen gaffans had outright denied that *people 
have a right not to have their feelings hurt*.  And the only entrance 
requirement for WarmRoom, from the beginning, was that everyone *try to 
subscribe to that principle*.

I feel less need, now, for that sort of protected environment (I've been 
training, alas *unwillingly*, with a grandmaster of flamage, for over a 
year, and have learned a lot of new survival skills ;^), but instead I want 
to have a serious discussion now, with anyone interested, about how to 
foster, on r.m.g, the Voltairean principle:

       "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend
        to the death your right to say it."

And to spare r.m.g another flamewar, I want to take it *immediately* to an 
email list that I will maintain, as best I can from my personal Elm mailer.

And since it seems to me there's not much point to argue *for and against 
the Voltaire principle itself*, what I really want to discuss is what 
constitutes a violation of it, and how best to deal with these.  So the 
'password' this time around is just, do you subscribe to that principle of 
free speech?  And in the course of our discussion, we will *not* 
automatically eject flamers, because recent experience has convinced me 
that people have *totally, unimaginably* different perceptions of what's a 
disagreement, and what's an attempt to suppress free speech.

Instead, we will try to examine these differing perceptions, and hash out 
an agreement that does best by everyone, about how to properly deal with 
perceived suppression.  (We will *not* discuss magic and science, etc.)

And to start off, I will mail anyone who wants it a list of selected flames 
and counterflames from the recent tribulations, *to be graded from A to F 
according to perceived seriousness*.  And when I've compiled these stats, 
we can start the discussion from there.

If you want to join "mailinglist Voltaire", send me a message with 
"subscribe Voltaire" in the subjectline.  If you want to include comments 
to be passed on to all subscribers immediately (or at any time), start your 
subjectline with a capital "V"-- ie, "V subscribe Voltaire".  (I get many 
mailinglists, and try to keep them sorted out by such initials.)  If you 
*don't* want something redistributed, please re-state that clearly in the 
first line of your message.

Non-Voltaireans who want to take the survey and see the results are welcome 
to send "request Voltaire survey".

jorn

keep flames in email, please