I agree once more

[Leslaw Borowski]

Distinguished Members of the List,
I got a confirmation (from D.Wujastyk) of the info that some people 
have to pay dearly for every bit of messages on the list, so I'm going 
to be rather succint (don't want to be abrupt though - excuse me). 
I'd like to thank R.W.Delariviere for pointing to my remarks on the
democracy on the list, but I think I agree with Dominik on so many 
points that we aren't really diagonally different. However, for me 
the question of democracy is and will be crucial. I don't like 
"banning","kicking" etc. in any community especially when the judges 
are not chosen by all members of the community and rules are not 
clear enough. What I observe on Internet is growing wave of agression 
and for me to ban somebody on a list is more aggressive then using 
strong words. Dr Enrica Garzilli wrote about netiquette as 
ethical rules. I think  sense of kindness is different for example in 
India (eg they dont say "thank you" and "please" over there so often 
as in Poland) then in the West and we should rather show by our own 
examples how good it is to be nice then getting offence from 
(only) words. I don't want to look for over- or undertones and for 
example say that letter of Dr Garzilli starts with a remark 
on a possibility of banning from the list and ends with an 
information on some other list available and submits in the middle 
information that there are some "basic rules of politeness". Such 
a resume of her letter would be unjust and harmful to her and I'd 
like to thank her wholeheartedly for the informations included in her 
letter. So  I agree with S.Harth and my slogan would be: "Less 
sensitivity about ourselves, more forgiveness in respect to others". 
People are different. 
    Applying of censorship (they call it moderating or am I wrong?) 
looks also as a kind of slight aggression to me. I think it is 
potencially dangerous. Some ideas may be kept hidden to a community, 
some may be ascribe to wrong people. Inadvertantly, Dominik himself 
shows such a possibility. I sent my letter on 14 January and it was 
"published" on 17 January. I wrote about the FAQ idea and Dominik in 
his private answer to me  (which I got on 14 January) let me know 
that he thinks about it. Then, in a letter published on 16 January, 
A.Burton expresses ideas similar to my own without, however, using the 
word "FAQ" and Dominik publically ascribes the idea of FAQ to 
A.Burton and others follow him. It looks I repeat the ideas of 
A.Burton as my own (and I am not happy about it). I am sure of good 
intentions of all parties involved but my example demonstrates how 
difficult it may bo to moderate a list of academic character. We all 
know how much research workers are sensitive about priority of ideas 
and freedom of publication. Maybe an information of the date and time 
of receiving a message by the list "owner" could be added to the 
published message. Maybe an information about publishing messages in 
the order of receiving them (if that's the practice on the list) 
could be put into some kind of info on the list.
    I do not like the proposal of Dominik to discuss matters like 
this with him in private (even though many anticipated the proposal). 
I think matters of a community should be clearly stated in public. I 
must stress that I treasure a lot the achievements of Dominik and I 
think that the list is really good but I would simply expect 
magnanimity on the part of great authorities on the list (please 
publish me and don't ban me :-)). 
    I ask forgiveness in connection with my lack of sense of 
humour too (maybe my broken English would recompensate for it). When 
saying something while joking you are ambiguous - people don't know 
if you snear at the expressed opinions or you expresses your own 
opinions making them more digestable with the salt of jokes. So I 
agree with the opinion of L.M.Fosse (but I thank S.Harth as well). 
Before I get quiet I should say that I'm sorry if I happened to 
offend enybody with my frankness. Maybe I should be amore polished 
Pole.
             Lesl~aw Borowski