From BenWaB3@aol.com Wed Jul 21 16:46:27 2004
Subject:From The Co-moderator - Notice To All Members

First off:

Whatever turmoil the list has gone through in the last few days, let us not start adding political debate into the mix. There are plenty of political discussion groups on the web & flaming away is almost derigueur for them. Let that be both thier milieu & thier problem. If you wish to get into those discussions, go to those lists. Our forum is for discussing clone & organ related issues in a relaxed & courteous atmosphere. Which brings us to the next point:

The flame war we just went through has turned out to be our worst one yet. Fortunately it seems to be subsiding, however there are minor skirmishes still going on which could erupt into open hostilities again. No one needs to get the last word in! Move on to something new. It would behoove us all to use the old maxim: Think twice- write once. The major parties in this war have shown contrition so there has been no action taken against anyone. At the same time nobody should take this as an opportunity to rub salt into any old wounds. Also, the frequency of flame wars has been increasing as of late. Again, go back to the maxim. No one should base thier sense of self-worth, or conversely thier sense of the worthiness of the other person, on thier personal opinion. I may often disagree with the assessment of one brand of equipment by any particular member of the list. Does that mean I'm right & they're wrong? No. Does that mean they're right & I'm wrong? No. That, of course is just one of the debates that can get out of hand, but tolerance must be applied across the board on all issues.

As for language issues:

There are a many different levels of sensitivity to coarse language among the members of this group. While I personally can hang with the best when conversations turn X-rated, I realize that to many people this is offensive, so in a semi-public forum such as this we must respect those sensibilities and keep our language & insinuations at a very tame level. We don't want to trample on anyone's right of free speech, but still must realize that others have the right to freedom from hearing this type of speech as well. Again, there are other forums out there where anyone can express thier views using whatever terms you wish to, so X-rated discourse should be taken there.

I'm sure the other co-moderator, Eric, will be weighing in at a later time, and the original moderator, Bruce, has already put out some posts calling on us to tone it down in the past few weeks. If nothing else, let's honor his services to the list by respecting his wishes. Thank you.

Ben Ninmann