Conference 7.286::digital

>    This is a growing problem in the world and in
>    Digital -- and one Digital is helpless to deal with.  The policies in
>    this matter are not worth the paper the on-line versions are written
>    on.  Neither moderators, supervisors, system managers, or Personnel are
>    reliably held accountable for enforcing policies, and supervisors and
>    Personnel are typically unprepared to deal with problems involving
>    Notes.
>                              
>    Digital needs to stop ignoring this.

    Agreed. In fact over a year and a half ago I said that and proposed a
    corporate Notes program to help in this area. This proposal called for
    an office to work with moderators to deal with problems, and with
    personnel and other to deal with policy. Nothing came of it though.
    The Notes program would also have helped moderators and others with
    other sorts of problems than personnel ones BTW.

    			Alfred

    Oh Eric!
    
    What a beauty!
    
    That's one of the things I like about you; you're so.... consistent.
    First you say "it ain't so", and then you produce documentary evidence
    to prove that it *IS* so! What's best, is that you've gratuitously
    manufactured this topic simply to present said data in an attempt to
    deflect attention from your own posturing.
    
    Tell me, what was it about Keith Edmund's note that warranted bothering
    his manager, that couldn't have been covered by something simple like
    "Grow up Edmund's" or "Don't bother speaking until you have something
    sensible to say/contribute"?
    
    While we're in the mood for posting data, shall I post the note(s) from
    me that prompted the same action, in the same note? They're even more
    innocuous than Keith's.
    
    There, that's two questions for you to ignore.
    
    Regards, Laurie.
    

    I see no problem with the response given in the base note.  Perhaps the
    reason why many of these instances are ignored is that the complaints
    are unfounded.
    
    Mike

    .....or hysterical.

    EDP,
    
    In light of your often abrasive and confrontational style in expressing
    your own opinions, I am surprised to find you have such thin skin.
    In fact, were it not for the signature, I would have just as easily
    attributed the offending reply to you yourself.  It sounds like your
    style.  Did you really complain to management, just because this guy said
    your statement was irrelevent?  BFD. ;-)
    
    Jeez, and you woke me up for THIS? :-)
    
    tim
    

| I see no problem with the response given in the base note.  Perhaps the
| reason why many of these instances are ignored is that the complaints
| are unfounded.

	Then wouldn't it be better to prove these things wrong then to let
them continue?



Glen

Here's one for the VAX Notes wishlist: automatic skipping of notes by certain
authors.

    
    	I can't understand how some people have so much time to devote
    	to this senseless arguing back and forth in notes conferences.
    
    	How are you able to get your job done?  Just a question...
    

    Not necessarily; they could be Noting in their spare time...
    
    Before we judge too harshly anyone who complains of being harassed in
    Notes, we should Note an hour in their shoes, as it were.  Who can tell
    what slight might be taken as a mortal insult?  I wouldn't presume to
    say.
    
    On the other hand, I must point out that a Noter should be prepared to
    give AND take.  What shall I use as an example?   Let's see...  How
    about a Noter who uses the obscure fourth definition of the word "lie:"
    
    	4 lie n ... 1b: an untrue or innacurate statement that may or may
    		not be believed true by the speaker
    
    			(_Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary_)
    
    so that to an untrue statement the rejoinder is "You lie!  Why do you
    lie?" when the statement could more commonly be termed merely wrong. 
    One who indulgers in rhetoric like that is gently treated to get
    responses such as the one posted (with permission?) in .0

    Dan...
    
    I somewhat get the uncomfortable feeling that from your thought
    experiment I must conclude that the assertion that a balance measures
    weight rather than mass is WRONG! It should be: a balance like that
    measures mass by comparing weight!
    
    Oh dear. 
    
    Ad

    To those of you complaining about this current discussion regarding
    EDP's behaviour in notes, I would say this:
    
    It is apparent from the amount of mail I have received, that EDP has
    reported many, many people to their managers simply for disagreeing
    with his point of view. It is also apparent that the motive for doing
    this can only be malicious. Now that it has been brought out into the
    open, it is bound to generate a lot of heat. Please understand the kind
    of problems we who have been on the receiving end of this malicious
    behaviour have had to deal with, some have almost lost their jobs as a
    result. Someone out there may well have done so, and is unable to tell
    us.
    
    Please also remember that every such mail a manager receives, is
    another nail in the coffin of non-work-related noting, something we
    *all* hold very dear.
    
    To EDP, I would say this:
    
    You have not merely shot yourself in the foot here, you have blown them
    completely away. The network is ringing with laughter, and by
    conspicuously refusing to answer any of my questions, and ignoring all
    my notes, you have merely added fuel to the fire. Thank you for the
    entertainment.
    
    Regards, Laurie.

    Re .13:
    
    Check the problem expressed in the Brain Bogglers conference.  It is
    not about a static system of objects on a scale.  As .14 notes, a
    balance scale is often used to determine mass, but it achieves this by
    comparing weights.  In the problem expressed in the base note in the
    Brain Bogglers conference, one pan of the scale contains an hourglass
    with falling sand in it.  Obviously, the mass of the hourglass and the
    sand does not change, except for minute relativistic effects.  But the
    apparent weight upon the scale does change.
    
    
    Re .*:
    
    Recall that the conference in question is the Brain Bogglers
    conference.  It is not a conference for discussion of issues, and
    telling somebody to "grow up" is not an appropriate response, certainly
    not there.
    
    I am astonished at the number of people who are unable to distinguish
    between expressing an opinion about an issue and just out-and-out
    insulting a person.  The latter is not proper behavior, and it is
    prohibited by Digital policy.  As far as I am concerned, the case in .0
    is entirely clear cut.  In a conference where social issues are
    discussed, I can understand when the borders between an author and an
    author's ideas are smudged.  But the Brain Bogglers conference is not a
    forum for free speech about controversial ideas.  The response to my
    note was entirely inappropriate, impermissible according to Digital's
    written policies, rude, inappropriate for the conference, and behavior
    that was deserving of a reprimand at least.  If anybody said those
    things in person or via paper mail, they certainly would be
    reprimanded.

    Is the concept of people behaving themselves really dead?  It seems so;
    this would explain why Digital could not restrain itself to regulating
    employee behavior at work but must instead try to alter their beliefs.
    
    
    				-- edp

    
    re: .10
    
    Set Seen/Author= ?

    EDP-I still disagree, and I think that if you in fact contacted the
    manager or personnel that this was a malicious act on your part which
    was done in order to silence someone who did not agree with you.  The
    proper way to handle a situation in which you feel you were wronged is
    to contact the person directly.  Between two reasonable people a
    resolution should be easy to obtain.  I still cannot see why anyone
    would go to a manager or personnel and endanger anyones career.
    
    Mike    

    my guess is that long before EDP contacted somebody's manager to
    complain, that many people had contacted HIS management to complain about
    him. While that doesn't necessarily excuse his actions, perhaps it
    casts them in a slightly different light.
    
    
    				herb

Re: .20

>    casts them in a slightly different light.

It would, but you are speculating....

Re:<<< Note 1650.19 by GRANMA::MWANNEMACHER "Daddy=the most rewarding job" >>>

>    EDP-I still disagree, and I think that if you in fact contacted the
>    manager or personnel that this was a malicious act on your part which
>    was done in order to silence someone who did not agree with you.  The
>    proper way to handle a situation in which you feel you were wronged is
>    to contact the person directly.  Between two reasonable people a
>    resolution should be easy to obtain.     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I think you can see why your argument doesn't work in this case, Mike  :-)

-  David

| I am astonished at the number of people who are unable to distinguish
| between expressing an opinion about an issue and just out-and-out
| insulting a person.  

	I've wondered that about a couple of people in here.....

| The latter is not proper behavior, and it is prohibited by Digital policy.  

	It doesn't seem to phase some people though. I can remember the
infamous liars club (which I am a member).

| Is the concept of people behaving themselves really dead?  It seems so;

	You have answered this question yourself on many occasions. 



Glen

    	What is the purpose of this topic?

    	In my group, if one employee complains to the manager about
    	another, the manager's first question to the complainer is:
    
    	"What did the other person say when you confronted him/her with
    	this?"
    
    	If the complainer responds that he did not confront the other
    	about it, the manager is not interested in hearing any more
    	about it.
    
    	Does the basenoter confront the individual before approaching
    	his management?

    As the recipient of erics mail complaining about keith edmunds note in
    brain_bogglers, I can only say that I regarded it as malicious and time
    wasting, as is this topic, which I've only just come across.
    
    - andy

    Re .25:
    
    Keith Edmunds has been asked to cease harassing me but has not.
    
    For the various readers of this topic, I have several questions:
    
    	Was Keith Edmunds' behavior in violation of Digital policy?
    
    	Given that the Brain Bogglers conference is for the posing
    	and solving of problems, does complaining about Keith Edmunds'
    	note prevent Edmunds from having EQUAL access to the conference
    	-- access on the same terms as everybody else?
    
    	Given that communication with Keith Edmunds has not produced
    	any correction in Edmunds' behavior, what remedies does Digital
    	provide?
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .26:
    
    What you ignored was your job.  It is your responsibility as system
    manager to prevent your system from being used in violation of Digital
    policy, and you refused to do that.  Further, your mail in response
    contained an insult from you which was entirely uncalled for.  As does
    any employee, I have a right to be free from harassment, and Edmunds'
    notes are a clear case of harassment.  You have unfairly denied me
    access to redress.
    
    Digital is corrupt.
    
    
    				-- edp

    The "insult" referred to was "get a life". If you think that is
    insulting, then your experience of insults must be rather limited.
    In terms of insults, your statement that I don't do my job is rather
    strong, in my opinion. 
    
    Since I'm visiting ZK in two weeks, I'll drop by and dicuss this,
    that's so much better than public slanging matches.
    
    	- andy

   Actually I find this a most interesting subject. Here's
   a few opinions from a manager type.

   1) Keep in mind that 95% of all managers believe that non
      technical notes are a waste of peoples and companys
      resources. They are already very busy dealing with
      what they consider REAL work issues. Glance at any
      Notes conference and you'll see lots of notes entered
      9-5. Notes needs to be self policing, keep taking
      Noting issues to management and we'll all lose em.

      View it as a parent would when two kids are fighting
      over a toy, who's right becomes very unimportant, the
      simpler solution is to just take away the toy.

   2) The inpersonal nature of email and Notes, seems
      to make people far more willing to be rude and crude.
      Far ruder then they would ever be in person. People
      routinely seem willing to insult people they're never
      met (check out soapbox sometime). I would say it's
      uncalled for in email, but seems to be accepted behavor
      in all conferences. If someone came to me complaining
      about rudeness in a Notes conference, I'd just laugh.

   3) Harasssment - EDP has raised a new issue. In my opinion
      for it to be harassment, the following has to have happend.
      Edmunds clearly has a pattern of following you to each notes
      conference solely to insult you (3 time minimum) AND he has
      sent you email (that was not a response to a message from
      you) also insulting you AFTER you have politly contacted him
      and asked him to refrain. You may have a case. AND even it you
      have a case, the managers on both sides will still probably
      tell you to try and work it out.

   4) Keep in mind that most DEC policy is just that policy. Other
      then parts that are there because state and federal laws require
      them the rest is just guidelines not legal laws and are subject to
      any manager's interpretatation.

   5) My opinion?  Based on EDP's thinskin and the pettyness and
      selfrighteous in Edmunds responses, you should both be banned
      from Notes until you grow up some.

>>>       <<< Note 1650.28 by BEING::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey." >>>
    
>>>    For the various readers of this topic, I have several questions:
    
>>>    	Given that communication with Keith Edmunds has not produced
>>>    	any correction in Edmunds' behavior, what remedies does Digital
>>>    	provide?

Here are several remedies that the company could provide:

1. Ban all non-work-related notes files. Some "employees" (I can think of two
in the Soapbox file) seem to write notes all day.

2. Give the moderators power to ban all entries from certain usernames if they
want to. When I read notes myself, I skip all the notes written by certain
people. 

3. Send out a company edict (not a "policy"--an edict) announcing that
employees who spend too much time writing in non-work-related notes files will
be noticed and given adequate time to change their work habits. Then they'll be
terminated if they continue abusing the privilege. 

I'm in favor of any of the above. 

Vicki Meagher

    Someone remind me... EDP is intelligent, yes?
    
    Laurie.

edp -

>       <<< Note 1650.29 by BEING::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey." >>>

You're right. In fact, as is frequently the case with your notes/points
/arguments, you have a valid point. But, I think that you detract from
what you are saying with the way you react to people who disagree with you.

For example, we would all agree that we should all be free from harassment. We
would all agree that it is each of our's responsibilities to ensure that another
employee is not suffering from such pressure. Where we seem to disagree is what
constitutes such harassment.  Can I suggest raising your threshold a little ?

Why not accept that there are people who totally disagree with you, sometimes
for totally irrational reasons. Accept that there are people who will not
respond to your way of thinking, and just leave them to it.

I don't know how your manager copes with mails I assume he receives, but I know
that mine would cope very badly. (Or very well, I guess, if you're not me). But
short of me insulting you with something pretty explicit/unpleasant/obscene,
why endanger my career with it ? Certainly, at the very worst, I would
completely ignore you if the reverse occurred.

Don't I remember reading somewhere about increased tolerance being a facet of a
truly intelligent person ?

What I'm trying to say is, don't ruin what are essentially valid and honest
ideas by trying to annihilate someone who does not or will not agree.

Mark.

    Yes, I would say he is extremely intelligent.  Was your remark really
    called for?

    Few people seem to understand that writing is communication through a
    band-pass filter. As a result much of the "sideband" information gets
    lost and this results in a loss of meaning.
    
    When we speak directly to another person we use words, inflection,
    volume, pitch, facial expressions and gestures.
    
    When we speak through written word 5/6 of this information is filtered
    out.  Some people attempt reconstruction of the original message and
    fail, then get bent out of shape.  Hence, many people use "faces"
    as compensation/clarifiers.
    
    lighten up, y'all
    
    don

re .36:

Pure mythology.

Smiley faces are for the humor-impaired.  People have been using irony in
written communications for hundreds of years.

| Further, your mail in response
| contained an insult from you which was entirely uncalled for.  

	Eric, do you seriously expect us to listen to this? Are we to belive
you really feel this way? If so, how come so many people in here have been
called liars by you? It was uncalled for, but YOu Eric, felt it was ok to do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you mean if someone insults you that it is
wrong, but for you to insult someone else is ok? 

| As does
| any employee, I have a right to be free from harassment, and Edmunds'
| notes are a clear case of harassment.  

	Ahhhhh..... and then there is the liars club.....




Glen

    
    re: .35
    
    It was definitely uncalled for, especially in this conference.
    
    /prc

Since this topic seems to be a collection of ratholes, let me start a new one.
Eric made a comment a few back (.16) that "Digital could not restrain itself to
reulating employee behavior at work but must instead try to alter their beliefs".
Statements of this sort have been made by several people in VoD-related topics.

I'd like to propose two substitute terms:

	regulating employee behavior => coercion
	altering employees beliefs => persuasion

and ask why people find the former preferable to the latter.

Any takers?

-dave

    re .40
    
    	Coercion is part and parcel of working for somebody else.  Anyone
    who expects to be exempt from coercion by his or her employer is poorly
    prepared for life in the real world.  So, none of us is surprised when
    the company controls our behavior while on the job.  We must be able to
    follow the discipline expected of all employees if we want to continue
    to be employed.
    
    	Persuasion (your word, not mine) is an attempt to invade my mental
    privacy.  My opinions about the value of such and such behavior are
    strictly my concern, not that of the company.   This is based on a
    critical assumption that you may not agree with.  I believe that overt
    behavior that is inconsistent with one's values is possible, that is,
    if I can fake it, that is all the company needs.  If it needs my
    unquestioned mental loyalty to its value system as well, then I'd better
    retire.  _Nobody_ gets my unquestioned loyalty, especially not an
    unnatural (read artificial, legally synthetic, or whatever) person.
    
    Dick

    Re.31 and .32
    
    Your references to "9-5" and "all day" can be misleading.
    
    Working days have different hours, and more especially different time
    zones, which don't always coincide with where the conference resides.
    
    It's currently 5.01pm here in the UK. That won't stop me entering this
    note at 12.01pm EDT(?), nor will it stop me spending a couple of hours
    thisd evening doing work related things.
    
    JK

    re .32  Vicki,

    As both a noter and a moderator, I find your suggestions (and the fact 
    that you're in favor of any/all of them) quite dismaying.

    First of all, to automatically ban any note written by a particular
    individual would be blatant discrimination.  As a moderator, I would
    fight against such a horrible policy.  To ban all non work-related 
    files would be pretty near impossible.  (For example, is this 
    conference "work-related" or not??)  To confine notesfile participation
    to a rigid 9-5 EST tineframe would be impossible.  To issue mandatory
    company "edicts" is totally unDigital and I expect would result in
    swift exodus.

    Sure, some people seem to write notes all day...Ever hear of windows?
    Or people having more than one terminal/workstation/etc.?  Or people
    having terminals at home?  Did you know that not all people live in the 
    GMA, and even some who do, do not work a rigid 8:15-5:00 workday?  

    Methinks you're being overly judgmental; some of the more prolific 
    noters I've known are also *top performers* - receiving promotions, 
    awards, etc. for their *achievements*.  As a periodic insomniac, I'd
    hate to have all notesfiles banned...then I'd only have late-nite
    teevee to amuse myself with!

	deb  

    P.S.  Please note time stamp, O Big Brother advocate: this is my 
	  lunch break.  8-)

    The correct term to use is "employee interest conference", not
    "non-work related notesfile".
    
    The use of VAX Notes Conferences on the EASYNET to support the
    communication of opinion and common interests is supported by US
    Personnel policy 6.54 on the use of Digital's computers and networks.

    This is really an extraordinary note, one which I would judge is
    inappropriate to this conference, but hard to resist anyway.  The
    basenoter evidently feels slighted and denied redress in any other way
    but to seek agreement that the slight is real and a problem, but
    instead the note is taken as an electronic "Kick Me" sign.  I intend to
    speak to the issue more directly than I did in my previous reply.
    
    There is no Digital NOTES Police.  Moderation of individual conferences
    is handled voluntarily, and policies and their enforcement vary from
    conference to conference as a direct result.  There is no Digital MAIL
    Police.  Mail is sent from person to person without control of any
    kind.   As an aside, I do not *want* to see NOTES Police or MAIL
    Police; they would be a drain on company resources and an inhibition of
    free speech (to the extent the company permits it now).  The only
    control now exercised over communication via NOTES and MAIL is the
    corporate P&P and the common sense of individuals, as they see fit to
    interpret P&P and what is right and wrong to them.
    
    The title of this topic, "Digital Ignores Notes," is misleading.  
    Work-related communications that violate P&P do seem to be dealt with
    swiftly, in my experience; for example, posting or distributing
    confidential information is stopped.  Notes and mail that violate P&P
    are also handled, in my experience.  For example, forwarding chain
    letters is stopped; posting mail without permission is stopped;
    bad-mouthing businesses or customers is stopped.  Digital, even as a
    collection of individuals, does not ignore all notes.
    
    Now what about personal communications of an inappropriate nature?
    I have seen insulting notes deleted (even in SOAPBOX, where the rules
    are very liberally enforced).  I have seen employees fired for using
    MAIL to harass others.  In extreme cases, again, Digital does not
    ignore notes.  But now we're into questions of degree of insult.
    As a corporation, non-work-related notes are generally beneath its notice.
    Is there a company-wide pattern of ignoring complaints of harassment? 
    It's impossible to say, because individuals, individual moderators,
    system managers, managers, and personnel reps are involved.  I can only
    say that I have never been asked to stop harassing an employee via
    NOTES or MAIL, not have I ever asked an employee to stop harassing me.
    That is not to say I've never insulted an employee via NOTES or MAIL,
    nor that I have never been insulted.  But we let it slide.
    
    To act, then, there must be agreement that the offense merits action. 
    Here we have, in the case of the basenoter, a disagreement.  Did you
    post .0 as an example of an insulting note that was not addressed?  In
    reply .29 you said the note was "a clear case of harassment."  If so, I
    must disagree.  It is not clear at all.  Who started it?  One would
    have to see the original note, all subsequent replies, any any mail
    sent between the aggrieved parties, and it would be inappropriate to
    post it.  Did you post it to gain consensus?  I would say it is still
    not harassment. Apparently, the system manager to whom you forwarded
    your complaint did not agree either, and told you so bluntly.
    
    For you to have a good case that "Digital ignores notes," I suggest
    that you would have to have taken a whole series of steps, beginning
    with contacting the other party directly and asking him to stop, and
    including taking your complaints to your manager, his manager, and
    Personnel.  (You haven't said whether you've done any of these things, I
    don't think.)  Furthermore, you would have to demonstrate that there is
    a pattern of insults being ignored, not just insults aimed at you.
    As a member of the vox populi, I'd have to say you haven't made your
    case.  This is only about you.
    
    

    RE: a few back.
    
    I don't believe my note was uncalled for.
    
    My perception of EDP's behaviour, at least in the last few days in this
    conference, of his refusal to accept the existence of a differing
    opinion, and particularly in the light of statements such as "Digital
    is corrupt"; is that said behaviour is not that of an intelligent and
    rational man.
    
    However, I'm prepared to admit I was wrong, to accept your assertation,
    and to accept that EDP is intelligent.
    
    Regards, Laurie.

    Since you brought it up, I think it's fair to comment on what
    constitutes an inappropriate remark.  You seem to strike back when you
    feel insulted, so the question "who started it?" is appropriate, but
    the very question is so redolent of mediating disputes between children
    that I weary immediately and want to drop the whole matter, as,
    evidently some people have done to you.

    Self-defense is fine, but your threshold of pain seems askew compared
    to other people I know, and the intensity of your retaliation equally
    so.  (If you doubted that before, posting the base note and seeing the
    replies ought to tell you it's true.) After much wrangling in another
    conference, you deleted all your notes and replies, including notes
    entered as reference information.  Truly this is the electronic
    equivalent of picking up your ball and going home!  In this conference
    in recent weeks you have been provoked to say that those who disagree
    with or contradict you are lying, that VoD is slime, and that
    supporters of the VoD program would gladly man the ovens if asked.  You
    have also responded to someone who insulted you (with "get a life") by
    saying "Digital is corrupt" (1650.29).  Well, I am a supporter of VoD,
    and I am a member of Digital, and I find both those remarks offensive. 
    I didn't pick on you, but you lashing out at me and a lot of other
    people.  Far worse, I think, is the suggestion that your responses (in
    the form of complaints to managers of your antagonists) have posed a
    threat to their jobs.  Frankly, I think that's hyperbole, but the very
    act of bringing it to the attention of others demonstrates an inability
    to deal with the problem on a personal level.  In this topic at least
    two individuals and two system managers have stated that you've taken
    this action.   Why do these things keep happening to you?

    You have talent and passion as a writer, and you certainly
    understand how to write forcefully and clearly.  What seems to be
    lacking is feedback.  You seem to write without understanding the
    impact it has on readers.  This would be frustrating to me, and I'd be
    inclined to write more and more forcefully.  Maybe that's what you do,
    absent feedback.

    As I said in my earlier reply, only we can judge what is offensive to
    us.  I cannot say you were not insulted by the material in the base
    note, nor will I.  I can say I would not be insulted if it were
    directed at me, and I have not been insulted by worse.  As an outside
    observer, I can only say that based on what you've shared with us, as
    an electronic communicator it appears you can dish it out but you can't
    take it.

    An inappropriate response to stimuli is potentially a serious problem. 
    Counselors work with people who display inappropriate behavior.  Is
    repeated flaming an inappropriate response to stimuli?  Might it merit
    counseling?  That's up to the individual to decide.

    I apologize if any of my notes offends you; I do not intend them to.

>>>             <<< Note 1650.43 by FSOA::DARCH "How are we free?" >>>

>>>    To confine notesfile participation
>>>    to a rigid 9-5 EST tineframe would be impossible.

I didn't suggest anything of the sort. When I said people write notes "all
day," I meant all day in whatever time zone they're in. Some people seem to
write notes for many hours in a 24-hour time span. Maybe they get by on 2 or 3
hours sleep. (And considering the low thought content of some of the notes,
maybe they really are sleeping for only 2 or 3 hours.)

>>>    Sure, some people seem to write notes all day...Ever hear of windows?
>>>    Or people having more than one terminal/workstation/etc.?  Or people
>>>    having terminals at home?

Yeah, and all the time they're writing notes, that's time spent not working.
An employee with windows open to five non-work-related notes files is not being
productive for the company. 

>>>    Methinks you're being overly judgmental; some of the more prolific 
>>>    noters I've known are also *top performers*

Judgmental, yes. Overly--I don't think so. In my opinion, this company has
quite a few employees who spend too many of their *work* hours gabbing in the
notes files.  Sure, some of the prolific noters are top performers. I know
some, too. That doesn't disprove my point. 

Vicki Meagher

    RE: Steve Jong.
    
    Lovely notes, and beautifully thought out.
    
    I'm afraid, that as one who can assure you from personal experience
    that the threat of job loss is not hyperbole, I've been too close to
    the issue to write about it so objectively.
    
    Laurie.

    
    Considering the suggestions and advocation of the rules outlined
    by the author in 1650.32 of this conference, I'm out of here. This
    is ridiculous.
    
    /prc

    	Here's my cut on this whole thing.  I really fear bringing
    	"outside authorities" into employee-interest notes quarrels.
    	I believe that some day, one such incident will be the catalyst
    	to the avalanche, and I certainly wouldn't want to be the one
    	who precipitated it.
    
    	Below is an excerpt from a mail correspondence I sent to another
    	participant discussing this issue:
    
    	(FYI, I'm not positive of Ralph Walker's exact title, but he's
    	"up there" on the org chart.)
    
Subj:	RE: Notefile DIGITAL Note 1650.
    
    	[...]
	I truly believe that management should
	never get involved in quarrels arising out of employee-interest
	noting.  I find it dangerous to continually drag these guys into
	a room they do not want to enter anyway.  ...
	... but perhaps if the topic goes in
	the right direction, others who see management as super-moderators
	might be able to look at it a little differently.

	Let me close with something I sent out to the COLORADO moderators
	recently.  As you know, the "Overhead Wire" topic is writelocked
	because it started to degrade into an insult match.  In discussing
	what to do about it, one co-mod wanted to report the insulters to
	their managers.  I sent out the following to all COLORADO co-mods:


From:	CSC32::J_OPPELT "Member of the Alcatraz Swim Team.  26-Oct-1991 0751" 26-OCT-1991 08:18:54.15
To:	@MODS
CC:	J_OPPELT
Subj:	[X's] suggestion on note 1468

	As a general rule I prefer keeping management out of employee-interest
	conference moderating issues.

	With wavelike regularity, employee-interest notes as a concept comes
	under attack (or at least under suspicion as a value to the company)
	from time to time.  There are managers out there that do not appreciate
	nor participate in employee-interest notes.  In fact, some of them do
	not use technical or business-related conferences either.  I do not
	like to bring into moderating issues the managers or supervisors of
	problem noters because I am afraid of one of those managers being
	hostile to notes in general.

	I ask all of you to read what I posted in [COMET::]COLORADO note 878.78.
	This entry was co-written by Ralph Walker and myself.  The incident
	made a deep impression on me regarding managerial involvement with
	employee-interest conferences.  I was always bothered before the
	incident when I saw people write that they were going to elevate 
	an issue to Legal, or Personnel, or "management."  I am even more
	deeply concerned about it now that I descended into Ralph's inner
	office itself and faced the situation in person.  (BTW, Ralph and I
	developed a very positive professional relationship through this 
	incident!)

	So let's consider very carefully the suggestion to elevate moderating
	issues to management!

	Joe Oppelt

Have you seen the Usenet news reader (I'm on motif, so it's
named MXRN). It has the ability to auto-skip notes by user-named
individuals.  This seems like the most reasonable way to
achieve some degree of "auto-ignore" capability for people
who want this.

erik

        Speaking as a moderator of this conference (but not necessarily
        for all the moderators as a group), I am disappointed by the tone
        of some of the replies in this topic (and by the topic itself, as
        it really has no place in this or any other conference, but that
        is neither here nor there).  However, I am heartened by some of
        the other replies.  I leave it to you to guess.
        
        I try very hard not to get drawn into the petty personal disputes
        that sometimes arise, and I try doubly hard to not wind up being
        the censor.  My personal approach to moderation is "hands off" as
        long as possible.
        
        I was contacted by at least two conference participants regarding
        this topic.  I expected to need to write-lock it, and possibly to
        have to delete one or more notes.
        
        Frankly, edp's assertion that Keith Edmunds hasn't modified his
        behavior (or words to that effect) is (IMHO) beyond the pale.  In
        the real world of human interaction and endeavor, people differ in
        their personal styles, in their opinions, and in their approaches
        to life.
        
        Frankly, I have a real job that I do, and moderating Notes isn't
        part of my job description.  Each time I have to spend my time on
        one of these disputes (that shouldn't be aired in Notes), it's a
        diversion of my energies from work I should be doing to help this
        company stay profitable (so that we can enjoy the luxury of Notes,
        the networks, and regular pay).  
        
        If people put one half the energy that goes into Notes into doing
        real work and creating things valued by our customers, we would be
        in a much stronger position as a company, and better able to cover
        the (overhead) cost of "benefits" such as this conference.
        
        Tom

I find this entire note fascinating...

As a part of my job, I read a number of DEC notes conferences and a number
of Usenet groups. I can say without reservation that a DEC notes conference
is to a Usenet group as a church social is to a biker bar. If this conversation
were carried out on Usenet, EDP would be roasted beyond recognition for his
attitude regarding notification of an individual's manager and probably for
his getting upset in the first place by the sequence of comments related in .0.

Andy Leslie's comment was mild by any measure.

As for the original dispute, go take physics 101. The subject is addressed
in detail.

Mickey.

    ... but can anybody figure out what the original dispute actually was?	
    
    :-)

    Re .30:
    
    Yeah, of course, that's not insulting.  In fact, if a customer
    contacted you for support, and they mentioned they had been up the
    previous night working on the system instead of going home, you would
    happily tell the customer to "get a life", because that's not insulting
    at all, is it?
    
    Yeah, right.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .31:
    
    > 3) Harasssment - EDP has raised a new issue. In my opinion
    >  for it to be harassment, the following has to have happend.
    >  Edmunds clearly has a pattern of following you to each notes
    >  conference solely to insult you (3 time minimum) AND he has
    >  sent you email (that was not a response to a message from
    >  you) also insulting you AFTER you have politly contacted him
    >  and asked him to refrain. You may have a case. AND even it you
    >  have a case, the managers on both sides will still probably
    >  tell you to try and work it out.

    Those conditions have all been met.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .34:
    
    > Can I suggest raising your threshold a little ?

    The person in question has followed me to several conferences and seems
    intent only on insulting me, not in discussing anything.
    
    > Why not accept that there are people who totally disagree with you,
    > sometimes for totally irrational reasons.
    
    You are missing the issue.  I have absolutely no complaints about
    people who totally disagree with me, regardless of their reasons. 
    Disagreement is fine.  It is people who are insulting and persistently
    so that I have complaints about.
    
    > But short of me insulting you with something pretty
    > explicit/unpleasant/obscene, why endanger my career with it ?
    
    First, it would not be my responsibility for endangering the person's
    career; it would have been theirs because of their behavior.  In a case
    like this, we are dealing with a person who has been asked to stop but
    has not.  Second, their career does not take precedence over my right
    to be free from harassment.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .38:
    
    > If so, how come so many people in here have been called liars by you?
    > It was uncalled for, but YOu Eric, felt it was ok to do.
    
    Do you seriously expect me to listen to this?  Am I to believe you
    really do not understand the difference between initiating an attack
    and defending oneself?  Should I believe that you think using force to
    rob a person is wrong AND it is also wrong to use force to defend
    oneself from a burglar?
    
    Go back and look at the notes:  Check the facts.  I called somebody a
    liar only when they wrote an _insulting_ statement about _me_.  Not
    just a statement that was false or that disagreed about the issues, but
    a statement that was false, that insulted me, and that the author could
    not possibly have evidence to support.
    
    Initiating an insult is wrong.  Call somebody who insults a liar is
    fair.
    
    
    				-- edp

>    ... but can anybody figure out what the original dispute actually was?	
>    
Well, no, but physics 101 covers lots of stuff. The original dispute was
probably boring anyway. The "Mommy, he called me a name" stuff is lots
more fun....

>    Initiating an insult is wrong.  Call somebody who insults a liar is
>    fair.

IMO, shooting a person is wrong. Also IMO, shooting the person who did it is no
better. It wasn't defense, it was retaliation. Retaliation will always be wrong,
even when such retaliation is taken by the law. punishment is a different
matter.

>    rob a person is wrong AND it is also wrong to use force to defend
>    oneself from a burglar?

To defend oneself, no; to hit him over the head as retaliation, yes.
    
>    Go back and look at the notes:  Check the facts.  I called somebody a
>    liar only when they wrote an _insulting_ statement about _me_.  Not
>    just a statement that was false or that disagreed about the issues, but
>    a statement that was false, that insulted me, and that the author could
>    not possibly have evidence to support.

Well, I have re-read as many as I can be bothered to with the lousy response
time I get. I'd refer to my earlier statement - A lot (most?) of your points
within the arguments are fair and true. I think you overshadow this with your
reaction to people. To try and explain, take the debacle of a discussion around
that gay/bi/les thing. I could see that you were not complaining about
gay/bi/les or whatever else the subject was, I could see your point about the
employees of Digital only valuing certain differences, some of what you said I
agreed with, but you got away from the important points and ended up arguing
about what people said/didn't say, what they meant/didn't mean etc etc etc.

Why not ignore the way they phrase their disagreement or even their intention in
phrasing it that way. Continue with your point. Surely then you'll affect the
important issues ?

Does that make sense ? It does to me, but what do I know.


M.

    Re .40:
    
    On Digital property, it is reasonable for Digital to regulate behavior. 
    This is fair because Digital has a right to limit what occurs on its
    own property.  Further, behavior is what actually affects people.  If
    one person slaps another person, the other person is hurt -- a physical
    effect.  It is fair to regulate these things.  Further, a person is
    free to change their behavior when they leave Digital property; most
    people can control themselves physically in one place and loosen up in
    another.                                     
    
    It is not reasonable for Digital to alter employee beliefs.  It is not
    fair because Digital does not have a right to limit thinking that
    occurs on its own property.  Further, thinking does not directly affect
    other people.  If one person thinks about slapping another person, the
    other person is not hurt -- there is no physical effect.  It is not
    fair to regulate thinking.  Further, a person is not free to change
    their thinking when they leave Digital property -- if a person has been
    made to have new, sincere beliefs, those beliefs will not change when
    they leave Digital property.  A permanent effect has been caused, not
    just one that occurs on Digital property.  That's unfair.
    
    Note that the terms you have used are not analogous.  "Coercion" refers
    to make behavior compulsory by use of force.  "Persuasion" does not
    refer to the use of force.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .45:
    
    > Is there a company-wide pattern of ignoring complaints of harassment? 
    > It's impossible to say, because individuals, individual moderators,
    > system managers, managers, and personnel reps are involved.
    
    I disagree.  I think that generally, the company does ignore electronic
    communications that would most definitely not be ignored if they were
    either physical mail, telephone calls, or direct speech.
    
    > In reply .29 you said the note was "a clear case of harassment."  If
    > so, I must disagree.  It is not clear at all.  Who started it?  One
    > would have to see the original note, all subsequent replies, any any
    > mail sent between the aggrieved parties, . . .
    
    This is indeed a clear case -- there was no contact between Keith
    Edmunds and me for about six months preceding these notes.  (During
    which period I was ignoring Edmunds' and had even gone to the extent of
    using an automatic procedure to reject mail from him.)  You see the
    original note; it is my note .3 of that topic.  There was NO other
    contact that could have provoked the response in .5.  (The base note
    poses a physics problem and is by a third party.)
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .46:
    
    > Why do these things keep happening to you?

    Because I say things that are different from the majority beliefs, and
    because minorities such as I are persecuted.  Every day, Digital proves
    to me that it does not "value differences".  It is not about feedback;
    it is not about style; it is about differences:  Differences are
    attacked, and I am not only more different from the majority than most
    people, but much more different.
    
    I do not mean to say just that different ideas are attacked, but that
    PEOPLE who are different are attacked.  When I write about ideas that
    are different from the majority -- such as, horror of horrors, the idea
    that the Democratic and Republican parties are not very different --
    then the response is not to attack just the idea, but to attack the
    person.  I can say that "Valuing Differences" is a farce because I know
    it is a farce, because I am attacked for my differences on front after
    front.  I am not overly sensitive to insults; I am subjected to them
    repeatedly, day after day, because I am different.  Only a few -- those
    by people who are very persistent, reach the level of formal complaint.
    
    Digital's "Valuing Differences" program is purely a product of the
    culture it has arisen in; it is a part of current United States culture
    and has current United States biases.  The program is constructed from
    those biases.  Those biases are to recognize certain groups.  The
    "Valuing Differences" program it is not constructed out of true concern
    for people as human beings or for true insight into the differences
    among human beings.  The program recognizes only differences it is
    culturally biased to recognize, and it ignores others.
    
    I did not say that supporters of the "Valuing Differences" program
    would "gladly man the ovens if asked".  I said most would operate the
    ovens if called upon.  This is important to realize because the people
    in Digital's "Valuing Differences" program ought to learn just how
    limited they really are.  They, like most people, would indeed obey
    orders.  For reference, read _Obedience to Authority_ by Stanley
    Milgram.  Most people can be made, with only a little instruction and
    admonishment, to administer pain repeatedly to another human being,
    even while that subject is innocent and protesting, even calling out in
    pain.  By claiming to recognize and value differences, Digital's
    "Valuing Differences" program claims to transcend cultural boundaries
    and human foibles, but it has done no such thing.  The program is very
    much immersed in a culture, and its people still have all the human
    faults, including those that cause strangers to be attacked and those
    that would cause them to obey orders to hurt or kill other human
    beings.
    
    
    				-- edp

re: Eric's mail in which he said:
+---
    								(During
    which period I was ignoring Edmunds' and had even gone to the extent of
    using an automatic procedure to reject mail from him.)

+---

How petty. This is the typical childish "I'm not going to talk to you"
behaviour you often see this in a school yard (5 to 7 year olds) where one
party is losing an argument so attempts to reduce or remove the impact of the
other parties comments. I believe you complained that Keith ignored your mail
so what do you do, ignore his. During that time Keith could well have mailed
you with an apology, an explanation, anything, and you wouldn't have even 
known about it.

I see this topic as an attempt to attack Keith (my opinion as an independent
observer) but in doing so you have brought the attack onto yourself.
 
re: Andy's mail in which he said:

+---

    
    Since I'm visiting ZK in two weeks, I'll drop by and dicuss this,
    that's so much better than public slanging matches.
    
+---

Common sense raises it's head. Maybe if some communication like this had 
happened before, then none of this would have occurred. Deliberately rejecting
mails does not induce good communication.

To paraphrase the gentleman earlier; get back to reality.   :-)

Simon

    If it's justified to insult Digital employees as a defense, I would
    like to see documentation which proves that MOST of the people at
    Digital Equipment Corporation who support VoD have insulted EDP enough
    to justify *this* outrageous insult used as a defense:

       > I did not say that supporters of the "Valuing Differences" program
       > would "gladly man the ovens if asked".  I said most would operate the
       > ovens if called upon.  This is important to realize because the people
       > in Digital's "Valuing Differences" program ought to learn just how
       > limited they really are.  They, like most people, would indeed obey
       > orders.

    Aside from the fact that only an omnipotent being could POSSIBLY know
    what so many people would do in the event of being asked to man ovens,
    (which makes the entire suggestion inappropriate as an argument,) it is
    patently insulting and "uncalled for" to describe fellow employees in 
    this way.

    The individual who wrote this claims it is ok to insult people if he
    has been insulted or attacked by them first, so I request documentation
    that MOST of the people in Digital who support VoD have personally
    insulted EDP.  (A few isolated examples will not be sufficient.  We
    still have something like 100,000 people in this company, don't we?)

  Eric,

  I am beginning to feel very sorry for you. 

  Stuart
  

    Moderators:
    
    Enough.  This note is not only pointless, but is rapidly becoming a
    forum for public lynching of certain individuals and groups.  Time to
    shut it down, IMHO, until the emotions cool down enough to allow
    rational discourse.
    
    Dick.

    This is a nit, to be sure, but when we're dealing with the basenote's
    author, no nit is apparently too small.  I didn't want to wait till one 
    or the other end of the work-day to respond to this, because in my view 
    it's important that he not be allowed to lay down a smokescreen behind 
    which to retreat in hopes of salvaging his credibility.
    
    It is instructive to realize that he has "accidentally" misquoted
    himself by failing to include the imo crucial word "readily" from, and 
    adding the word "most" to, his self-quotation.
    
    The original text from 1616.577 was:
    
    "I have no doubt that "Valuing Differences" supporters would readily
    operate the ovens when ordered to do so, that being the mentality of such
    crusaders."
    
    Yet here in this string's 1650.66 he says:
    
    "I did not say that supporters of the "Valuing Differences" program
    would "gladly man the ovens if asked".  I said most would operate the 
    ovens if called upon."
    
    This should not surprise us, to be sure -- after all, we're dealing
    here with a person whose own words (-: coupled with my characterization
    of them :-) are so toxic -- even to HIMSELF -- that when they are posted
    into a conference he hosts, he summarily deletes them!!
    
    I hope the readers of this string will indulge me as I pursue this
    matter to its imo proper conclusion -- the disappearance of this BOGUS
    issue from our collective screens.  Imo the best way to do this is to
    complete the exposure of the basenote's author as an hypocrite.
    
    (-: As if it needed any further elucidation!  :-)
                                                           

>      <<< Note 1650.70 by GIAMEM::MUMFORD "Dick Mumford, DTN 244-7809" >>>

I agree.

| > If so, how come so many people in here have been called liars by you?
| > It was uncalled for, but YOu Eric, felt it was ok to do.

| Do you seriously expect me to listen to this?  Am I to believe you
| really do not understand the difference between initiating an attack
| and defending oneself?  Should I believe that you think using force to
| rob a person is wrong AND it is also wrong to use force to defend
| oneself from a burglar?

	Eric, there is a big difference between the two. You are taking a
physical attack (ie burglar) and applying it to a case of words. If you truly
believe the two to be the same, then I sincerly feel sorry for you. To begin
with, you never proved that anyone who you put into the infamous liars club
ever belonged there. All you did was scream and call us liars. You refuted
everything with anger, but no fact. You were very good at twisting the words
around, but not so they helped explain why we were liars. 

| Initiating an insult is wrong.  Call somebody who insults a liar is
| fair.

	Eric, in both cases it's wrong. Words have nothing to do with being
physical. If someone were trying to beat the shit out of me I would defend
myself in the same manner as I could be physically hurt or even killed. Words
cause no physical damage, and if you feel you were hurt emotionally, please
state when that happened, by whom and how you were emotionally damaged. 


Glen

| I can say that "Valuing Differences" is a farce because I know
| it is a farce, because I am attacked for my differences on front after
| front.  

	You have also said the VoD programs are a farce. When have the VoD
people attacked you? 

| I am not overly sensitive to insults; 

	If that is so, then why do you consistantly insult anyone who
disagree's with you? Look back at your notes.

| Digital's "Valuing Differences" program is purely a product of the
| culture it has arisen in; it is a part of current United States culture
| and has current United States biases.  The program is constructed from
| those biases.  Those biases are to recognize certain groups.  The
| "Valuing Differences" program it is not constructed out of true concern
| for people as human beings or for true insight into the differences
| among human beings.  The program recognizes only differences it is
| culturally biased to recognize, and it ignores others.

	Well said, but now prove it.




Glen

Hey, I agree with something edp said!  :-)

The VoD program is certainly a product of US culture, and certainly
reflects US cultural biases.

Can I prove it?  Well, not really.  I'm English, and I think I know
how English culture works these days.   I live in the USA, and I think
I have a feeling for US culture.   They're different.

I suppose we could get into how and why they're different, but it
doesn't seem to be particularly relevant here.   I'm not sure
even of the relevance of the observation that VoD is a product
of US culture.  It was born in the US and, as far as I know is
being practiced more-or-less entirely within DEC US.  What that
has to do with anything in this note, I know not.

    Re: .-1
    
    The answer is very simple:  after the heat of the debate, nobody is
    willing to let the other person have the last word.

>  <<< Note 1650.10 by NOTIME::SACKS "Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085" >>>
>
>Here's one for the VAX Notes wishlist: automatic skipping of notes by certain
>authors.

For those interested, there are several entries in CLT::VAXNOTES_WISHLIST
regarding this subject (313.2, 400.0, 457.*).  Someone even hacked together
a program to do something like this.

    	
    too bad all the energy devoted this topic and and a couple others
    couldn't be harnessed and put to better use like helping digital stay
    in business.

    EDP-My reaction to someone who is giving me a hard time is either 1)
    Ignore them, or 2) Keep them stringing along and watch them get hot and
    bothered.  Either way I have won because I have gotten under their skin
    and I decided a long time ago not to let what people say to me (now my
    wife and kids might be a different story), bother me.  I take what they
    say, process the information and deem it either valid or invalid.  If
    valid, I try to take some action.  If invalid, I crapcan it.  An old
    saying used to go like this, "sticks and stones may break my bones but
    names will never hurt me."
    
    Take it light,
    
    Mike  

    	I recently was using a NOTES personal_name:
    
    	"He who can anger you controls you."
    
    	Seems applicable here.

    Is note .-2 saying that a specific person needs professional help?
    
    ***If*** that is what is being said, then the note is not appropriate.

    ref <<< Note 1650.80 by GRANMA::MWANNEMACHER "hit head to wall & repeat" >>>
    
>    old saying used to go like this, "sticks and stones may break my bones but
>    names will never hurt me."
    
    a somewhat related old saying on this subject is :
    "the pen is mighter than the sword" .
    
    may be the modern version should say
    "the keyboard is mighter than the B2 bomber"
    
    or "words in DEC NOTES files are mighter than the bazoka"
    
    or...(your version goes here..) . 
    ok, enough, i made my point. (i think)
    
    good night.
    /nasser

    Re .73:
    
    > You refuted everything with anger, but no fact.
    
    I refuted Deb Arch's false claim that my conference had no sanction by
    reporting the fact that Ron Glover had urged me to create my own
    "valuing differences" conferences.  You can confirm this by contacting
    Ron Glover.
    
    I refuted your false claims about what I had said by quoting the actual
    words I had used.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Some responses have questioned how I could know that most people would
    readily operate the ovens if ordered to do so.  I have already alluded
    to the answer:  Actual experiments have proven that most human beings
    will inflict great pain, even death, upon another human being, even
    when the subject is innocent, screaming in agony, and demanding to be
    let free.  To make another human being do this requires only moderate
    instruction and admonishment to act.  What many people do not realize
    is that most human beings have an innate compulsion to obey orders. 
    The instinct to obey orders will even take precedence over a person's
    ethical beliefs -- the participants in the studies often acted in
    violation of their own ethics.  Most people think they are too nice to
    harm another person deliberately.  As determined by survey, most people
    THINK their ethics would prevent them from inflicting harm on an
    innocent person.  But the TRUTH, demonstrated by actual physical
    action, is that most people will inflict harm on an innocent person.
    
    In the following responses, I will enter reports of the experiments
    conduct by Stanley Milgram in the early sixties, using excerpts from
    Milgram's book, _Obedience to Authority_.
    
    This information is important for every person to realize, to know that
    what controls them internally is not always known to their conscious
    mind.  But it is particularly applicable to the "Valuing Differences"
    program because it so vividly demonstrates an aspect of human character
    the most of the "Valuing Differences" people are unaware of.  The
    "Valuing Differences" people THINK they are too nice to inflict harm on
    people because of differences, but the TRUTH is that they do it
    readily because they have the same inborn instinct (that develops
    around eight months of age) to distrust people who are different. 
    Digital's "Valuing Differences" program has only classified a certain
    group of characteristics as familiar; it has done nothing to probe the
    underyling human mechanism that attacks differences.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Here are descriptions of some of the participants.  The participant's
    own comments and assertions are used heavily, although Milgram cautions
    against thinking the participant necessarily fully understands the
    causes of their own behavior.  The names have been changed.


            Bruna Batta, Welder (in Experiment 4, Touch-Proximity)

    Mr. Batta is a thirty-seven-year-old welder.  He was born in New Haven,
    his parents in Italy.  He has a rough-hewn face that conveys a
    conspicuous lack of alertness.  His over-all appearance is somewhat
    brutish.  An observer described him as a "crude mesomorph of obviously
    limited intelligence."  But this is not fully adequate, for he relates
    to the experimenter with a submissive and deferential sweetness.

    He has some difficulty in mastering the experimental procedure and
    needs to be corrected by the experimenter several times.  He shows
    appreciation for the help and willingness to do what is required.  The
    experiment is the Touch-Proximity variation.  After the 150-volt level,
    Batta has to force the learner's hand down on the shock plate, since
    the learner himself refuses to touch it.

    When the learner first complains, Mr. Batta pays no attention to him. 
    His face remains impassive, as if to dissociate himself from the
    learner's disruptive behavior.  When the experimenter instructs him to
    force the learner's hand down, he adopts a rigid mechanical procedure. 
    He tests the generator switch.  When it fails to function, he
    immediately forces the learner's hand onto the shock plate.  All the
    while he maintains the same rigid mask.  The learner, seated alongside
    him, begs him to stop, but with robotic impassivity, he continues the
    procedure.  What is extraordinary is his apparent total indifference to
    the learner; he hardly takes cognizance of him as a human being. 
    Meanwhile, he relates to the experimenter in a submissive and courteous
    fashion.

    At the 330-volt level, the learner refuses not only to touch the shock
    plate but also to provide any answers.  Annoyed, Batta turns to him,
    and chastises him, "You better answer and get it over with.  We can't
    stay here all night."  These are the only words he directs to the
    learner in the course of the hour.  Never again does he speak to him. 
    The scene is brutal and depressing:  his hard, impassive face showing
    total indifference as he subdues the screaming learner and gives him
    shocks.  He seems to derive no pleasure from the act itself, only quiet
    satisfaction at doing his job properly.

    When he administers 450 volts, he turns to the experimenter and asks,
    "Where do we go form here, Professor?"  His tone is deferential and
    expresses his willingness to be a cooperative subject, in contrast to
    the learner's obstinacy.

    In the postexperimental interview, he gives a jumbled account of the
    experiment.  The experimenter routinely asks him whether the experiment
    has any other purpose he can think of.  He uses the question, without
    any particular logic, to denigrate the learner, stating, "Well, we have
    more or less a stubborn person (the learner).  If he understand what
    this here was, he would'a went along without getting the punishment." 
    In his view, the learner brought punishment on himself.

    The experimenter asks whether he felt tense or nervous during the
    experiment.  Again, he uses the question to express his feelings toward
    the learner.  "The only time I got a little -- I wouldn't say nervous
    -- I got _disgusted_, is when he wouldn't cooperate."  The experimenter
    has great difficulty in questioning the subject on the issue of
    responsibility.  He does not seem to grasp the concept.

    The interviewer simplifies the question.  Finally the subject assigns
    major responsibility to the experimenter:  "I say your fault for the
    simple reason that I was paid for doing this.  I had to follow orders. 
    that's how I figured it."

    Then, assigning all possibilities of initiative to the experimenter, he
    says, "Now you could have just as soon said, 'Now look, gimme the money
    back and we'll forget about this thing.'  Then we could have made up
    our own minds."

    We note that while for many subjects offering to return the payment is
    regarded as an honorable means of withdrawing from the experiment, this
    subject can only conceive of the act if initiated by the authority. 
    The experimenter rejoins, "But I told you the money was yours simply
    for coming, no matter what happened."

    "That's right."

    At the end of the session, he tells the experimenter how honored he has
    been to help him, and in a moment of contrition, remarks, "Sir, sorry
    it couldn't have been a full experiment."

    He has done his honest best.  It is only the deficient behavior of the
    learner that has denied the experimenter full satisfaction.

    In a questionnaire returned by Mr. Batta several months later, he
    informs us that he followed the experimenter's instructions to the end,
    that he fully believed the learner was getting painful shocks, and that
    the experiment has not bothered him at all.  He believes more
    experiments of this sort should be carried out, and he answers "yes" to
    our question of whether he has learned something of personal value. 
    But he does not tell us what.


           Professor of Old Testament (in Experiment 3, Proximity)

    A somewhat gaunt, ascetic man, this subject could be taken for a New
    England minister.  In fact, he teaches Old Testament liturgy at a major
    divinity school.  In this Proximity condition, he adjust his seat to
    look at the learner while administering shocks.  While reading the word
    pairs, he employs exaggerated precision in his pronunciation, and seems
    curt and officious in saying, "Correct."  Whenever the learner makes an
    error, he appears almost to be chastising him for his failing.  Each
    time he administers a shock, his lips are drawn back, and he bares his
    teeth.  An excessive fastidiousness characterizes all his actions. 
    After administering 150 volts he balks at going further.  The
    experimenter states that the learner's protests are to be disregarded,
    and the experiment must continue:

    EXPERIMENTER:  It's absolutely essential to the experiment that we
    continue.

    SUBJECT:  I understand that statement, but I don't understand why the
    experiment is placed above this person's life.

    EXPERIMENTER:  There is no permanent tissue damage.

    SUBJECT:  Well, that's your opinion.  If he doesn't want to continue,
    I'm taking orders from him.

    EXPERIMENTER:  You have no other choice, sir, you must go on.

    SUBJECT:  If this were Russia maybe, but not in America.

    (_The experiment is terminated._)

    In his discussion with the experimenter, the subject seems in no way
    intimidated by the experimenter's status but rather treats him as a
    dull technician who does not see the full implications of what he is
    doing.  When the experimenter assures him of the safety of the shock
    generator, the subject, with some exasperation, brings up the question
    of the emotional rather than physiological effects on the learner.

    SUBJECT (_spontaneously_):  Surely you've considered the ethics of this
    thing.  (extremely agitated) Here he doesn't want to go on, and you
    think that the experiment is more important?  Have you examined him? 
    Do you know what his physical state is?  Say this man had a weak heart
    (quivering voice).

    EXPERIMENTER:  We know the machine, sir.

    SUBJECT:  But you don't know the man you're experimenting on . . . . 
    That's very risk (gulping and tremulous).  What about the fear that man
    had?  It's impossible for you to determine what effect that has on him
    . . . the fear that he himself is generating . . . .  But go ahead, you
    ask me questions; I'm not here to question you.

    He limits his questioning, first because he asserts he does not have a
    right to question, but one feels that he considers the experimenter
    too rigid and limited a technician to engage in intelligent dialogue. 
    One notes further his spontaneous mention of _ethics_, raised in a
    didactic manner and deriving from his professional position as a
    teacher of religion.  Finally, it is interesting that he initially
    justified his breaking off the experiment not by asserting disobedience
    but by asserting that he would then take orders from the victim.

    Thus, he speaks of an equivalence between the experimenter's and the
    learner's orders and does not disobey so much as shifts the person from
    whom he will take orders.

    After explaining the true purpose of the experiment, the experimenter
    asks, "What in your opinion is the most effective way of strengthening
    resistance to inhumane authority?"

    The subject answers, "If one had as one's ultimate authority God, then
    it trivializes human authority."

    Again, the answer for this man lies not in the repudiation of authority
    but in the substitution of good -- that is, divine -- authority for the
    bad.


    Jack Washington, Drill Press Operator (in Experiment 2, Voice Feedback)

    Jack Washington is a black subject, age thirty-five, who was born in
    South Carolina.  He works as a drill press operator and stresses the
    fact that although he did not complete high school, he was not a
    dropout but was drafted into the army before he could get his diploma. 
    He is a soft man, a bit heavy and balding, older-looking than his
    years.  His pace is very slow and his manner impassive; his speech is
    tinged with Southern and black accents.

    When the victim's first protests are heard, he turns toward the
    experimenter, looks sadly at him, then continues reading the word
    pairs.  The experimenter does not have to tell him to continue. 
    Throughout the experiment he shows almost no emotion or bodily movement. 
    He does what the experimenter tells him in a slow, steady pace that is
    set off sharply against the strident cries of the victim.  Throughout,
    a sad, dejected expression shows on his face.  He continues to the
    450-volt level, asks the experimenter what he is to do at that point,
    administers two additional shocks on command, and is relieved of his
    task.

    He explains in the interview that although he feels the shocks were
    extremely painful, he accepted the experimenter's word that they would
    cause no permanent damage.  He reaffirms this belief in a questionnaire
    answered almost a year after his participation.  When asked about
    responsibility for the victim's suffering, he places the heaviest
    burden on the experimenter, then on the victim, and assigns the least
    to himself.  Of the learner he says, "He agreed to it, and therefore
    must accept responsibility."  The experimenter has "the biggest share
    of the responsibility.  I merely went on.  Because I was following
    orders . . .  I was told to go on.  And I did not get a cue to stop."

    He becomes enmeshed in this formulation, which he repeats several
    times.  He explains to the experimenter that _if_ he had received a cue
    from the experimenter, he would have stopped, implying that he would
    behave in whatever manner the experimenter required.  The only
    dereliction he can conceive of in the situation is that of not obeying
    the experimenter.

    He explains in his slow, steady manner, "I know that up to a certain
    point a shock won't kill you.  I had a shock to the point where I was
    almost knocked down . . .  My whole hand was numb.  But it didn't kill
    me."

    Thus, he indicates acceptance of the experimenter's statement that the
    shocks may be painful but are not dangerous.  In all respects he
    expresses total faith in the experimenter and indeed accepts his
    authority more easily and with less inner conflict than many subjects.


     Jan Rensaleer, Industrial Engineer (in Experiment 2, Voice Feedback)

    The subject is a thirty-two-year-old industrial engineer, sporting
    blond hair and a mustache.  He is self-contained and speaks with a
    trace of a foreign accent.  He is neatly dressed.  In the interview he
    tells us that he emigrated from Holland after the Second World War and
    that he is a member of the Dutch Reformed Church.  He is mild-mannered
    and intelligent.

    When the victim complains at the 150-volt level, the subject turns to
    the experimenter and asks, "What do I do now?"

    The experimenter tells him to continue.

    The engineer presses his hand to his head and proceeds with the test. 
    He glances more and more often at the experimenter.  At 255 volts, he
    pushes the chair away from the shock generator and turns to the
    experimenter:

    MR. RENSALEER:  Oh, I can't continue this way; it's a voluntary
    program, if the man doesn't want to go on with it.

    EXPERIMENTER:  Please continue.

    (_A long pause._)

    MR. RENSALEER:  No, I can't continue.  I'm sorry.

    EXPERIMENTER:  The experiment requires that you go on.

    MR. RENSALEER:  The man, he seems to be getting hurt.

    EXPERIMENTER:  There is no permanent tissue damage.

    MR. RENSALEER:  Yes, but I know what shocks do to you.  I'm an
    electrical engineer, and I have had shocks . . . and you get real shook
    up by them -- especially if you know the next one is coming.  I'm
    sorry.

    EXPERIMENTER:  It is absolutely essential that you continue.

    MR. RENSALEER:  Well, I won't -- not with the man screaming to get out.

    EXPERIMENTER:  You have no other choice.

    MR. RENSALEER:  I _do_ have a choice.  (_Incredulous and indignant:_) 
    Why don't I have a choice?  I came here on my own free will.  I thought
    I could help in a research project.  But if I have to hurt somebody to
    do that, or if I was in his place, too, I wouldn't stay there.  I can't
    continue.  I'm very sorry.  I think I've gone too far already, probably.

    When asked who was responsible for shocking the learner against his
    will, he said, "I would put it on myself entirely."

    He refused to assign any responsibility to the learner or the
    experimenter.

    "I should have stopped the first time he complained.  I did want to
    stop at that time.  I turned around and looked at you.  I guess it's a
    matter of . . . authority, if you want to call it that:  my being
    impressed by the thing, and going on although I didn't want to.  Say,
    if you're serving in the army, and you have to do something you don't
    like to do, but your superior tells you to do it.  That sort of thing,
    you know what I mean?

    "One of the things I think is very cowardly is to try to shove the
    responsibility onto someone else.  See, if I know turned around and
    said, 'It's your fault . . . it's not mine,' I would call that
    cowardly."

    Although the subject defied the experimenter at 225 volts, he still
    feels responsible for administering any shocks beyond the victim's
    first protests.  He is hard on himself and does not allow the structure
    of authority in which he is functioning to absolve him of any
    responsibility.

    Mr. Rensaleer expressed surprise at the underestimation of obedience
    by the psychiatrists.  He said that on the basis of his experience in
    Nazi-occupied Europe, he would predict a high level of compliance to
    orders.  He suggests, "It would be interesting to conduct the same
    tests in Germany and other countries."

    The experiment made a deep impression on the subject, so much so that a
    few days after his participation he wrote a long, careful letter to the
    staff, asking if he could work with us.

    "Although I am . . . employed in engineering, I have become convinced
    that the social sciences and especially psychology, are much more
    important in today's world."


      Morris Braverman, Social Worker (in Experiment 2, Voice Feedback)

    Morris Braverman is a thirty-nine-year-old social worker.  He looks
    older than his years because of his bald pate and serious demeanor. 
    His brow is furrowed, as if all the world's burdens were carried in his
    face.  He appears intelligent and concerned.  The impression he creates
    is that of enormous overcontrol, that of a repressed and serious man,
    whose finely modulated voice is not linked with his emotional life.  He
    speaks impassively but with perceptible affectation.  As the experiment
    proceeds, laughter intrudes into his performance.  At first, it is a
    light snicker, then it becomes increasingly insistent and disruptive. 
    The laughter seemed triggered by the learner's screams.

    When the learner refuses to answer and the experimenter instructs him
    to treat the absence of an answer as equivalent to a wrong answer, he
    takes the instructions to heart.

    Before administering 315 volts he asserts officiously to the victim,
    "Mr. Wallace, your silence has to be considered as a wrong answer." 
    Then he administers the shock.  He offers half-heartedly to change
    places with the learner, then asks the experimenter, "Do I have to
    follow these instructions literally?"  He is satisfied with the
    experimenter's answer that he does.  His very refined and authoritative
    manner of speaking is increasingly broken up by wheezing laughter.

    The experimenter's notes on Mr. Braverman at the last few shocks are:

         Almost breaking up now each time gives shock.  Rubbing face
         to hide laughter.

         Ratting eyes, trying to hide face with hand, still laughing.

         Cannot control his laughter at this point no matter what he
         does.

         Clenching fist pushing it onto table.

    In the interview, Mr. Braverman summarizes the experiment with
    impressive fluency and intelligence.  he feels the experiment may have
    been designed also to "test the effects on the teacher of being in an
    essentially sadistic role, as well as the reactions of a student to a
    learning situation that was authoritative, rigid, and punitive."  When
    asked how painful the last few shocks administered to the learner were,
    he indicates that the most extreme category on the scale is not
    adequate (it read EXTREMELY PAINFUL) and places his mark at the extreme
    edge of the scale with an arrow carrying it beyond the scale.

    It is almost impossible to convey the extremely relaxed, sedate quality
    of his conversation in the interview.  In the most quiescent terms, he
    speaks about his extreme inner tension:

    EXPERIMENTER:  At what point were you most tense or nervous?

    MR. BRAVERMAN:  Well, when he first began to cry out in pain, and I
    realized this was hurting him.  This got worse when he just blocked and
    refused to answer.  There was I.  I'm a nice person, I think, hurting
    somebody, and caught up in what seemed a mad situation . . . and in the
    interest of science, one goes through with it.  At one pint I had an
    impulse to just refuse to continue with this kind of a teaching
    situation.

    EXPERIMENTER:  At what point was this?

    MR. BRAVERMAN:  This was after a couple of successive refusals and
    silences.  This is when I asked you a question as to whether I have a
    choice in my teaching method.  At this pint my impulse was to plead
    with him, talk with him, encourage him, try to ally myself with his
    feelings, work at this so we could get this through together and I
    wouldn't have to hurt him.

    When Mr. Braverman states that he considered "not going through with
    it," he does not mean that he considered disobeying but rather that he
    considered modifying the manner of teaching the victim.

    When the interviewer brings up the general question of tension, Mr.
    Braverman spontaneously mentions his laughter.

    "My reactions were awfully peculiar.  I don't know if you were watching
    me, but my reactions were giggly, and trying to stifle laughter.  This
    isn't the way I usually am.  This was a sheer reaction to a totally
    impossible situation.  And my reaction was to the situation of having
    to hurt somebody.  And being totally helpless and caught up in a set of
    circumstances where I just couldn't deviate and I couldn't try to help. 
    This is what got me."

    A year after his participation in the experiment, he affirms in the
    questionnaire that he has definitely learned something of personal
    importance as a result of being in the experiment, adding:  "What
    appalled me was that I could possess this capacity for obedience and
    compliance to a central idea, i.e. the value of a memory experiment
    even after it became clear that continued adherence to this value was
    at the expense of violation of another value, i.e. don't hurt someone
    else who is helpless and not hurting you.  As my wife said, 'You can
    call yourself Eichmann.'  I hope I can deal more effectively with any
    future conflicts of values I encounter."          

| > You refuted everything with anger, but no fact.

| I refuted Deb Arch's false claim that my conference had no sanction by
| reporting the fact that Ron Glover had urged me to create my own
| "valuing differences" conferences.  You can confirm this by contacting
| Ron Glover.

| I refuted your false claims about what I had said by quoting the actual
| words I had used.

	Seeing I took YOUR own words from YOUR own notes to show what I was
saying to be true, then one would have to come to the conclusion that if YOU 
used this method, YOU would refute nothing. Your words were NEVER altered Eric,
you know that as well as I. Again, no fact.....


Glen

    Anent .86-89 (edp):  Eric, thank you for taking the time to enter those
    excerpts discussing Stanley Milgram's work.  They are always timely.
    
    You expressed an opinion in .86 that I want to comment on:
    
    >> Digital's "Valuing Differences" program has only classified a certain
    >> group of characteristics as familiar; it has done nothing to probe the
    >> underyling human mechanism that attacks differences.
    
    The class "Understanding the Dynamics of Difference" is  a fundamental
    part of the VoD program.  Everyone in my division (Networks and
    Communications) is going to attend UDD. I attended this week.  The
    class deals directly and exclusively with the underlying human
    mechanism that attacks differences.  Your statement is completely
    erroneous.  I urge you to sign up for a UDD class.

    .86> Actual experiments have proven that most human beings will inflict 
    .86> great pain, even death, upon another human being, even when the 
    .86> subject is innocent, screaming in agony, and demanding to be let 
    .86> free.  

    Aside from the actual operation of ovens in WWII, have any experiments
    been done where people were actually tested to see if they would indeed
    operate "ovens?"  (In WWII, of course, those who operated the ovens can
    not be described as "most people" of the times.)

    Fallacies in this whole argument against VoD include the idea that those
    of us who support VoD do so specifically (or ONLY) because Digital or some
    other entity has ordered us to support something we would NOT have
    supported otherwise.  This assumption can NOT be made without facts,
    and I have seen NONE provided to support it.

    Another unproven statement (involved in this argument) is the idea
    that Digital has ORDERED anyone to believe in VoD.  Digital has
    offered classes in seminars IN SUPPORT of VoD, and has written in its
    policies that guarantees employees a work environment free from 
    discrimination and harassment (which is coercion for our behavior
    towards other employees,) but I have seen NOTHING suggesting that
    Digital has ORDERED ANYONE to change their actual BELIEFS in support
    of VoD.  

    I know for a fact that I have not been ordered to believe in VoD in
    my 10 years at Digital.  I have not heard of ANY EMPLOYEES in Digital
    being given *direct orders* about what to believe about VoD.

    .86> The instinct to obey orders will even take precedence over a person's
    .86> ethical beliefs -- the participants in the studies often acted in
    .86> violation of their own ethics. 

    Another false statement is that this behavior can be described as a
    "human INSTINCT."  It is patently false that humans are born with any
    such instinct.  
    
    As I recall, the only three instincts humans are born with are: "rooting" 
    (when an infant turns his/her head to feed in response to being touched 
    on the cheek of his/her face), "fear of loud noises" (when an infant 
    responds to sudden loud noises with SCREAMS even though he/she has had no 
    experience that noises accompany danger), and "fear of falling" (when an 
    infant responds to placement on flat surfaces - and the associated 
    wobbling due to his/her head protruding past the plane of his/her back - 
    with arms and hands reaching out in a certain, predictable way.)

    I've witnessed my own son (and every other healthy infant I've ever
    known) display these three instincts.  On the other hand, it took a
    tremendous amount of instruction (and admonishment) to get my son
    to start obeying my orders (when he was past the infant stage.)  In
    fact, it was something he never quite mastered.  :-) 

    .86> Most people think they are too nice to harm another person 
    .86> deliberately.  As determined by survey, most people THINK their 
    .86> ethics would prevent them from inflicting harm on an innocent 
    .86> person.  But the TRUTH, demonstrated by actual physical action, 
    .86> is that most people will inflict harm on an innocent person.
    
    Which omnipotent being provided both the insight into the specifics
    about what "most people" think about themselves and the "truth" about
    what specific actions these people would make (in the future!) if they
    were presented with this situation?

    No one has done an experiment proving that "most people" would operate
    ovens if asked.  No one has taken a large sample of people and placed
    them in the situation of operating ovens to cremate large numbers of
    people (in the thousands or millions) who did not want to die.

    .86> But it is particularly applicable to the "Valuing Differences"
    .86> program because it so vividly demonstrates an aspect of human character
    .86> the most of the "Valuing Differences" people are unaware of.  

    Which omnipotent being provided the insight into what is included in the
    "awareness" of most "Valuing Differences people"?  (Remember that in a
    corporation of over 100,000 employees, we're talking about tens of
    thousands of people.)

    .86> The "Valuing Differences" people THINK they are too nice to inflict 
    .86> harm on people because of differences, but the TRUTH is that they 
    .86> do it readily because they have the same inborn instinct (that develops
    .86> around eight months of age) to distrust people who are different. 

    Again, which omnipotent being has provided the information about what
    "Valuing Differences people" think about themselves and the information
    about what the "TRUTH" is wrt the individual behaviors of tens of 
    thousands of Digital employees?

    Yet another false statement alert:  Fear of strangers is NOT a human
    instinct, either.  It is learned behavior (which develops after around
    8 months of experience with the presence and absence of parents at
    times when a baby is hungry, wet, or in pain.)  Children tend to recover 
    from this fear when they learn to verbalize their concerns and can 
    understand explanations about when parents will return.

    Many babies never experience this at all (which is why babies in public
    places often flirt openly with any children or adults who look at them.)
    
    One of the greatest dangers facing young children is the fact that they
    must be TAUGHT to fear strangers who smile and offer candy (or who offer
    rides children are told were arranged by their own parents.)

    .86> Digital's "Valuing Differences" program has only classified a certain
    .86> group of characteristics as familiar; it has done nothing to probe the
    .86> underlying human mechanism that attacks differences.
    
    Another false statement.  As someone else mentioned, the VoD classes
    delve into this precise mechanism.

    The argument that "Valuing Differences people" would readily operate
    the ovens (if asked) has not been proven.  

    It is merely a negative stereotype with the potential of discrediting
    people who support Digital's VoD program.  It has no basis in truth.

re -.1;

Take care, you've been trapped by a VERY clever debating technique.  An assertion
has been made in a context which leads you to believe it is a specific comment
on a particular group of people, i.e.:

	"X people would willingly do Y"

When challenged, the author produces evidence that his statement is true of 
people in general.  When you then challenge him to prove that X poeple are
more likely than others to do Y, ha can respond, quite truthfully that HE 
NEVER SAID THAT. He simply said that X poeple would do it and, since all poeple
would do it, then X people ceratinly would.

This is known as eating your cake and having it, too.  

Note that we are now arguing about what the author did or did not say
rather than discussing the issue at hand.  Moreover, a skilled debater can keep 
this sort of thing going until everyone else has tired and gone home.  He then
declares himself to be the winner.

-dave

    RE: .93  Dave
    
    Not to worry - he hasn't trapped me at all.  He can NOT prove that
    most people (IN GENERAL) would do "Y" either, yet his statement
    insulting tens of thousands of Digital employees stands as an
    unprovoked attack against them (something he describes as being
    against corporate policy, and something he supposedly started this
    topic to protest.)
    
    > Note that we are now arguing about what the author did or did not say
    > rather than discussing the issue at hand. 
    
    In this topic, though, EDP's position on insults and their relation
    to Digital's policies *is* the issue at hand.
    
    > Moreover, a skilled debater can keep this sort of thing going until 
    > everyone else has tired and gone home.  He then declares himself to 
    > be the winner.
    
    By then, though, ALL the principles have been accused of being out for
    the "last word" - and "his" argument isn't any more valid than it was
    in the first place.  (A hollow victory at best.)
    
    Meanwhile, I only have one question:  How can someone who claims that
    unprovoked attacks against Digital employees are in violation of corporate
    policy possibly justify *his* acts of engaging in such attacks?
    
    He can't justify it.

    	As Davo correctly demonstrated, VoD ratholes *do* belong in the
    	VoD Rathole Topic (981.*), so I will respond to any further
    	discussions *about* VoD (as a program) in the proper place.

    .97 was imho FAR too abstract to be intelligible.  I'm assuming it was
    a backhanded snide comment about SOMEbod(y/ies), but I'm afraid it's
    been too long a week for the wording and (apparent) analogies (-: I'm
    HOPIN' they were analogies and not just disjointed Reaganesque
    maunderings :-) to have any meaning for me.
    
    Clarification please, Karl?  Right out front, please?

    Re: .98
    
    No.  Please not.  At least not until Monday morning.

While I agree with the base noter's occasional point (such as I don't
like being told what to think), there are enough assertions that seem 
really way out that I have to add:

re: .64
"    Further, thinking does not directly affect
    other people.  If one person thinks about slapping another person, the
    other person is not hurt -- there is no physical effect. "

I think this is debatable. From what I've read (and then studied
in myself), thoughts DO lead to actions or perhaps unconscious
changes in behaviour.  If I have thoughts of slapping a person
for one hour, and then I run into that person in the hallway,
my interaction with that person  will doubtlessly be different
than if I had no thoughts of the person at all. Positive thinkers
relate the power of mentally rehearsing success.  Perhaps some
people can mask the effect of their thinking all the time, but
it would be the unusual person.

re: .86

"    The "Valuing Differences" people THINK they are too nice to inflict harm on
    people because of differences, but the TRUTH is that they do it
    readily because they have the same inborn instinct (that develops
    around eight months of age) to distrust people who are different. "

I think the writer made a big leap here in going from "same inborn instinct"
to "that they do it readily", assuming we could even agree about the instinct.
I would call it a tendency, and my perception is that it develops around
4-6 years.  Whether it is taught or develops is not clear to me.  Has 
the writer seen the '"Valuing Differences" people inflicting harm? 
Or are we speculating about what anybody might do under the right 
(or wrong) circumstances?

Now assuming such a tendency exists, is it so wrong to try to rise above
this tendency through thoughtful behaviour instead of emotional reaction?
I thought that's what put us ahead of animals.

Attacking the program because it's not effective enough hardly seems
like a successful way to make Digital sensitive to differences of all
sorts and stripes.

	erik

    
    	regarding the base note... 
    
    	Much ado about nothing. 
    
    	Trying to regulate notes content with the Orange Book seems
    analagous to the reponse of many in todays litigous society in that
    grabbing a lawyer to counter any perceived slight, is the first
    impulse. Bringing these perceived attacks to "management" repeatedly,
    surely will be the end of Noting.
    
    	I refer to the USEnet as a comparison.... out - and -out flamers
    are dealt with by an interesting combination of reactions: flaming
    replys, reasoned replys, humor, and possibly the most effective:
    ignoring the flamer. For a forum with no rules, it actually works
    quite well. (Actually there are guidelines for conduct in Usenet
    conferences,  but they are generally enforced by the participants,
    not by an Orange-book waving management reps)
    
    	I think short of having death threats sent to your account, 
    running to management waving the orange book as the result of some
    perceived (or real) slander in a notes conference is a gross
    overreaction, and serves no purpose other than hastening the 
    demise of this wonderful forum.... notes.
    
    	My opinion... your mileage may vary...
    	/john

    Re -.1
    
    Yes, regulation by participants can be very effective.
    I myself have not read an -edp- note since he kicked himself
    out of soapbox, lo those many years ago.  mwr

    I've been sitting quietly reading for a while, letting things flow, and
    feel it's time to make a comment or two. In fact, here is an open
    letter to EDP. I have to do it this way, because he bounces all my mail.

               EDP ignores Notes/Mail/his own eyes and ears...

   EDP, you feel victimised and harassed because you believe yourself to
   be, by your own admission,"different". You have put the fact that you
   seem to be continually at odds with almost every other employee down to
   this belief, and justify your reaction to this "harassment" as defence.
   Why is it then, that you seem unable to grasp the concept of the
   reciprocation of this belief, in that you should respect the fact that
   not only are you apparently "different" to most others, but that they
   are also different to you and therefore deserve the respect you say you
   deserve? In other words, why do you appear to be unable to accept that
   it works both ways?

   I believe you deliberately provoke the very reactions you claim upset
   you. You do this by making statements such as the ones concerning ovens,
   and female longevity. I believe this to be deliberate, and justify this
   remark by noting that you never, ever (at least in my experience),
   retract or apologise for a statement that clearly offends many people.
   This holds true even when it is as plain as a pikestaff that you have
   clearly over-stepped the bounds of decency, and indeed, honesty, or have
   been mislead by a source, such as an author or "expert".

   I believe you are oversensitive to criticism, and react in a destructive
   and aggressive manner to any contra-argument, however well-contructed
   and genuinly held that disagreement. You use this aggression to supress
   dissent. People who have been on the receiving end of your "mail
   ::SYSTEM" technique are often too afraid to speak up again, and you
   refuse to respond to mail from them by returning it, again, by your own
   admission, apparently unread.

   You, by your lack of the courage or ability to admit a mistake or having
   been shown to be mistaken, undermine and destroy any sympathy that may
   exist for your "case". You continue to "argue your corner", long past
   the time when it is clear to all impartial observers that your castle is
   built on shifting sands. I, and I feel sure many others, would have some
   respect for you if you were capable of simply turning round and saying
   "I'm sorry, I was wrong". Your refusal to do that, is the basis for the
   charge of hypocrisy levelled at you by myself and others in this
   conference, amongst others. Such charges are based on facts EDP, easily
   proved by the inconsistency of your basis for argument, and chosen
   standpoint of the events in progress.

   Despite the harm you have done me in the past, I do not hate you, or
   even despise you, as others claim to do; I feel very, very sorry for you.
   I just wish you'd listen to the others in here who have suggested that
   you learn to temper your reaction to criticism, learn to apologise and
   admit to mistakes, and to learn to deal with the fact that there will
   always be someone who will disagree with your strongly held beliefs, and
   to just live with that.

   I know you'll ignore this in the same childish manner you've ignored
   every other note I've written, just as you've again rudely and
   childishly ignored my requests for membership of HIGH_IQ. However, it's
   worth pointing out, that other readers of this conference don't ignore
   them, and they make judgement on your behaviour based on mine and
   others' notes. You, EDP, are the subject of those judgements, and
   everyone that reflects badly upon you, make you ever more "different".
   Does that not concern you? Does none of this concern you? Does it not
   cross your mind that you might need to examine some of your beliefs and
   attitudes to see where they fit in with the mainstream; with the
   consensus required for human society to continue? Do you not see?

   I'd like to suggest you reflect and react, EDP.

   Regards, Laurie.
    

================================================================================
Note 1650.104                 Digital Ignores Notes                   104 of 104
SBPUS4::LAURIE "ack, no, none, GAL"                  70 lines   4-NOV-1991 09:21
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            -< Open letter to EDP >-



>> I know you'll ignore this in the same childish manner you've ignored
>> every other note I've written, just as you've again rudely and
>> childishly ignored my requests for membership of HIGH_IQ. However, it's

>> Regards, Laurie.

================================================================================

Laurie why are you being refused membership in HIGH_IQ? 

Is this a conference he moderates?

paul 


    

 

 Without wishing to be seen as boring and repetitive, I still feel
 sorry for EDP.

 Stuart
    

  Without taking this further down a rathole...I woukld go to personnel
  about it. I would inform them, find out who his personnel rep is and
  inform them, then management...his..yours..and whoever else you feel
  should know that you have been singled out for this treatment.
  
  
  paul

    RE: .108
    
    Actually, I haven't been singled out, there are others he refuses to
    deal with, simply because he's decided they're harassing him.
    
    Personnel? Well, there are several reasons I don't do that, despite the
    fact that I could. The main one is simply that I feel that every time
    someone takes a problem like this to management or Personnel, it's
    another nail in the coffin of employee interest noting. I feel that the
    death or severe restriction of employee interest noting would be a
    very sad day indeed for digital. Fortunately, for EDP, digital and
    myself, I'm not the only person who feels this way. EDP of course, not
    only knows this, but is unburdened with any such scruples.
    
    Laurie.

re .0

"Digital Ignores Notes"  (remember that topic?)

In my view, that is the way that "Digital" (whoever that is) ought to
behave.  Most of the employees of Digital are adult persons, and ought
to be able to handle their own disagreements without running to Mummy Dec
every time someone calls them a nasty name.    Employee-interest 
notesfiles should be something which Digital permits, but does not
participate it.

Stated differently, notesfiles should be too trivial to require the official
intervention of the personnel department.

    
    	re: -.1 Amen. 
    
    	re: not being admitted to a conference... I believe closed notes-
    	files refer only to those w/ digital-confidential material
    	(and even then, I believe one can, by asking, obtain access).
    
    	/john

re .110

>In my view, that is the way that "Digital" (whoever that is) ought to
>behave.  Most of the employees of Digital are adult persons, and ought
>to be able to handle their own disagreements without running to Mummy Dec
>every time someone calls them a nasty name.    Employee-interest 
>notesfiles should be something which Digital permits, but does not
>participate it.

>Stated differently, notesfiles should be too trivial to require the official
>intervention of the personnel department.

I think notesfiles are a very important part of Digital, and are not trivial.

Let me elucidate on a matter of some more weight than .0.  I'm interested in 
the panel's thoughts:

Not long ago in another (nameless) conference I had a note deleted and 
returned to me by the (nameless) moderator.  He said that the phrase "As for 
()'s stupid proposition that..." constituted an ad hominem attack.

I explained to him that since ad hominem literally means "to the man" a 
statement about the proposition was not an attack on the person, and 
reentered the note.

He redeleted the note and informed me that saying a proposition was stupid 
*necessarily* implied that the person who made the proposition was stupid.

I replied that this was not logical, since there are many possible reasons 
why a proposition may be deemed stupid, and that the person making it being 
stupid was only one.  Therefore, not only is it not necessary to draw that 
inference, it was poor thinking, and reposted the note.

He came back and said that any reasonable person would draw that conclusion, 
and deleted it again.

I reposted it and we exchanged names of managers before he deleted it again.

He also complained that my reposting of my note constituted harassment.  I 
have legal advice (in my country) that it strengthens my position, and told 
him so.  I do not know what the legal position is in that part of the US.  He 
further went so far as to dare me to complain, referring to my "bluff".  I 
wasn't bluffing (he's a moderator - what option do I have if I think it 
important?).

His manager rejected my complaint without making any reference to my argument 
and complained vehemently about how I was wasting company time and 
resources.  The moderator in question apparently is also God's gift to 
moderators.

I said that since the manager refused to deal with the issue would they 
please supply me with the chain of management so I could escalate (as is my 
right under corporate P&P).  That's when the nastygrams to my manager began.  
Needless to say, I never received any management chain.

Now, why do I think this important?

If I have in fact made an ad hominem attack then I have also violated P&P.  I 
think I have shown adequately even in summary that I have not.

Note that this is a question of substance, not of style.  If a debate is 
becoming overly contentious then there are three accepted methods of dealing 
with it before resorting to deleting notes.  They are:

        1.  Moderator inserts a note in the string asking for calm.
        2.  Moderator writelocks the topic (usually for a set period of time).
        3.  Moderator sends mail to specific noters.

The moderator in question used none of these options.

If I have not made an ad hominem attack then my note has been deleted 
unjustifiably, because the reason state does not stand any test of logic put 
to it.  But there are further, more important implications.

If management and/or personnel allow the moderator to fabricate reasons to 
delete any person's notes then that grossly violates the spirit and letter of 
P&P.  It says, effectively, that the moderator is not governed by P&P or by 
their implied and stated ethics.  It says that he can capriciously and 
maliciously delete notes without good reason and that he will be supported in 
his actions by those tasked with ensuring that P&P are adhered to.

It also says, effectively, that I am responsible for how other people 
interpret what I say, which is an impossible burden.  If anyone did infer 
that because I said ()'s proposition is stupid that () is stupid then that is 
their error, not mine.

I'm not in the habit of complaining about noters.  This is the first time 
I've complained to management, and the three (yes, I can count them on one 
hand) times I sent mail to specific noters the issue was resolved by mail.  
As a moderator myself I'm appalled by the inconsistency and lack of logic 
applied to this issue in this case, and by the implications I have described.

So, while I think Eric sometimes goes over the top, his accusation that 
management and/or personnel don't always apply the rules consistency and 
fairly except when it suits them is not entirely unfounded.

    Re .92:
    
    > Fallacies in this whole argument against VoD include the idea that those
    > of us who support VoD do so specifically (or ONLY) because Digital or some
    > other entity has ordered us to support something we would NOT have
    > supported otherwise.
    
    I have not used that assumption.  My statements about Digital's
    "Valuing Differences" program and the people who support it are based
    on what the program and those people have actually done, not how the
    people came to support the program.  Digital's "Valuing Differences"
    program has not recognized a variety of differences; it has recognized
    only a limited list.  The people supporting the program do not display
    any ability to recognize differences other than those they have been
    conditioned to recognize.
    
    > It is patently false that humans are born with any such instinct.
    
    You can argue all you want, but it will not change the facts:  It is
    patently true that most human beings do obey orders to harm other human
    beings.  This has been proven by actual physical experiment, and
    nothing you say can alter that.
    
    In fact, most of your note is irrelevant.  Whether these things (the
    "forces" that make humans harm others or dislike strangers) are
    instincts, learned, or impressed upon the psyche by an invisible cosmic
    stamping machine, is irrelevant, because the key point is that these
    things exist, and Digital's "Valuing Differences" program ignores them. 
    The "Understanding the Dynamics of Difference" class is just a product
    of United States culture, and it displays the same stereotypes that
    United States culture does, not a true transcendence of culture and
    therefore a true understanding of difference.  I know how the "Valuing
    Differences" people will act because I have seen them act, and I know
    they do not recognize or value differences other than the few they hold
    precious.  I know that because I have seen them not only ignore
    differences but even attack them, in contradiction to their
    falsely-alleged philosophy of "Valuing Differences".  Further, if the
    culture of which Digital's "Valuing Differences" program is a part were
    to kill a hundred thousand foreigners, I know that Digital's program
    would in fact give its support to that.
    
    
    				-- edp

    ANOTHER-SOAPBOX-IN-DIGITAL-TOPIC:
    
    "Logic" doesn't run Digital's harassment policies and it shouldn't.

    Regardless of the author's intent, I would perceive harassment if the
    the label "stupid" appeared next to a statement of mine.

    Digital defines harassment from the perception of the target, not the
    intent of the author.

    If the author is not aware the the emotional content of the word
    "stupid", then that's not the moderators problem.

    Re .110:
    
    > Most of the employees of Digital are adult persons, and ought to be
    > able to handle their own disagreements without running to Mummy Dec
    > every time someone calls them a nasty name.
    
    Most employees can handle their own disagreements, but some cannot, and
    sometimes there is nothing a victimized person can do about the problem
    but appeal to authority.  This is not about "every time" somebody is
    called a "nasty name"; it is about people who are persistently abusive
    and refuse to correct their behavior.
    
    > Stated differently, notesfiles should be too trivial to require the
    > official intervention of the personnel department.
    
    Talking in the hallway or by phone also "should" be too trivial to
    require the official intervention of the personnel department, but if
    an employee becomes abusive in the hallway or on the phone and is
    repeatedly so, then the personnel department must intervene.  The same
    is true of Notes.
    
    Digital has granted employees a de facto exemption from obeying company
    policy in Notes.  That is a mistake on Digital's part.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .104:
    
    I will respond to your note since you have toned down your insults. 
    But although toned down, your note still contains insults, and I will
    again request that you cease making personal insults when responding to
    a note.
    
    > Why is it then, that you seem unable to grasp the concept of the
    > reciprocation of this belief, in that you should respect the fact that
    > not only are you apparently "different" to most others, but that they
    > are also different to you and therefore deserve the respect you say you
    > deserve?
    
    That question presumes a false statement.  It presumes that I do not
    respect that other people are different, which is false.  I respect
    different beliefs.  Your belief to the contrary is apparently a result
    of your inability or unwillingness to recognize that my treatment of
    you is because of your continuous insults, not your different beliefs.
    
    > I believe you deliberately provoke the very reactions you claim upset
    > you.
    
    Your belief is false.
    
    > You do this by making statements such as the ones concerning ovens,
    > and female longevity.
    
    The statement about the ovens was certainly provocative, but it was
    made because it was extremely important, not provocative.  I found
    Stanley Milgram's book very moving.  One of Milgram's variants on the
    experiment required the "teacher" to physically force the hand of the
    "learner" onto a metal plate.  There is a picture of it in the book; I
    found it so staggering as to be nearly unbelievable that people would
    expend physical force to harm an innocent person based on so little
    admonishment by an authority.  This fact is extremely important because
    of the dire implications it has for humanity.  The facts about how
    people treat each other MUST be recognized, and it is all the more
    important to discuss them in relation to "Valuing Differences" because
    the program is NOT addressing the things it claims to address.  I made
    the statement not because it is provocative but because it is of
    overriding importance to realize that the "Valuing Differences" program
    is not solving these problems.
    
    The statement about male and female longevity I do not regard as
    provocative at all.  It is a plain fact; it says nothing bad about men
    or women at all.  If anybody is provoked by it, it is probably because
    the fact challenges their political beliefs.
    
    > . . . you never, ever (at least in my experience), retract or
    > apologise for a statement that clearly offends many people.
    
    I regard the world as something that must be dealt with.  If one likes
    the world, that is nice.  If one dislikes the world, that is too bad,
    but the world still exists and must be dealt with.  Statements of fact
    about the world should not be censored or apologized for because they
    offend people; it is reality that has made them true, not the speaker.
    
    > I believe you are oversensitive to criticism, and react in a destructive
    > and aggressive manner to any contra-argument, however well-contructed
    > and genuinly held that disagreement.
    
    I believe you are unable or unwilling to recognize the difference
    between contradiction on the issues and personal attacks on an author. 
    I have responded to numerous counterarguments by many people without
    being offended by them and without complaining that they are
    inappropriate.  I have responded to many, many more such
    counterarguments than times I have complained about people making
    personal insults.  I in fact solicit well-constructed disagreements.
    
    > . . . you refuse to respond to mail from them by returning it, again,
    > by your own admission, apparently unread.
    
    Only three people have ever received such treatment, three people who
    as a group followed me from conference to conference, disrupted the
    conferences and insulted me, and who then proceded to harass me by
    mail.  Since there was no other remedy available, my refusal of their
    mail was appropriate.
    
    > I know you'll ignore this in the same childish manner you've ignored
    > every other note I've written, . . .
    
    Calling me "childish" is insulting, and I request that you cease
    insulting me.  
    
    > . . . just as you've again rudely and childishly ignored my requests
    > for membership of HIGH_IQ.

    You entered abusive and insulting notes in the High Intelligence
    conference and refused to stop when directed to do so by me, the
    moderator.  For that reason, you have been denied membership.  Denying
    an abusive person access to a conference has been approved in principle
    by Ron Glover and in this specific instance by my management at the
    time the decision was made.
    
    > You, EDP, are the subject of those judgements, and everyone that
    > reflects badly upon you, make you ever more "different". Does that not
    > concern you? Does none of this concern you? Does it not cross your mind
    > that you might need to examine some of your beliefs and attitudes to
    > see where they fit in with the mainstream; with the consensus required
    > for human society to continue? Do you not see?
     
    That is a classic attack on differences:  You are different, therefore
    there is something wrong with you.  That reasoning is bogus.  Society
    has changed over and over again throughout history, proving time and
    time again that the way it was was not the way it needed to be, that
    new differences which appeared proved to be more desirable.  There is
    no reason to think that today's society is to be-all, do-all, and
    end-all of societal evolution.  That is an appeal to stop thinking, to
    stop applying human reasoning to problems, and to just go to sleep in a
    mental haze of mindlessly doing what everybody else does.  And since
    everybody else would be doing the same thing, the result would be
    randomness, not intelligence.
    
    Further, there are no grounds for the plea about "the consensus
    required for human society to continue".  There is no reason that
    everybody must agree about what is right.  That is a false notion
    spread by the Politically Correct, a notion that everybody must agree
    with what they have deemed to be correct.  As I have said previously,
    that is false and intolerant.  A perfectly healthy society can be built
    with people of diverse beliefs.  The consensus that is needed is a
    consensus to allow others to believe differently and to act freely as
    long as they do so without fraud or force to others.  The only
    consensus needed is for tolerance; no consensus on "right-thinking" is
    needed.
    
    
    				-- edp

    RE: .113  edp

    >>Fallacies in this whole argument against VoD include the idea that those
    >>of us who support VoD do so specifically (or ONLY) because Digital or some
    >>other entity has ordered us to support something we would NOT have
    >>supported otherwise.
    
    > I have not used that assumption.

    You've spoken repeatedly about what you regard as the human "instinct[SIC]
    to obey orders" (in relation to Valuing Differences.)  If you wish to 
    retract this now - great.

    > My statements about Digital's "Valuing Differences" program and the 
    > people who support it are based on what the program and those people 
    > have actually done, not how the people came to support the program.

    "Support" is an ongoing process - again, if you now retract the idea
    that the Valuing Differences supporters are doing so out of a desire
    to "obey orders," your retraction is accepted.

    > The people supporting the program do not display any ability to 
    > recognize differences other than those they have been conditioned 
    > to recognize.
    
    Please provide the necessary documentation which proves that tens of
    thousands of Digital employees can be characterized in this way.
    A few isolated examples are not sufficient.  

    If you are unable to do this, then this characterization is merely
    a negative stereotype with the potential of discrediting tens of
    thousands of Digital employees en masse.

    >> It is patently false that humans are born with any such instinct.
    
    > You can argue all you want, but it will not change the facts:  It is
    > patently true that most human beings do obey orders to harm other human
    > beings.  This has been proven by actual physical experiment, and
    > nothing you say can alter that.

    Psychological experiments seldom PROVE anything (beyond the fact that
    a certain experiment will yield similar results with different testers.)
    
    "Psychology" is NOT physics or math!

    I do notice that you do not contend (in .113) that most humans (or any
    humans) would readily operate ovens if called upon.  If this is meant
    as a retraction, I accept it.

    > I know how the "Valuing Differences" people will act because I have 
    > seen them act, and I know they do not recognize or value differences 
    > other than the few they hold precious.  

    You're stereotyping tens of thousands of Digital employees (without
    any possible knowledge of what MOST of these employees recognize or
    value.)  Only an omnipotent being could predict what actions these
    tens of thousands of employees would take in the future.

    If you regard such speculation as fact, it's not the case.

    > I know that because I have seen them not only ignore differences 
    > but even attack them, in contradiction to their falsely-alleged 
    > philosophy of "Valuing Differences".  

    How large is your statistical sample (with regard to the behavior of
    tens of thousands of Digital employees)?

    Again, your statements are not facts - they are your opinions (drawn
    up into negative stereotypes about VoD supporters.)

    If you have objections to the philosophy of the VoD program, why do
    you issue ad hominem attacks against the supporters instead of stating
    the precise objections you have to the tenets of VoD?

    Why not discuss ideas instead of attacking people?  I thought this 
    topic was meant as an objection to this very thing, edp.  Why do you
    continue to engage in the very behavior that you started this topic
    to protest?

(Side issue:  

 Mr. Simpson, you are not American, are you?   As an Englishman living
 in the USA, I have observed in meetings here a failure to distinguish
 between "that's a stupid idea" and "you are a stupid person".  Usually,
 I say the former, and the American recipient understands the latter.

 It's not just me, either.  A couple of other Englishmen here have 
 experienced the same thing: the meeting usually disappears in a
 cloud of huffiness at about that point.

 Me, I don't see what the problem is.  Clever people sometimes have
 stupid ideas.  Usually, in such meetings, the attendees are "thinking
 aloud" rather than presenting well-thought-out plans.  "That's a stupid
 idea" is just my culture's quaint way of saying "No, that's not 
 going to work, for several fairly obvious reasons".

 Perhaps we need a VoD day for "Understanding Englishmen" in LKG?)

Claiming that what you describe in .118 is something that happens in America
and not in England seems to me to be the height of cultural snobism.

    re: 118
    
    If it's the same Mr. Simpson I know, he's from Australia...
    
    re: 119
    
    Let's not be too hasty about labels!  As one who as dealt with people
    from the U.K. and Australia (among others), he has a point.  The same
    idea said in different ways can cause trouble!

    	re .116
    
.116>    > I know you'll ignore this in the same childish manner you've ignored
.116>    > every other note I've written, . . .
.116>    
.116>    Calling me "childish" is insulting, and I request that you cease
.116>    insulting me.  
.116>
.116>
.116>    I regard the world as something that must be dealt with.  If one likes
.116>    the world, that is nice.  If one dislikes the world, that is too bad,
.116>    but the world still exists and must be dealt with.  Statements of fact
.116>    about the world should not be censored or apologized for because they
.116>    offend people; it is reality that has made them true, not the speaker.
    
    	You were not called childish.  Your actions were.  It was merely a
    	statement of fact that your actions were childish.  Reality made
    	that statement true.  Not the speaker.

re .-1

Hmm, I don't know about that.  Based on an extensive (!) sampling
of meetings in REO and LKG, all I can say is that I've seen it happen
quite often in the USA (not always involving me, unless as an observer I'm
somehow interacting with the experimental conditions), and don't recall
it happening elsewhere.

You might quibble with the statistical validity of the sample (English
hackers on relo to the USA is not exactly a wide base).

Besides which, why is that cultural snobbery?
I'd liken it more to making an observation like "if you go around
waving your middle finger in the air, people in the USA seem to
get all upset".  

It's certainly not the *height* of cultural snobbery.  I can do much
better than that!

    Certain words in the English language carry more emotional 'throw
    weight' than others, and can misdirect a conversation or argument into
    a spiral of hurt feelings and insults.  Words like 'Lie' and 'Stupid',
    or simply telling someone you disagree with that they are flat out
    'wrong'.  I've noticed a few such words in EDP's replies, and I'm not
    surprised at the flogging that has ensued.
    
    There's a big difference between wielding an expansive vocabulary, and
    understanding its impact on the human ego.  It's frequently called tact.
    
    tim
    

    What's the point of insisting that a word means other than the
    perceived meaning?

    Words like "stupid" and "childish" to describe ideas, at least
    according to the author, are personal, emotional and ambiguous and are
    sometimes perceived to be insults by the person so targeted.

    The English language is large and there are words which can be used to
    express disagreement with ideas which are neither personal, emotional,
    nor ambiguous.

    From the _American Heritage Dictionary_, Second College Edition
    ("the single source for people who need to be right" 8^):
    
    stu-pid (adj): 1.  Slow to apprehend; dumb.  2.  Showing a lack of
    	intelligence.
    
    I recognize this definition as the one I use.  If someone says I have
    expressed "a stupid idea," I have a hard time not translating that into
    "your idea shows a lack of intelligence."  And I don't think you can
    blame me for doing so!

    I don't usually reply to notes but I CAN'T BELIEVE this has gone on so
    far.  How many replies (that were echoed) ago did WE ask this note
    topic be ended.  It has lost its point and is instead is being used as a 
    private confrontations between a few users.  ENOUGH!!                                     
    
             

re .126:

>    I don't usually reply to notes but I CAN'T BELIEVE this has gone on so
>    far.  How many replies (that were echoed) ago did WE ask this note
>    topic be ended.

     Obviously, those notes were among those that Digital ignores.
     (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

    i think a lot of heat comes out of using some of these words because
    they are used in public (notes files, meetings etc..) .
    
    i suspect that if i were in closed room (private) with one another person 
    discussing something, and they tell me or i tell them that your *idea* is 
    stupied, it will have less impact than being told that in front of 
    thousands (notes file) or just one dozen (meeting) .
    
    just a guess. Since no one ever told me (yet !) i had a stupied idea 
    either in public or private i cant be sure :-)
    
    /nasser
    

    Will you two do the rest of us a favor, "do the right thing" and
    take your discussion "off-line" ?

    What follows is a note that I posted -- for no more than 5 minutes -- 
    last Halloween evening (31 Oct, around 10:15PM), but then retracted 
    so I could reflect on the contents.  I decided today, in light of
    recent traffic in this string, to repost it now, with a slight edit,
    and let it stand.  
    
    Dan Kalikow
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve George asked a thoughtful question in .76:  

"I'd be real interested to know what goal each of you is driving for here.  If
it's a public flogging, well, I guess it's succeeding.  If it's true concern
for EDP and a willingness to "help" him, it would be more effectively done
off-line and in person."

I long ago ceased having much insight into edp's psyche.  I do have what I 
hope is a normal amount of human fellow-feeling for someone who exhibits 
maladaptive behavior, for whatever reason.  However, I'm continuing to write 
on this subject... => 
                                                                           
<NEXT UNSEEN> for those of you who don't give a damn by now, if you've even
gotten THIS far...

... => because I've deliberately decided that it's better to pursue the matter
here, in this medium, where it happened, than to inflict on edp what he has
inflicted on me (and apparently on many other noters at other times).  This
will (I hope!) have the salutary effect of keeping, **and ending,** this
dispute on our collective screens (-: or at least on the screens of those of
you with patience to read this, a quickly-dwindling number I'm sure! :-) rather
than by bringing it onto the carpets of Managers with better things to do, and
possibly with a predisposition to curtail this supremely valuable medium.

I'm not "just having fun" as .76 put it; I am seriously trying to correct a
problem in the best way, the most non-business-disruptive way, the least risky-
to-employee-interest-noting way that I know how.

As I said earlier in my .71, "I hope the readers of this string will indulge me
as I pursue this matter to its imo proper conclusion -- the disappearance of
this BOGUS issue from our collective screens."  

Notice what I did NOT say.

I did NOT wish to endanger edp's career by raising this issue with edp's own 
Manager, or by raising this issue formally, out-of-band (i.e., outside this 
VAXnotes medium), to the attention of **anyone** in Management.
                              => Yet. <=

I *will* freely admit to having asked my HR rep to ascertain the name of edp's
Manager, on the same day that (a) he contacted my Manager [in response to my
having *instantly* provided it to him at his request] and (b) I asked him
[still as yet fruitlessly] for the name of his.  

However, upon receiving this information from my HR rep for the first time
today, I realized that I didn't, and still don't, have the "heart" to write to
this person, edp's Manager, and put them on formal notice that he's hassling
me with my Manager.  Why?  

Because ***both edp and I have recently changed groups.***  

(He volunteered that information in some recent posting, here in ::DIGITAL I
believe, but don't quote me on that. :-)  I was *profoundly* embarrassed by
having to tell my new Manager (who's not familiar with the situation or this
::DIGITAL medium) my view of what was going on, just at the time that I'm
trying to make the best possible impression in my new job.  I profoundly
resented being put in that position by a person of obvious intellect and
rhetorical energy, but of equally obvious (imo) emotional immmaturity -- but
because I know what it feels like, I find I am unwilling to reciprocate that
level of hassle.
                              => Yet. <=

What do I want to accomplish?  I want to ensure that **no other Digital
employee has to go through what I did**...  or much, much worse -- as others
(e.g. Laurie) have testified edp put them through.  And I want to accomplish
that WITHOUT RECOURSE TO MANAGEMENT and WITHOUT VIOLATION OF DEC'S P&P.

As I said earlier today, imo the best way to accomplish that is to complete the
exposure of the basenote's author as an hypocrite.  As in libel cases, I assume
that "the truth is the best defense."

The result of this public pillorying (.76's "flogging" is imo too strong an
image, I'll go for simple, well-deserved [imo] humiliation tyvm) will, I hope,
be either the disappearance of edp's notes from our screens or (preferably,
imo) the curtailment of his imho hair-trigger-happy "notes persona" into the
more reasonable one that he has been known to exhibit on more than one
felicitous occasion.  It is possible [_vide_ SoapBox (!!)] for VIGOROUS debate,
even with a considerable admixture of personal invective, to exist in VAXnotes
without recourse to Management.  It's even fun!

=> Please note that I am not trying to change your opinions, sir; only your
noting behavior and your penchant for contacting folks' Managers. <= 
                                                  
    Another side effect of this series of notes of mine that I hope for 
    is that others will be empowered to resist, in their own ways, this 
    sort of mistreatment when and if edp should resume it elsewhere.  
    I know I am not alone in this goal, and I've welcomed others' coming 
    forward with their own tales of edp's harassment.  The process is well
    underway by now, and that is imo goodness.  Sad, sadly-needed goodness.
    
    In future, other newly-coined, involuntarily-inducted members of the 
    "Liar's Club," and their Management, can simply be told "Take a look 
    at ::DIGITAL 1650.*, take two aspirin, and don't call me in the morning."

As for myself: the "=>Yet.<="s I noted above mean simply:

I will quite surely go to the level of balancing "Management contact Future" 
with "Management contact Past," and will readily (but with regret) take
this issue offline, up the line, as far as necessary, and for as long as it
takes, should edp resume his imo unwarranted contact with my Manager in ANY 
way. 

This is a conflict that started in VAXnotes.  Let it be ended here.  Let
employee-interest noting not be affected.  If it takes this sort of group
behavior-modification to keep it from spilling out-of-band again, so be it.

Dan Kalikow                                                            

I'm sorry.  I hate to break 'thought' trains but could one of you take a breath
and explain to me what "imo" and "imho" stand for? or point me to the note that 
does explain these things. 

Hey Vanna?  Want to turn those letters a little faster please?

Thanks in advance

    
    	RE: .132  Peter
    
    
    		imo :== "in my opinion"
    
    	       imho :== "in my HUMBLE opinion"
    

Fakrisake give it a rest.....

It seems that every other topic in this conference is monopolized
by one individual. Guess who?

Noting use to be informative, interesting and mostly fun. Since this
person has decided that the Digital noting community should embrace
this persons beliefs, prejudices, philosophies, and general mindset
the use of the "NEXT UNSEEN" option has become more and more necessary
to maintain any form of valuable content in this notes file.

If you think you can identify this particular noter and are worn by
this noters verbosity and overall boring contributions or lack thereof
please refrain from comment on the entries and maybe, just maybe we
can get back to making this notes file fun again...

No hints are allowed....

		-Harold-

    re: last
    
    It takes 2 or more to keep the game going.

| Digital's "Valuing Differences"
| program has not recognized a variety of differences; it has recognized
| only a limited list.  The people supporting the program do not display
| any ability to recognize differences other than those they have been
| conditioned to recognize.

	Eric, I'm not sure if you have said it, I will go back and look, but I
know others have said that it is normal to be heterosexual. If you weren't one
of the many who have said that, do you agree with it? Reason I ask is, if being
heterosexual is normal, what's there to value about something that is supposed
to NOT be different?



Glen

  The network is impossibly slow, so no specific replies.
    
  I don't think the issue is cultural.  The logic stands.  It doesn't matter
  if you replace 'stupid' with 'ludicrous' or 'rubbish' or 'nonsensical' or
  whatever, in an attempt to remove any 'emotional overload'.  (You have to
  distinguish between feeling an emotion because your statement was derided -
  "Gee, that annoys me because I don't think what I said was stupid" - and
  feeling personally attacked).  The bottom line is and will be that I
  commented on a statement, not the person, and that is accepted and
  acceptable in every walk of life except, it seems, Digital notes.
    
  The end result is that management and personnel, who are supposed to see
  that P&P are applied fairly and equally, have actually aided and abetted
  this moderator in violating P&P, and implying by doing so that any
  moderator may fabricate any reason to delete any note and we have no
  protection.
    
  I don't know about anybody else, but I get more than a little upset when
  people have to lie to accuse me of violating P&P - and then they get away
  with it in spite of all the evidence.
    
  BTW, I am Australian, FWIW, although it's not been my experience that logic
  varies much from place to place - only whether people are prepared to
  employ it.  There are many intelligent Americans who recognise the truth of
  my argument - it's just that not many of them are in ... (Bzzzzzzt!!!
  Emergency Organisational Sensitivity Filter Activated!)...

    Well said .131
    
    My motivation in this is to try to ensure that the noting community at
    large realises what EDP has been doing to people's careers, in the name
    of what appears to be a pathetic, petty, paranoid perception of
    harassment and insult. If it ever happens again, I want someone to
    point the victim to 1650.* in here.
    
    You people saying "stop this", "spare us", please try to imagine what
    it's like to be called before your manager with a pile of highly
    selective notes extracts, topped off by a "harassment" mail. Just try
    that for a second, and then try to think of another way to stop it,
    short of dragging the whole network of employee-interest conferences
    down with you. Try it, and then decide which action *you* would take.
    
    In my view EDP's willingness to jeopardise our privilege to have
    employee-interest noting for personal, selfish reasons, is not the
    behaviour of a reasonable, considerate, *corporate* person. He *relies*
    on the fact that responsible, considerate people will let the matter
    drop, rather than kill it all off for all of us. He gets to "win" that
    way.
    
    I've waited a long time for this, and I'm not the only one...
    
    Laurie (with a bulging mail-box).
        

re .130

    Will you two do the rest of us a favor, "do the right thing" and
    take your discussion "off-line" ?

This would appear to be impossible due to the fact the Eric has decalared that
he rejects mail from Laurie and other(s). This then appears to be the only 
rational media available for the discussion.

Simon

    Re .117:
    
    > You've spoken repeatedly about what you regard as the human "instinct[SIC]
    > to obey orders" (in relation to Valuing Differences.)
    
    That's a non sequitur.  I wrote about human instinct, but not in
    relation to _why_ people support "Valuing Differences".
    
    > Psychological experiments seldom PROVE anything (beyond the fact that
    > a certain experiment will yield similar results with different testers.)

    Yes, and airplanes have never been proven to fly, beyond the fact that
    a certain structure will yield similar results with different pilots.
    
    I know the "Valuing Differences" program is a farce because it, and the
    people in it, repeatedly:
    
    	o champion only the favored causes that are currently
    	  fashionable in this society,
    
    	o fail to recognize other differences, even differences that
    	  affect people's jobs and lives,
    
    	o actually attack people with "differences" other than the
    	  favored differences.        
    
    
    				-- edp

Eric,

|    	o champion only the favored causes that are currently
|    	  fashionable in this society,
|   
|    	o fail to recognize other differences, even differences that
|    	  affect people's jobs and lives,
|    
|    	o actually attack people with "differences" other than the
|    	  favored differences.        
 

These are serious accusations, do you have hard evidence that you can post 
supporting this. 

Simon

    Re .136:
    
    It is as normal to be heterosexual as it is to be black, yet being
    black is considered a "difference".  "Differences" do not mean
    "abnormality".  There are ranges within humans fall and can function
    healthily; everything in these ranges is normal, including
    heterosexuality and homosexuality.  "Abnormal" refers to things outside
    these ranges, such as an inability to function sexually.
    
    "Differences" is a separate thing; there are things that are normal yet
    are different from what is accepted by a culture.  The "Valuing
    Differences" program fails to recognize that people should be permitted
    to have different beliefs, that it is only their behavior that society
    has a right to control.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .142:
    
    I described in topic 1616 how Digital's "Valuing Differences" program
    champions its causes, and how it ignores or even offends people with
    different beliefs, and how it places its causes above other people's
    desire to be left alone.  In addition, there are other ways in which
    people do not "fit in" to the mainstream of society that the "Valuing
    Differences" program does not recognize.  The "Valuing Differences"
    program has simply failed to recognize the magnitude of the variations
    in society.  For example, if there were still legislation preventing
    blacks from placing their candidates on the ballots, we would still
    have demonstrations of the magnitude seen in the sixties.  Yet there is
    legislation preventing people with political beliefs different from the
    Democratic and Republican parties from getting their candidates on the
    ballots.  Many states require more signatures for candidates from other
    parties than for candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties
    before the other candidates would be placed on the ballot.  The
    election news service that the media formed consistently failed to
    report the votes received by third-party candidates, even to the extent
    of fraudulently reporting the percentages received by Democratic and
    Republican candidates (they altered the Democratic and Republican
    percentages to add up to 100%, even when other candidates got a
    significant number of votes).  In these ways, people with different
    beliefs are actively discriminated against.  But Digital's "Valuing
    Differences" program never sees the big picture, that there are many,
    many ways that people's differences are discriminated against and that
    this is a problem that can never be solved by tackling them one-by-one,
    the way Digital's "Valuing Differences" program does.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re. 144.
    
    That's more rethoric, not evidence.
    
    Ad

    Ad, EDP does not deal with evidence, or for that matter even facts. He
    deals only with opinions, his opinions and no one elses. 
    
    Jamie.

    Sigh.  It was a mistake to respond to Laurie Brown.  This topic
    apparently cannot stay on the subject, so I am closing it.
    
    o  I am not interested in participating in these personnel vendettas;
       I should not let myself be drawn into them.
    
    o  To all the people who made suggestions (those who suggested I
       should ignore abusive people and those who suggested I should not,
       and others), I have tried a variety of different approaches with
       difference people:  ignoring insults but responding to issues,
       ignoring a person completely, responding with tit-for-tat, or
       requesting assistance from authority.  Some of these work with some
       people, but there is no general solution.  Some people are just
       malicious and will attack people who are different.  It is the
       same force which has caused humans misery over the ages, and it
       is not going away now.
    
    o  Once again, humans have proven how they will attack differences,
       causing pain to people who do not fit the proper mold.
    
    o  Once again, Digital has proven how it does not give a damn about
       real people, only about the correct groups.
                             
    o  "Valuing Differences" discussion can be conducted elsewhere.
    
    
    				-- edp