the sins of moderators

Sarbajit is not on india-gii. His message got copied to india-gii
inadvertently, and if it was one of us moderators, we are sorry yet again.
In any case, guys, me included PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD MAIL FROM SARBAJIT TO
INDIA-GII !!! BAD IDEA!!!

It has been decided, that Sarbajit no longer is allowed to post directly to
india-gii. He must route it through one of the moderators. Sarbajit, hope
this has better success at getting through to you, than the phone system. I
would happily have given you a chance to defend yourself before censuring
you.

People must wonder why I went to such lengths to defend Sarbajit.

Our first attempt at organizing online was the Forum for Rights to
Electronic Expression, which was killed in the mid 90s when two BBS sysops,
one of whom sadly is dead, attempted to "take charge". But that brief
admittance into free speech fresh air was heady indeed.

I was a member of Amnesty International from 1976 to 1991, the last four
years as president of its Indian section. Friends of mine had been tortured
for exercising free speech.

When I set up india-gii, free speech was a given. I chose the host with
 care. First cpsr.org, then when they died on us, Suresh kindly offered to
help. I am delighted, that even after treatment of him that many consider
unfair, his support as our host has been beyond reproach.

Rarely in an argument any more, do I get to say that my free speech is
being violated. The problem is, when you say it softly, like I just did,
that statement is easy to ignore. Do so at your peril.

When it comes to my free speech, you do not get a vote.

See, I like having Sarbajit on india-gii.

Imagine we were to throw out all those from india-gii who never posted, for
they contribute nothing. From three hundred something we would be down to a
dozen or two, I am afraid.

Now, suppose we were to also throw out the views of those who work for
multinational companies or the government, for surely someone is looking
over their shoulder.

Lets also discard as possibly colored the views of those NGOs, who by their
travails of first getting foriegn funding and then Indian government
permission to get foreign funds, have learnt to say less rather than more.
Oops, Bapsi could be one of them.

Let us devalue those who never start a discussion.

By now, if you get my drift, we are left with one guy. Once, I used to be
that guy.

In information theory, they talk about how a black crow provides almost no
information of value as compared to a white crow. Sarbajit is that white
crow. Would be great if he learnt to follow rules. I believe he can be
taught. We need someone to raise the issues he does and nobody else seems
to be doing so, that's the bottom line.

If you are still reading, thank you for not having given up on this list.
Your job is to please post useful content to this list, and ( my hidden
agenda ) to help train list members, by pointing out inaccuracies and
breaches of list rules, and us moderators too.

But for now, could everyone please think about content? Post something
other than advice?

Arun Mehta

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