Re: [Middlebridge] Fwd: Re: Pennsic autocrats

At 10:02 PM 5/30/95 -0500, sca-middle@dnaco.net wrote:
>
>The Points made here seem to be all too true and on the mark. I do not
>think that quoting the entire text simply to agree is correct but will
>include the header of the text.
> Have we not learned that the exercise of authority does not work
>well in a vaccume, a hard lesson from the Unpleasantness of Jan. '94.

With all due respect to those who have posted on this, many of us learned
long before the Unpleasantness that the Rialto was a great place to go for
opinions; whether those opinions had any relationship to the truth was much
more problematic.

This is not to accuse anyone of dishonesty, the very nature of the medium
is to polarize a situation; only the most interested parties post, you don't
tend to do "me, too!" messages for the sake of bandwidth, the "extremist"
posts are the ones which are remembered most, someone is always available to
cast each post in the worst possible light and trumpet that interpretation
louder than the original poster can defend themselves...and they usually do.
Misunderstandings are almost more common than good communication. And
anyone who publicly questions a negative interpretation, especially of an
official source, had better be wearing asbestos underwear.

I would not trust (insert deity of choice) to render a valid judgement on
what someone else posted on the Rialto...the environment destroys
objectivity, and renders all witnesses suspect. Do not accept *anyone*
else's opinion of what *someone else* posted on the Rialto (or, to be fair,
on any such forum); insist on seeing the originals. The examples of
miscommunications leading to blood feuds, or a note dashed off in response
to a question examined in painstaking detail for deeper (and always more
sinister!) motives, are legend.

Again, no insult intended to the previous posters of this thread...but did
either of them quote any significant part of the messages which they
objected to? Or reference them in anyway, say by message number or date or
anything? Or is the average reader left with *only* their side of the
story, and nothing to make valid comparison? I will not answer the
question because I want no one taking my word for anything either...because
I have been just as guilty of this poor technique as anyone else. And I
have not seen the postings in question, so I can not even render an
alternative interpretation of content or tone.

All of the above is, of course, strictly IMO.

Mathurin

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From: rdeaver@tyrell.net (Rex Deaver)
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Received on Thu Jun 1 00:33:52 1995