=============================================================================== +++ MAIL 7: pburo -> psb =============================================================================== Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 03:52:24 -0700 From: Aaron McKee To: "Partha S. Banerjee,,," CC: politburo@soda.csua.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [CSUA] To the Stalin/Soda Mausoleum Consider whatever you want. The CSUA governing body is currently a five person Politburo. What you got was the opinion of one of its members, not necessarily representing the others. If you're attempting to threaten or intimidate me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I've faced tougher critics than you in my 30 years of life, and I'll face tougher still. And as for your deft legal snooping, maybe you missed section #A? You're an associate member, which means you can't vote. #C points out 'may be' active members. Note the subtlety. Perhaps you should save the legal work for the lawyers, eh? As for the note about not hosing on csua@ - we have an environment that is largely open and trusting to our users. Perhaps this is naive. In general, though, we try to keep as few barriers in place as possible and rely upon the better judgment of these users. This means we haven't yet made csua@ fully moderated. Just because you got a bounce, however, doesn't mean that you weren't obviously hosing. And, although free speech is generally protected, there is still no law or right that says that you can come into our home, our office, or our business and practice that right. In any case, I was suggesting that you not do it again - not giving you an official 'you're about to be sorried' note. But hey, it's one of those things that -is- technically a sorry-able offense. Wearing blue on a 'red-only' day is also a sorry-able offense, if 3 of 5 politburo agree. It's arbitrary, always has been and probably always will be. What you're relying upon is our level-headedness and apathy. I guess if you doubt either, you're kind of SOL. As much as many of the trolls on the MOTD might think, no one in the politburo or root staff has such a copious amount of free time that they lurk around trying to find every transgression. Hell, I don't even read the MOTD anymore - it's just too much a waste of my time. It's only when items like what was discussed are BROUGHT to our attention that we're forced to deal with it. Again, as with your note, we -WILL- be getting complains in the morning from users complaining of your spam. (they always complain when getting mail from unexpected sources) We'd rather be programming than dealing with this stuff, so in general we like it when people behave and treat our systems and group with the respect that they'd treat their family and friends. > what do you suggest does govern here? Well, like it or not, we (the politburo) do. It's not a democracy. We're democratically elected, but once in office we have near complete authority to implement the policies that we see fit. Think communist russia, not democratic greece. This is the system that we were given from your generation, this is the system we operate in. > the anonymity on the internet decision, "here is what some smart > people think". arent you the ones with the view "we need to act > because of potential liability under external corpuses of law"? No, that's mrauser. He's more level headed and egalitarian than I am. My opinion is much more admittedly draconian. I'm used to being a corporate manager and overseeing teams of 30+ engineers scattered across the world. That doesn't exactly work with the consensus view of management, so I go for autocratic. (It's okay, you can say it, I'm used to being the resident asshole on the team - but at least shit gets done.) My opinion is that the MOTD is an embarrassment to the organization, is offensive to current students, and is not a service we should be providing. The only benefit, which is an important one, is that it allows the alumni to stay a more integral part of the CSUA community. I honestly, deeply value that and view it as an important goal and benefit to the CSUA. However, where it conflicts (in the opinion of the politburo) with our primary goal, we need to do what's right for the current students. I've moderated my own beliefs a bit, because I do value the community the MOTD brings, but I am clearly of the opinion that it dramatically needs to change. I honestly couldn't possibly care less about people complaining of losing anonymity (go back to the 'I'm an asshole' statement above, if you want). It's not something I see as being important to the CSUA, certainly not the current students. Sure, we might miss out on the occasional salary discussion - but who cares? 99% of the anonymity is used to post trollish crap. I'd love to continue to provide the alumni a place to chat, but I feel absolutely no obligation to meet every absurd requirement that is imposed on us. They're our servers, it's our service, we can run it as we see fit. As we've clearly said, anyways, the whole issue has blown way out of proportion. At no point did we ever say we would "uncover" someone we deemed as being problematic. We would deal with that as we deal with every disciplinary issue - the issue would be brought up in a politburo meeting and we'd decide what to do. We don't take notes during these meetings, we don't tell people who we're disciplining, and we don't share the details of the issue. We sorry people all the time, but you probably never even know about it. We have far better things to do with our time than to try to argue on the stupid MOTD or identify people. This holds for the root staff, as well. And if you're worried about 'bad root staff', then the MOTD should be the least of your worries. They can read your email, monitor your keystrokes, intercept your network connection, and basically rape your account any which way you can imagine. This somehow doesn't bother you, but finding out that someone called someone else a 'rednecked faggot' on the MOTD does? Sure, I'd agree that the root list should be continually audited - and if we found someone abusing their privileges like that, we'd boot them - but again, at no point have we guaranteed any degree or privacy on our boxes and we don't need to make them (or us) jump through any hoops. You're not -entitled- to the MOTD. And, for the record, the root staff here is a tremendously dedicated group of individuals who sacrifice massive amounts of their time for the organization. I'm far more concerned with making them happy than random MOTD posters. Your arguments, although obviously passionate, have the same generic weakness as most geek posts. This is why rhetoric needs to be a mandatory class for people to take. You're confusing a million unrelated issues, using strawmen arguments, and grossly guilty of slippery slope style reasoning. The FBI trying to censor an external business and artistic expression of an unrelated entity is, in no way shape or form, the same as a student group clarifying usage policies for ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS. You do realize that we're talking about HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS, right? I mean, this seems to be a rather important point that many people are missing. So please, leave your legalese elsewhere - it doesn't apply here. Aaron McKee PRESIDENT / CSUA And don't worry, I don't plan on running again next term. Dealing with the vocal minority of alumni that cause us grief has been such an overwhelmingly miserable experience in my tenure here over the past year, that I'm done with it after this term. Quite frankly, I think I have some pretty stiff competition for 'asshole of the year' award out of your ranks and the vague sense of indebtedness this organization feels towards wiping every complainer's ass and its fear of change are what, in my opinion, single-handedly keep this organization from not sucking anymore. I love helping out current students, and coming up with ideas to make their lives here more productive and useful, but the amount of time we waste on issues such as this boggle the mind. This organization has a tremendous potential, part of which could really be amplified by the alumni community, it's a shame when your type browbeat current students into place so strongly that they're afraid to 'think out of the box' to realize it. =============================================================================== +++ MAIL 9: psb -> pburo, reply to mail 7 =============================================================================== From: "Partha S. Banerjee,,," Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 04:13:15 -0700 To: amckee@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Re: [CSUA] To the Stalin/Soda Mausoleum Cc: politburo@soda.csua.berkeley.edu, psb@ieee.eecs.berkeley.edu >Well, like it or not, we (the politburo) do. It's not a democracy. > can you elaborate a little on your position "the csua is not a democracy"? >reasoning. The FBI trying to censor an external business and artistic >expression of an unrelated entity is, in no way shape or form, the same as >a student group clarifying usage policies for ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS. You >do realize that we're talking about HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS, right? I >mean, this seems to be a rather important point that many people are >missing. So please, leave your legalese elsewhere - it doesn't apply here. > just out of curiosity, do you think 1. the csua politburo is bound by the csua constitution? 2. is the politburo allowed to say turn off the accounts of say all non-american citizens ON ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS? are you suggesting the CSUA has as much freedom to make policy on it's own machines as say the elmwood petunia appreciation society? i have only taken a few rhetoric [or law] classes, but i vaguely remember this notion of "state action" which it seems would apply to the CSUA and HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS. are you familar with the concept of "state action"? ok i have a race tomorrow. --psb ===============================================================================