From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 04:01:09 MDT
Dear Fellows,
Please may I request a community vote on just one act of minor censorship -
that for now Hermit, Bill and Joe (and any other combatants) not be
permitted to communicate with each other directly (on the list or BBS) for
one month. Instead, all communications must be made via a second or a
nominated referee. This will allow those not emotionally and hormonally
involved to extract poison and the erase the scars of bad faith from
otherwise superb posts.
I have another suggestion: A five person team, Joe and Hermit plus two other
(one person chosen by each) and David. This taskforce's job will be to
restate our Virion fundamentals - the basic principles upon which we ALL
agree - and to present them as a framework through which we can refract
meaning and truth so we can have one voice and one church.
I am essentially asking these most brilliant men to begin the process of
writing our church's dogma. "Dogma!" I hear you bark indignantly, "not here,
we are not THAT sort of church."
I simply mean a code of beliefs accepted as authoritative, not a code of
beliefs proclaimed as true without proof.
Can I also ask my friends on who are hurting (or at least apparently trying
to hurt each other) - Hermit, Joe and Bill - how is it possible for me to
actively like and respect all of you when theoretically I should have taken
sides long ago? I fully accept your most vicious outbursts and still retain
my respect for you. Why?
Because *despite* you are all right to fight and argue for this thing you
love. You are all right to defend yourselves, your fellows, your beliefs
and the truth.
What you are all doing is a NOT some puerile pissing competition, it is a
struggle for something of massive importance for those of you who have
contributed so much: The future of the Church of Virus.
I respect your right to fight, I respect your motives for fighting and I
respect you for standing up for things important to all of us all. I see the
name calling as nothing more than a side effect of the adrenaline surges
that such important and difficult conversations arouse. Lets not get caught
up in the "detail" of personal insults. They are seldom actually meant and
almost always delivered as a response to a perceived or real attack of a
similar nature.
Lets focus on the bigger issues and themes rather than objectives and
concrete rules.
We made great progress this week. We introduced and debated a complex and
bold new reputation scheme which could be our salivation. Weaknesses and
possible routes of abuse were identified but the idea was otherwise accepted
and the community appears to be both interested in the idea and very
grateful to the architects for working hard at real solution, however raw
and unpolished at these prototype stages.
So brethren and sisters, let us not reinforce the cycle of fury by giving
unearned weight to casual insults and words typed in anger from brains
poisoned by adrenaline.
Let us laugh and let us show some respect for our soldier-fellows taking
fire so that we may enjoy the truth mined from the rocks on unreason by
their time, effort and as we have seen here - pain.
As Yeats wrote:
You that Mitchell's prayer have heard
'Send war in our time, O Lord!'
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad
Something drops from his eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant he stands at ease,
Laughs out loud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense,
With some sort of violence,
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.
Fight on lads, but fight as family. Let us complete the partial mind on the
CoV and accomplish fate.
Over to you.
Your Brother,
Jonathan
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