Rex:
>
> Dave, I well know that you have the power to pull the plug on me and I don't have similar
> power to do the same to you.

David:
Rex, you do have power to subscribe, participate according to the
guidelines, or unsubscribe. I am not sure about what point you are
trying to make above. I think that I have offerred a fairly hands-
off approach to moderation, which some may or may not like, but
I do take the responsibility seriously, and will make efforts to
insure fairness to the participants, and to protect the integrity
of the list when necessary. Fortunately, the latter has not been an
issue very often from my point of view - I hope participants will
let me know if I am doing poorly in such issues.

In short, what folks get out of this list lies in a large part to
what people contribute, like most things in life - I can try to
steer the ship back on course when it is perceived to be going
astray, but the quality of the list lies in the quality of the
contributions that are made - in this regard, it is *your* list,
*our* list,whatever the participants make of it, and my power whatever
it may be is dwarfed by the big picture here. In this respect, I think
raw-food has been quite a success due to the high quality of the
discussions and contributions, with other considerations such as
reasonable and workable list guidelines taking the back seat. For
this, I am quite thankful to all the many excellent contributions
over the years.

Rex:
>
> So at somewhat of a risk, I'm going to say that it appears, from my seat, that you are
> highly irritated I chose to use the "C" word.
> I have tried to explain what I meant, but
> you have apparently chosen to ignore that and stick by the dictionary definition.

David:
Isn't the dictionary some form of arbitrator for the meaning of words,
so that we can communicate effectively? And, Rex, you have postured
this and that trying to coin a new use of the term to meet your
agenda, so what do we use as a reference otherwise ?

So, yes, I was irritated, because the censorship word itself is a highly
charged issue alone without mis-using the term to broadly complain about
whatever greif the world is afflicting. Due to the more common
dictionary usage of the term, some may construe your claims as problems
with the integrity of the list and process, rather than what I gathered
to be your complaint about others saying words you don't like or not
jumping aboard with approval for everything that you post here. Since
I have a big interest in ensuring the list's integrity, I hope you will
understand my concerns, and thankyou sincerely for avoiding the mis-
use of a highly-charged emotional term apparently "adapted" to bring
attention to one's causes.

Rex:
> Perhaps
> if "crank", "wacko", "asshole", "fakes", "gurus", and other derogatory terms dropped out
> of the conversation we would all be better off.
> word.

David:
I am not about to touch the above, i.e., have a list of words off limits
for posting. Let's use our common sense here - it is usually fairly
easy to tell when things degenerate into flames and uncivil behavoir
on a personal level between participants, versus being critical of an
idea, a movement, or an instance of downright dishonesty, such as
the plagiarism episodes that are a part of the history of the list.
In written word, there will be occassions where intent may be misunder-
tood/miscontrued, but I have confidence in the list participants' ability
to respect one another even through disagreement, and kindly urge
everyone to keep this civility in mind in exchanges. Nonetheless,
as I stated above, the character and effectiveness of this forum
lies in a major way in the hands of the participants, it is *your*
list, and I've dismounting the soapbox for now.

Rex, please don't take my above reactions too personally - in fact, I
think you have a tendency to take criticism's of various ideas as
being an afront to yourself rather than questioning the message.
Life is just too short for this...

Regards,

David
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