Being Philosophical about our Banning

Herein Hypatia Theon considers a personal letter from another philosopher addressed to the man within whose brain she currently finds her mental manifestation existent. That man is an ex-pat American living in Nagasaki, Japan since June 13th, 1980, so coming up on his 25th anniversary and setting a citizenship record there well beyond his 13 years in second place Honolulu, Hawaii, where among other things he got a couple of graduate degrees in applied psycholinguistics and ethnomethodology, and third place San Diego, California, his birthplace, where some family members still live in Del Mar. The other much younger, though perhaps with deeper roots in academic philosophy, man is a philosophy graduate student, php programmer and, a  key point, the actually site owner and hence final decision maker at philosophy forums, so in this letter to some extent rationalizing responsibility for our banning. (The "our banning" here is a deliberately selected red flag to make explicit the fundamental point of philosophical disagreement upon which we believe the Philosophy Forums administration team is individually or collectively turning a blind eye to our position and resorting to legalisms as a tactic for avoiding legitimate argument, or at least an argument that's reasonable from our viewpoint, the bone of contention being recognition of whether it is a valid viewpoint.)

Paul Knierim wrote:

I was going to reply in more detail than this, but since I'm not an admin right now, just a webmaster and have purposefully not read any of the moderator discussion about bans for the last week, I'd better not. I'm already kind of breaking the spirit of my self-imposed vacation, needn't kill the spirit of it entirely.

Oh dear, now we've noticed on this last proofreading that we owe you another apology, too, Paul, for killing the spirit of your vacation. Well, we did intend to wait at least a month before bringing this up. Anyway, gomen ne? We hope there's at least a bit of philosophical interest in it for you. :D

From what you say it would seem then that there were offensive posts in addition to the multiple usernames (which by itself can get people banned, but the combo of the two invariably brings about a ban). Your accusing dreamweaver of bias and suggesting he moderates arguments because he disagrees with them completely removed the possibility of being able to forgive the other issues.

Or in plain words, Paul, you're saying, "this as a hopeless case, so don't even bother appealing it," aren't you? In fact, though you seem to have forgotten it, Dreamweaver and our host mind ~E had a long running disagreement in a thread over half a year ago in which Dreamweaver suggested banning ~E, but ~E was polite and reasonable though never abandoning his position of being simultaneously a believer as an ordained minister making a living performing weddings and yet also espousing the position of modern scientific skepticism, so that the thread finally petered out with us all agreeing that we disagreed and ~E not being banned. Thus, on that basis, it seems at least fair to raise the possibility of Dreamweaver's less than total objectivity, not baselessly "accuse" him of bias. You yourself have often plumbed the many facets of the subjectivity versus objectivity divide, so, well, how does that apply to this particular case?

Anyone who knows him well realizes that he's the least likely person in the universe to hold a grudge against anyone. And look through as many forums as you please and I don't think you'd come across a fairer administrator. Certainly he handles disagreement very well, which is why although he disagrees with me on quite a lot of philosophical [not to mention non-philosophical] topics he's a great friend. I feel a little guilty about abandoning my lightning rod position so that he's getting more of the heat now, and perhaps that influenced me to email you, though of course he handles it well and he's handled bitter former members countless times before (even if not as many countless as I have). So you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little overly protective about people being rude to him at the moment.

Then I, Hypatia Theon, take this opportunity to humbly apologize for any rudeness whether from an intended jibe or merely an accidental posting mistake on behalf of myself, as well as all my brother and sister players and their characters and the man who is typing this on a computer keyboard in Nagasaki, Japan. I'm sure that his wife, Satsuki, who as you well know handles our family financial matters, would agree too, though at the moment she's abandoned this particular quixotic quest entirely to the husband, preferring to concentrate her energies on practical matters like refurbishing our entire home and garden in preparation for a family extravaganza when her folks visit later this month and mastering her birthday computer and art software with an eye on earning actual cash for writing more anime screenplay treatments for sale to Japanese T.V. *All of us here prostrate ourselves and kiss Dreamweaver's hard working feet on which he has trekked hither and yon selflessly administering justice all over Philosophy Forums.*

>knowing you'd be inclined to back up the decisions of your chosen moderators

Dreamweaver is an admin, not a mod. Anyhow I frequently challenge and ask for clarification on things I don't agree with. I like to think I do so respectfully but I recently got burned by someone felt otherwise. Of course actually reversing someone else's decision is rare, but when the explanation doesn't satify me, like for example Morrandir's ban of blueskyboris, it's been known to happen. Similiarly dreamweaver reversed  my ban of Esran because I couldn't come up with good enough reasons when asked.

Ah yes, I remember blueskyboris because ~E had some interesting discussions with him, and as a well-ordered multiple personality all those memories are available to me as Hypatia Theon as well.

In dreamweaver's case, when I question his decisions he's always got a very good reason and frequently provides me with insight that changes the way I moderate/adminstrate. (I'm not implying I'd question him on this matter, the reasons for the decision seem to be clearly listed already.) If I had to go by trust alone I'd trust his decisions over mine, but of course I normally prefer to try to learn.

Here Hypatia Theon agrees with you at least 100%, Paul, preferring to learn by listening to what "The One" is telling us, or however you characterize that openness in your personal philosophy, is how "mistakes" are transcended and transformed into stepping stones.

I can't give you dreamweaver's email since I don't know that he'd want you to have it, but you can contact him through the site contact form. Tobias will read anything you send there as well.

Of course I should note that I don't have any reason to believe they're significantly offended, and in fact it's quite possible they've forgotten about it by now. To be honest, I suggested an apology simply because I glanced at the contact form submission and was disapointed by your reaction to the ban there, having thought that despite your multiple personalities you didn't have any that were like that.

Hmm... Not sure what you mean by that. We only recall Lozaluk Albad or Hypatia Theon saying something like, "Well, if that's how you "win" a philosophical argument, i.e., by first moving it to pseudo and then banning, then that's a sand box I haven't time to play in." Which is still true, and if it's offensive, then we're all sorry. Gomen, ne? What else is there to say? Truth is truth, and sometimes it hurts, even those one respects and loves, both of which feelings we have for Tobias, Dreamweaver, and you, too, Paul.

Well, enough about a sitution I haven't even read up on I guess.

O.K. Agreed again, Paul. Let's end here, and post this on our blog, where Dreamweaver and Tobias, or anyone on the whole world wide wacky web can check it out and follow up as they see fit.

- Paul

Dennis Wilkinson wrote:

Paul Knierim wrote:

I don't look in for a few days and it seems you've found yourself a way to get banned. Well, I don't know exactly how it happened but the listed reason suggests you were creating multiple usernames.

Like any sane forum, we don't allow that, and especially don't allow that when they're used to play out different roles in threads. We are obviously not running a role playing game. Multiple usernames are simply a manipulative way that troublesome people tend to try to confuse others or express agreement with theirself.

You really owe dreamweaver a sincere apology, but that's up to you.

- Paul

Hi Paul,

    I was going to wait  for tempers to cool off for maybe a month or two before writing to you about this topic, not being sure whether you were part of the banning process but knowing you'd be inclined to back up the decisions of your chosen moderators. Not that I can fault you on that management policy, which is one I'd probably recommend as a manager myself, though honestly I've never held a managerial position in any organization nor does it seem likely I will anytime soon. :-)

    Perhaps it was my karma to be banned however I had presented the necessary arguments for the positions I now hold. Actually, I'm deliberately stating this from what I take to be your viewpoint. Otherwise, we'd say our karma and so on. ;-)

   I'm sure you can see, though without necessarily agreeing, how from that viewpoint, our viewpoint, presenting a philosophical position and the arguments for it that entails being a multiple personality, of course we created multiple user names, not making any secret about it, as the personalities of the different user names were an essential part of the over all demonstration of our position. Hmm... Of course, as a role play game was the genesis of the situation we're currently working to resolve, in part by presenting arguments aimed at recruiting other philosophical investigators, it seems natural that that colored the presentation of our position. Anyway, "no use crying over split milk," as it's said. Surely, no covert manipulation was intended or attempted on our part. :-(

    An unfortunate software mishap truncated the polite introduction of one post making it seem very rude towards Tobias and Dreamweaver to the point that someone on your forum called it "a ban magnet." :-[   The actual text of the unmangled post can be seen on our blog http://hypatiatheon.blogspot.com/ as the post for Wednesday, June first . Here's how the first two paragraphs at philosophy forums should have read: O:-)

Oh, one more technical note to administrators and php programmers: You might want to cut and paste our whole blog posting for June first into your philosophy forum posting box and troubleshoot the reason for our incredible BAD LUCK, evil karma, or whatever went wrong the many times we tried to post it correctly and finally gave up 'cuz it simply won't work. :(

    Apologizing to Dreamweaver, or anyone else who's feelings have been hurt, is a joy to us quite independent of being banned. Just indicate who's been injured and how along with their e-mail addresses, and it will be taken care of. :-D

Regards, Dennis (And the whole gang.) :-*

P.s. Well, I just noticed *one more mistake*  =-O on proofing, so the bad karma was a self-fulfilling prophesy in a transitive sense, ne? 8-)

*one more mistake was writing "BrainPoliceXXX," our primary AmiaWorld handle, instead of "~E," our original PhilosophyForums member name.

Written with all our LOVE and as much wisdom as we could master at the moment, Hypatia Theon & all of us here.