At 06:41 AM 6/24/99 -0700, Shawn Gordon wrote:
>The total moronic thing about this web site is there is still no one from
>Interex chiming in with anything.  All they've done is set up an area away
>from the list server so that people can grip where no one will see it.
>
>I've had several run in's with Interex over the years and I can tell you
>they are EXTREMELY paranoid about negative information that goes out on
>3000-l, so I am quite certain that they set up this dicussion board to move
>the dialog away from public eyes.


Shawn:

You are not quite right in your certainty! During a confeence call
yesterday, we (volunteers) made the strongest possible suggestion that the
relevant source material be made available to Interex members (see Stan's
earlier comments about this!), and that an associated place for comments be
provided. This is in no way an attempt to hide the public discourse
necessary before such an amendment can be reasonably considered, but it IS
an attempt to place the location of the discourse in close proximity to the
subject of the discourse. While I am certain that most of the recipients of
this list are Interex members, I am not so certain that this list is the
most appropriate place to have the reasonable interchange that is necessary
to inform and educate the voting membership. (I hasten to add that even if
this DOES turn out to be the pace where most of the discourse takes place,
my opinion remains the same!)

HP3000-L is, and remains, a great place for anyone to exercise their rights
to freedom of speech. However, the signal-to-noise ration is frequently
pretty low (entertainingly so, for the most part, especially since the
Off-topic protocol came into vogue). However, for the magnitude of the
decision that the members of Interex are being asked to make, it seems only
sensible to do whatever is necessary to ensure a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Interex is not perfect, indeed sometimes it is PAINFULLY slow to adopt the
technology whose use it seems to be espousing. However, I do not think it
reasonable to equate honest and painful failures and slownesses with
malevolent paranoia!

I look forward to keeping track on the discussion - wherever it happens, but
for a digest I'd just as soon visit the web-site whee it can be
conveneiently found in one place.

And now, - back to our regularly scheduled programming...


Tony