Fed up with Eric's Rules

[Mark Nichols <mark2051 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM>]

For too long, Eric Ray has controlled and restricted information on
this list.  When people have raised controversial, inflammatory, or
decisive topics, he has stopped the threads, issued his idiotic little
ADMIN posts, and removed members who expressed their ideas. Eric might
not have a responsibility to publish, but he has taken his job as list
moderator WAY too far.  He has gone beyond merely policing the group,
to practicing full-scale censorship and  ppression.

A growing number of us are sick and tired of his  fascist rules.
Under the guise of moderating this group to only talk about technical
communication, Eric wipes out all dissension and topics which he
personally feels are irrelevant.  Hey Eric - some of us would like to
hear those ideas!

In the last three months, Eric has removed scores of members for
violations of his intolerant rules.  This list has become a laughing
stock of the technical communications community.  Some writers find
this list so horrible, they will not even accept posts forwarded from
the list.  My manager thinks this list is a utter and complete waste
of time. The woman in the cube next to me dropped off the list almost
a year ago.  Her reasons "nothing even remotely interesting is ever
discussed on the list.  That guy controls every word on there. You
can't post anything without a nasty message from him."

Recently, Eric removed George Mena for his ideas about confrontations
between men and women - While Mr. Mena's ideas were controversial,
they were also a legitimate opinion about workplace confrontations.
Because the sensitives of a few meek readers were offended, we missed
the opportunity to explore Mr. Mena's ideas.

In a removal a few months back, Eric kicked a member off because he
made a public attack on Eric's ridiculous warnings about the use of
sexist language.

In his most recent removal, Eric kicked off Andrew Plato, for his
biting and hilarious satire of the Ugly Incident thread.  I loved Mr.
Plato's posts.  They were often the brightest thing on this list.

I am sick and tired of every interesting or remotely controversial
idea being squashed on this list.  I have another account on this
list.  I made this "phantom" account so Eric could not kick the "real
me" off. The fact is, I know that if I made these complaints through
my "real account" Eric would kick me off in an instant.

So, I am asking everyone to leave this list and begin using the
listserv newsgroup rather than this mailing list.  The newsgroup is
bit.listserv.techwr-l.  You will need a news reader to access this
newsgroup.  You can access the newsgroup through www.dejanews.com.
Anyone can post to the news group, regardless of being an "approved
user."  This will allow for a freer exchange of ideas and information.

Moreover, if you use a news reader like Outlook Express or Netscape,
you can scan the topics and read only those threads that interest you.
It might be a little more chaotic than this list - but at least we'll
have the freedom to express our opinions without Eric being our mother
telling us what we can and cannot read.

Also, there is an effort underway to create a new newsgroup called
alt.writing.technical.  I have also contacted a few people about
setting up a web site with a discussion forum.  The people I have
talked to all agree, this list is a complete joke and needs to be
abandoned - those that like sanitized crap can remain behind.

I encourage the members of this list who desire a more open and free
exchange of information to stop using this list and start posting to
the newsgroup.
I will keep everyone updated to our activities through other "phantom"
accounts on this list.

Incidentally, Eric, myself and others hold numerous "phantom" accounts
on this list.  To be blunt, you cannot stop these message by merely
kicking me and my colleagues off. We can sign up a virtually unlimited
number of "phantom" accounts due to the way this list is structured.


Signed,
Technical Communicators for free communication.




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