SEELANGS Administrivia - (was Re: apology, etc.)

[Alex Rudd]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Alex Spektor <aspektor at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Dear Sarah Hurst!!!!!!!!
> I'm writing to apologize.  I'm really sorry if my message have in any way
> offended or insulted you.

Mr. Spektor,

Thanks for sending this.

> I think what is
> really scary in this situation is not my immature action, but the severity with
> which the real police showed its face.  In his letter to me Alex Rudd correctly
> identified me as a vigilante.  With this term I can only happily agree.  The
> authoritative and threatening stance of Alex Rudd (who warned that he will
> "find me") seems in contrast much more police-like than my email.  Rudd's
> letter made the whole matter serious.

And what I think is really scary, is that someone who has been
subscribed to this list for years, as you have, would have so much
disrespect for it, and for his fellow list members, to post a message
as you did, anonymously and desiring to usurp the role of list owner,
proud as a peacock to have disrupted the list, and would then succeed,
if only in part, in rallying other list members to condemn the actual
list owner for managing his list.

> Especially in light of his inistence to
> keep this away from the public space that is SEELANGS.

SEELANGS is not a public space.  SEELANGS is an e-mail based
discussion list.  You subscribed to it.  When you subscribed to it,
you were sent a Welcome message.  Among other things, that Welcome
message contained the following admonition:

----- Begin ----

SEELANGS exists to facilitate discussion of topics of interest
to teachers and students of Russian and other Slavic and East
European languages and literatures.  Use the list in furtherance
of that general goal.  But please, do not treat SEELANGS or its
members with disrespect.  Profanity is not welcome, nor is
language which demeans or belittles other people or groups of
people.  It is further expected that list members will conduct
themselves in a mature and polite manner towards fellow list
members.  "Flames" will not be tolerated.  The list owner reserves
the right to take any action he feels appropriate to ensure the
smooth operation of the list.

----- End -----

Being on actual notice of this, you chose: 1) to treat SEELANGS with
disrespect by subscribing and posting from an anonymous account, 2) to
treat at least one of its members with disrespect, 3) to take what in
your own words was an "immature action" by posting that message, and
4) to promise all of us that we could expect to see more of your
"buzzes," meaning this was not to be a one-time thing.

As I know you are an adult, I find it difficult to understand why you
felt moved so strongly to act as you did, as opposed to simply
contacting the list owners (as many others have done over the years)
or even contacting directly a list member whose failure to cut short a
particular thread so perturbed you.

> It is amazing to me
> that Rudd's generous heart (which forgives and forgets) has enough space to fit
> the first person plural pronoun of everyone on SEELANGS.
<snip>
> P.S.  To show the difference between Buzz Police!!!!! and real police I'm
> attaching some of Alex Rudd's letter to me.  The situation smells a bit like
> Soviet Union, but perhaps it's just America.

Do I speak for SEELANGS?  You bet I do.  SEELANGS is a LISTSERV
discussion list.  Like all such discussion lists, there are resources
put into running it and you pay
for none of them.  The service is provided to you gratis through the
generosity of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa because Bama
provides the hardware and software.  I provide the human
administration and support and have done so since 1993, when the list
was still housed at the City University of New York.  Those of you who
were subscribed back then might remember a posting from a CUNY
computer center administrator advising us that SEELANGS (at the time)
was without a list owner and would be taken out of existence if one
was not found.  I volunteered to take over then and I've been
volunteering ever since.  When CUNY became an intolerable place to
host this list, I sought out and located a new server willing and able
to take it, made all the necessary arrangements, and oversaw the
transition, ensuring that it was smooth and also that we retained our
most precious resource, the SEELANGS Archives.  I am not a Slavicist
and I don't belong to AATSEEL, so you will never see me, and have
never seen me, post here pretending to be one or to have any expertise
I do not.  I am, however, the list owner here.  Among my duties is to
set the guidelines and to see to the orderly administration of the
list.  If you have a problem with that, please feel free to find a
list server and start your own list.

Finally, David Powelstock wrote:
> If Alex S. is banned from the list, count me out, too.

I'm not going to ban Alex S. from the list.  He did as I asked (more or less).

I will, however, continue to administer the SEELANGS list to the best
of my ability, including taking (a lot of ) time out of my busy life
to assist list members with their numerous list-related questions and
issues, just as I assisted David Powelstock as recently as last July
when he wrote asking for help.

SEELANGers, if you would prefer to have Alex Spektor as your list
owner, then by all means, let him know that (off-list to
aspektor at fas.harvard.edu).  If he feels enough support, I'm sure he
will find another LISTSERV server willing to host the SEELANGS list
and will contact me to tell me when it's time to turn over the reins.

- Alex, list owner of SEELANGS
--
Alex Rudd
List owner e-mail: seelangs-request at bama.ua.edu
Personal e-mail: Alex.Rudd at gmail.com
http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
Any opinion expressed above is not necessarily shared by my employers.

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