--- Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 01:08 PM 6/15/03 -0700, Jan Coffey wrote: > > >You still don't get that form jeroen (and other's) perspecitve what was > >done to him did appear to be abusive.
[Ronn!:]
> Did you read the copies of his messages I sent you off-list? Do I need to > send you copies of the rest of the messages he sent to the list in which he > made threats against Nick, Julia, John, and others?
[Jan:]
Yes in fact I referenced this in my message. Obviously this list ment quite a bit to him. His actions at that point were intolerable, but I do not believe that what I read necisarily constitutes a direct threat of the sort one would need to be physicaly conserned about.
Those named obviously disagreed, and I do not think that they are the kind of people who would overreact to an obviously empty threat. And the threats did not seem entirely empty, based on what had already transpired.
[Jan:]
They were clearly the words of someone who had been deeply hurt and was lashing out in response. While I do not condone this, and while I find these particular actions in and of themsleves compleatly dispicable, I also wonder what kind of response you were expecting. There are allways more than one way to deal with a situation, and the response in question was compleatly forseable. Therefore if you choose to take the action and you know what the response will be, how can you then speak of that response as if it were proof that the action you took was corect.
By that point, the situation had gone too far for a less drastic solution to be effective. Besides, numerous less drastic solutions had been tried without resulting in a lasting change in Jeroen's behavior. Had I been in Nick's place when Jeroen tried to hack his server, I would most likely have permanently banned him then and there with no discussion or reprieve, and contacted his ISP and perhaps his employer because what he did could be considered a criminal offense. Nick and the rest of the list showed a level of patience which makes Job look like he was on speed.
[Jan:]
While I think that what JvB did was absolutly wrong, while I think that his "wall of Shame" is dispicable, while I disagree with his actions that put this conflict in place, I also disagree with the actions which exaserbated the conflict, the intolerance that prolongs it.
While every person must be responsible for their own actions, and while it is sometimes necisary to simply allow others who are more skilled at phrasology and spin to manipulate a situation, while it may be better to simply let another win an argumant than start an incident, it certainly is also dispicable for someone who is fully skilled at such manipulations to push someone who isn't's buttons when they know full well what they will get as a response.
You are correct that this was due at least in part to teasing by others on the list. IIRC, during a political discussion, JDG made some claim with which JvB did not agree. Jeroen asked John for documentation of his claim, and when John did not provide it immediately, Jeroen started responding to every message John posted (no matter to who or about what) by saying something along the lines "Why are you posting anything to the list before you have answered my question?" After a few dozen of those messages, some other members weighed in to ask Jeroen to stop it, and a few started teasing him for what he was doing. Things escalated from there.
FWIW, I tried tactfully to point out that I have learned in the school of hard knocks that some people get enjoyment by teasing others, and as long as the victim keeps responding, the tormentor continues to get his jollies and keeps on doing it, so sometimes the only way to stop teasing is to stop responding to it. Jeroen responded that he felt that the only way was to stand up to the tormentor and fight back until the tormentor backed down. With all due respect, it was clear then and is clear now that at least in this particular situation fighting back only caused the situation to escalate.
At that time, Jeroen was co-listowner. Numerous people expressed concern (privately in many cases) that his behavior suggested that he was becoming unsuited to that position. The event which caused him to be removed as co-listowner was when he published a list of the e-mail addresses of all the subscribers to the list, which caused several people who did not want their e-mail addresses published publicly where they could be harvested by spambots, etc., to complain.
This happened just before the list had to be moved from the Cornell listserver because Eileen Tan was leaving Cornell. After some discussion about where the list could be moved to, Nick offered to host the list on his own server which he uses for his business, with Julia continuing to act as co-listowner for administrative purposes. For whatever reason, Jeroen continued to complain and to blame Nick personally for his problems with other list members. Eventually -- and at the moment I don't recall the specifics -- enough people complained about Jeroen that Nick and Julia put him on temporary suspension. Jeroen responded by trying to hack into Nick's server, though fortunately for Nick's business he was not successful. Despite that, Nick lifted Jeroen's suspension after he apologized and promised to behave.
Unfortunately, he did not long continue to behave, and in particular continued to blame Nick and Julia personally for all his problems, so eventually Nick and Julia announced that after extensive discussion they saw no other option but to ban him from the list. That announcement said that the ban would take effect in 48 hours in order to give Jeroen a chance to make a graceful exit from the list he had had so much to do with for so long. Jeroen used most of that time to attempt to drum up the support of other list members to keep him on the list, then when it was made clear that the decision to ban him was final, he sent to the list a bunch of messages he had exchanged off-list with Nick, followed by the messages I sent you copies of yesterday, at which time Nick went ahead and unsubscribed him even though about an hour or so remained before the end of the 48 hours.
[Jan:]
It doesn't make the response anyones elses fualt but the one who took that response, but I for one still find it just as much a disruption.
Agreed, and, as I have described above, the disruption finally became intolerable.
[Ronn!:]
> If the guy is not mentally ill, he acts like he is.
[Jan:]
I think many people would if they felt they were pushed into a corner. I don't believe he is mentaly ill, but he might be. Does it really make any diffence?
Yes.
I did a lot of thinking and soul-searching before I initially made that suggestion several months ago, and I asked several other people (including those with medical expertise and experience in the mental health field) off-list what they thought of the idea. So that suggestion was/is not made lightly. It is also not meant to be an attack on Jeroen: in fact, it was and is meant to be just the opposite. Jeroen's on-list personality seemed to change so abruptly last summer that the possibility of some sort of medical cause, be it mental illness, a brain tumor, or complications due to the head injury he told us he suffered as a child, seems obvious. If his personality changed due to some medical condition, not only does that open the possibility that the underlying cause can be treated, but it also suggests that Jeroen is not necessarily to blame for the unpleasantness of the past few months.
[Ronn!:]
> He needs to _immediately_
To make it clear, "immediately" modifies all of the following, not just the first.
[Ronn!:]
quit monitoring this list,
[Jan:]
Why?
Because I think that as long as he keeps reading the messages to the old list, he will continue to be upset by things he reads on the list or simply by its very existence.
[Ronn!:]
> take down his "Wall of Shame",
[Jan:]
That would help.
[Ronn!:]
> quit sending unsolicited messages off-list,
[Jan:]
I believe he would if he was never spoken of again on list.
The current spate of multiple copies of multiple messages to the private accounts of everyone on the list started after _one_ mention of Jeroen in a list message. Is it realistic to expect that no one will ever mention his name again, even in a neutral or even positive context?
[Ronn!:]
>and get some professional help.
[Jan:]
You know, you don't know that he isn't.
See above. Besides, the suggestion was made several times in as tactful a manner as possible, and he rejected it.
[Jan:]
Besides there is no reason to try and be abusive. If you really think or feel that way, why must you say it? Otherwise it's just an attack.
No, it's honestly an attempt to get him to see a possibility he may not have considered and to take some positive action to do something about it, or at least eliminate it as a possibility.
[Ronn!:]
>And that is the most truly friendly request I or anyone here can > make of him. > > I supported him as long as I could, hoping he would truly change his ways > and would not have to be banned from the list. As I said in my off-list > message, those were among the flood of messages he sent when it was made > clear that he was indeed going to be banned, which was only after nearly a > full year of an ever-worsening situation. His actions in the past eight > weeks do not suggest that he has changed one bit. > > End of discussion as far as I am concerned.
[Jan:]
Fine, you had your say.
How far down does one have to go, before you let them starT to climb back up?
The question is how long does he plan to keep on reacting until he lets go and moves on?
[Jan:]
Can we all just agree to his proposal and end this thing?
Unfortunately, "this thing" needed to end eight weeks ago. Jeroen simply needs to make a clean break with the old Brin-L list. If he can read the list without feeling the need to respond to something he reads there by sending individual messages to everyone on the membership list, fine, else, he needs to quit reading the list so he won't feel the need to respond.
-- Ronn! :)
God bless America, Land that I love! Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam� God bless America! My home, sweet home.
-- Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
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