Pirate Bob ([email protected])
Sun, 11 Oct 1998 21:33:53 -0400
A few hours back I posted about the "forbidden topic". It is a topic I
will not mention for fear that I will be censored. I can understand
Joel's reasoning for deleting my post as it was lumped in with all the
others. However my post was not about assigning blame and was not about
starting any wars. My post was intended to stop people, to make them
think before they spoke and to prevent anything from getting out of
hand. My post was also intended to reach out to another human being and
to tell that person that he was not alone. That I had felt the same way
and that he needed to get help. Yeah, so maybe I was yelling at a brick
wall, but when someone has walked in the same shoes that I have talks, I
tend to listen to them more than I would some person who's just talking
out of their ass. The "nameless" poster's post struck a chord with me
because I would have done the exact same thing that he did not 2 months
ago. And when I read that post I could see myself typing those words.
It's a frightening thing to see yourself through someone else's eyes, so
my post to this person was also to an extent selfish. I had someone tell
me that they would never talk to me again unless I got help. So I did.
And I love them for that. The "nameless" poster needed that too. He
needed a good swift kick in the pants to show him what he was doing. And
it would have made me felt good if it had been me that had woken him up.
I've seen a lot of things in my semi-long/semi-short run on WIRE. I've
seen more flame wars than I could shake a stick at. I've seen a war that
almost destroyed not just this list but another list as well. I've seen
wars that actually shut down parts of WIRE. And not once did I ever see
posts deleted. I've seen posts about everything from football to dogs
and not once were any of those posts deleted. Yet when I make an effort
to reach out to another human being, someone who is hurting, and I try
to tell that person they need help, that is deleted.
This is Joel's list. He can run it as he wishes, BECAUSE he runs it. I'm
not going to rant about freedom of speech, because it's Joel's list and
if he wanted to he could delete every single post, all day long. But I
personally think it was a mistake to choose these posts to delete, and
not any other. To choose this time to stop an "argument" by erasing
messages, and not any other. And I, for one, am upset by it.
I'm sure most of you don't care what I have to say. So you can go back
to hawking your bootlegs, or marked up CD-R's, or advertising your
websites, or discussing the weather. Just remember that this is not just
some billboard where you advertise. This is/was a community. A community
of people who are/were bonded together, not just for the love of a band,
but because we all have feelings, and we all have experiences. In short,
we are all people. That is what this whole stupid thing SHOULD be about,
caring about and supporting each other. Think about that. It was the
knowledge that we were a community that made all those posts about
bootlegs and websites bearable to me. But now, I don't think I can feel
that way anymore. And it feels like it won't be long until WIRE is
bought by Coca-Cola and distributed by Microsoft.
Sorry if I offended anyone, not that I give a rat's ass. Feel free to
complain. What's the worse that can happen? My post will just get
deleted. Don't worry about showing me the door. I know the way out. You
won't have to worry about anymore off topic posts from me.
Good Night,
Pirate Bob
-- "If I were you, I'd run" "If you were me, you'd be good looking"-Six String Samurai
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Sun Oct 11 1998 - 18:34:26 PDT