During last year's Y2K on the old forum, I often crossed swords with "King of Spain." Post-rollover, I was honestly surprised to find "Spain" gracious, even so far as self-deprecating humor. "Spain" quickly realized that Y2K was not the starting bell for an economic and social meltdown. I was surprised to witness such noble behavior, particularly given Spain's penchant for watching the mud-soaked struggles of nubile young Amazons. (Perhaps mud wrestling is the real "sport of kings?")

Y2K was a polarizing event. I can understand how emotions ran high. Some people were predicting the deaths of untold millions. I have no question the people who felt this way were quite sincere... except perhaps some of the Y2K suppliers. Now that we have the ability to see Y2K in our rear view mirror, there are some important lessons to learn.

Civil discourse is best served when we focus on the issue, not the participants. Carrying excess baggage from the old forum serves little purpose. I will readily admit there are a handful of regulars from the old forum I decline to welcome with open arms. If they choose to post here, I will make every effort to engage on the issue... not simply continue our past conflicts. Fortunately, most of individuals are rather busy serving as the sysops for the "new" forum.

Even so, I stand ready to join others in beating our swords into plowshares. I far prefer discussing matters of substance than dealing with incessant personal attacks. And the King of Spain taught me to keep an open mind. He was one of the last people I expected to become a reasonable fellow.

As an "event," Y2K is over. It does offer some fascinating questions. How did a diverse group of people become convinced Y2K was the fifth rider of the Apocalypse? How did a person like Ed Yourdon miss the boat so badly? Can anyone really prepare for a social and economic meltdown?

I welcome dialogue with those who have substantive comments about the Y2K phenomena. And I hope we can develop a forum community that frowns on gratuitious personal attacks. The old forum teaches us what happens when these attacks have the tacit approval (or even over participation) of leaders. We can do better folks.

Long live the "King."

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 09, 2000

Answers

Ken

I am going to do some research in sociological journals under millenialism and millenialist cults over the centuries.

It may take weeks, but at some point I will introduce this info-I think that there may be something of interest there; human nature does not seem to change(I guess that is why the term "nature" is used, eh?).

I agree that the past is the past. There are people that should probably make amends-but I try never to demand amends from anybody.

I will report back.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 09, 2000.

And I hope we can develop a forum community that frowns on gratuitious personal attacks.

well fuck you

-- wimmin (LLII@cretin.com), March 09, 2000.

Ken, as a former 8-10 "doomer", I for one am willing to "burry the hatchet" and start getting to know people on each side with an new outlook.

And, since I'm married to a catholic and have to observe lent with him, I'm giving up reading trolls/flames completely. Afraid SO will not appreciate this sacrifice as much as me though ;-)

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 09, 2000.

Agreed Chris! Burying the past and working on current events sounds rational. Carrying grudges doesn't help any - the problem is still staring you in the face and less people to help you solve it.

Name-calling and hate-spewing doesn't help, no matter what side you're on. Let's get beyond it...

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), March 09, 2000.

First of all, I'm not that LLIIcretin person.

Having said that, you asked the question, "How did a person like Ed Yourdon miss the boat so badly?"

Obviously, we can only speculate, because no one knows what someone else is thinking. However, I think there can only two ways to answer that:

1) Ed, had to know that things wouldn't be as bad as he predicted because he had to have access to more information than I did, and I predicted a three somewhere around the first of December, I think. If anybody really took the time to seek out real live people who worked for a electric company, or gas company, they knew it couldn't be an 8 or above. Wouldn't it make sense that Ed had greater access to those people because he was traveling the country giving seminars? They were at our seminars. Ed was even at one of our seminars! (Although, I don't know which one.)

If this scenario is the case, then Ed simply spread FUD for profit.

2)Ed isn't smart enough to weigh conflicting information, or, he's so distrustful of anyone in a position of authority he won't listen to them.

If this scenario is the case, he's just plain crazy.

Either way, he's not someone I'd want to have over for a cup of coffee.

~*~

-- laura (ladylogic@....), March 09, 2000.

To LL:

And you, of course, have exhibited the kind of behaviour in the past that would make you a welcome guest. I think not!

-- Thinking (tiredofstupidity@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

I agree, Ken...we certainly CAN do better. I also agree with Chris and Deb. As I wrote in response to Lisa on her "We can't recombine" thread, open fora ALWAYS have problems because the diversity of the group is so extensive. This is in contrast to closed fora where everyone is required to adhere to the same dogma.

Personal attacks, IMO, are indicative of a lack of self-discipline. Some prefer to think that personal attacks should be equated with "not taking something laying down...standing UP for whatever they believe." It seems to ME that if one wants to "stand up for what they believe" they could STATE what they believe rather than attack another for NOT believing the same.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 09, 2000.

* How did a person like Ed Yourdon miss the boat so badly?

Probably the same way the federal gov't, pretty much every state gov't, and scores of major corporations did?

Have we forgotten so quickly the numerous "bunkers" and "command centers" and SERIOUS "doomer-preps"? If it was REALLY known to be a Big Nothing, then why did the GOV'T act like it was an UNknown -- but potentially CATASTROPHIC risk?

* Can anyone really prepare for a social and economic meltdown?

Ask the Naval War College.

Understand, I'm NOT defending Yourdon (his recent Jonestownesque endeavors have pissed me off considerable much), and I'm not trying to start a flame war.

I'm just trying to put things into a little bit of perspective.

I see it as if we were on an airliner that had an in-air crisis, had to make a white-knuckle "take off your shoe and put your head between your knees" emergency landing, and now that we're on the ground, I hear people saying "hell, what was the big deal anyway?"

One other thing: it seems to me that the jury isn't QUITE in yet on the petroleum thing. As someone put it on http://www.elsi.org/renewable.htm --

(excerpt):

In fact, fires, explosions, and unplanned down time seems to have been wreaking havoc with refinery operators ever since the beginning of the new year, aggravating the problem by causing shortages of refined products and fueling frequent price spikes.

One man, Jim Bell, founder of the 22 year old Ecological Life Systems Institute (ELSI) suggests that the oil industry has not been forthcoming with the public about the status of their domestic refinery equipment. Could they be trying to hide something?

"Barely a year ago, Congress was told that only about 30% of U.S. refineries would be ready for Y2K. At the same time, special laws were rammed through Congress keeping the Y2K readiness level of their systems a secret from the public. It's hard to believe that all this sudden failure of refinery equipment is merely a coincidence. I think its outrageous that they can't open their secret files now and let us see what's behind all the accident' and injuries."

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 09, 2000.

Personally, I think peer pressure has some impact. We will always have those who attack mindlessly, however, community disapproval does discourage some acting out. A real litmus test is the willingness to challenge the inappropriate behavior of those with whom you agree. For example, Charles Reuben is an avowed Y2K optimist. While I generally agreed with his position on Y2K, I did not approve of his tactics including the infamous "list making." Initially, I tried a reasonable appeal to Lady Logic. When her inappropriate behavior continued, I condemned her actions as did almost every other participant in the Y2K fora.

We ought to make civil discourse more important than scoring points with the other members of one's "team." If the leading Y2K pessimists had spoken out strongly against old forum bullies, I think it would have been a more enjoyable (and productive) forum. And now we have a second chance.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 09, 2000.

To get back to the topic - how did Ed Yourdon miss the boat so completely?

I recall Ed's predictions, and they were for a 3 day outage at max, followed by a decade of things not working very well because of residual date-related software problems. I don't recall anything he wrote that predicted the end of western civ as we know it.

I think Ed and other programmers were used to software projects managed by political games-playing bureaucrats, with very high failure rates, and just didn't believe that Y2K would be different. Managers tried to tell Ed that things were different, but he didn't believe them. In short, he (and some of the rest of us) believed that the Dilbert tendencies in American business were stronger than the institutional urge for self-preservation.

I don't think that the outcome we saw was inevitable. I think that we survived Y2K because the threat of disaster was so credible that businesses were able to cut through a lot of political bs and actually do what needed to be done. In addition, businesses were able to automate a lot of Y2K remediation work, so there was no labor shortage.

I speak only about mainframe software. I don't know the story on embedded chips. And I have no clue about why the participant on this forum took such delight in screaming insults at each other.

-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), March 09, 2000.

Ken,

Can't you think of someone/anyone else to save????

Perverts-R-Us wouldn't let it happen anyway.....

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), March 09, 2000.

I disagree with your last post, Ken. I don't feel an obligation to condemn immature posts. Y2kPro and I debated this issue on the old TB2000 forum. He wanted to know why more folks didn't openly condemn the threads wherein folks discussed killing pollies and [most grievous, IMO], the threads wherein recipes were shared for eating folks after death. I wrote Diane regarding the recipe thread, but why would I involve myself in a conversation that disgusted me?

Archiver recently said about me, "Anita never defended TB2000 posters at Debunkers." What he/she ommitted was that I never defended Debunkers at TB2000 either. BOTH camps had a vocal minority that led the other camp to believe these opinions were representative. It is not MY job to correct the stereotypes that folks choose to believe. MY job is to ensure that what *I* present reflects MY thought process, and oftentimes I fail to do THAT correctly.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 09, 2000.

Ken, I too found myself thinking about His Highness recently and wondered if he would honor us with an appearance. As I long-time forum member I was astounded at the Kings transition and he, more than anyone else, GOT IT RIGHT.

Come back KOS and join the fun.

-- Sifting (through@the.rubble), March 09, 2000.

Ken,

How did a diverse group of people become convinced Y2K was the fifth rider of the Apocalypse?

I don't think that most doomers were CONVINCED that things would be bad, but had the foresight to see that the possibility of it was high enough that preparations were prudent. It wasn't just about the probability, it was about the stakes. News about remediation was conflicting, the government said not to worry, but was building a bunker, some experts said no problem, other said yeah, problem. Industries were self reporting, with little incentive to be "upfront" if they did indeed have problems, with the legal people playing CYA the whole time. It was just down right hard to figure out who to believe and not to believe.

How did a person like Ed Yourdon miss the boat so badly?

For the same reason the rest of us did. At any rate, I don't think that Ed was convinced either, he saw that there was a possibility for disruption. What would you say of a person who truly believed that we were in for very difficult times and didn't say anything? This is a moral dilemma. What IF Ed was right and he didn't say anything? How could he have lived with himself then? He made a tough decision, say something, and help people out if something happens, or don't say anything in case nothing happens to save himself from embarrassment. I think he erred on the side of moral responsibility.

Can anyone really prepare for a social and economic meltdown?

Remember the various scales of predicted disruption? Not every doomer saw it the same way. So we all prepared to the best of our ability for the outcome we saw most likely. I was high up there on the scale, and prepared heavily, but never felt it was enough. I didn't for example prepared for a nuclear meltdown or war. I felt there was no way to prepare for that. I just did my best to prepare for what I thought might happen, and crossed my fingers and hope it didn't.

I will tell you that I recall very clearly sitting here those last days of December lamenting over the lack of believable information that I have tried to obtain over the previous year or more. I honestly felt that really no one knew for certain what would happen (even the few who said they did). So, for all the time and money put into preps, I wondered if it was indeed necessary, yet didn't want to risk not having them when I found out for sure.

-- prudent (one@home.com), March 09, 2000.

Ed Yourdon also made the now famous comment about major American cities taking on the character of Beirut. Yourdon was a careful writer, however, and always talked about possible scenarios. He was reluctant to make an explicit doomsday prediction, however, he did become involved in projects with a doomsday flavor. (The preparation video and MLM business).

Like most IT types, Yourdon may have thought the American business community was a group of Dilbert-esque idiots. My observation, who is working for whom?

Anita, I support your right to simply ignore immature posts. I ignore the vast majority of posts on topic I have no interest... chemtrails, NWO, alien pod people, etc. I do not wander about looking for silly posts to criticize. Nor do I feel compelled to defend individuals like Flint or Hoff--individuals quite capable of defending themselves.

I do object to those who barge into serious threads with the sole objective of engaging in personal attacks. If I am enjoying a reasonable conversation, I will resist attempts to disrupt the process. I also support the other participants (on both sides) chiding the rabble rousers.

Prudent, I must respectfully disagree. Many Y2K pessimists were quite convinced we were going to meltdown on rollover. And the discussion of the odds and stakes has been held many times. It is imprudent to consider one without the other. If you only cared about the stakes, you would drive to work in a full nomex suit and helmet in a heavily fortified vehicle obeying every traffic law... or simply stay home.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 09, 2000.

I think Ed Yourdon missed the boat for a fairly obvious reason - he failed to grasp that Y2K remediation was fundamentally very different from the usual IT development projects he profiled in his earlier books (Decline and Fall, Death March etc).

Different how? 1) No design/redesign involved. 2) Individual Y2K fixes were pretty trivial. 3) Fixes were incremental in nature - you didn't have to wait for the entire project to finish before implementation.

(All these points were made by several folks last year.)

Once Ed ignored these facts and applied IT development metrics to the Y2K issue, his position was fairly predictable.

What I don't understand is why he can't bring himself to publicly consider these things now. Instead, he's taken his ball and gone home. Of course, he is updating his Structured Analysis book...

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

Howdy Ken

Haven't crossed paths in quite awhile,but I'm the courteous fellow who once shared his thoughts with you early in the game(I believe the topic was home defence?)Apparently there weren't many because in another post you pointed it out.

But I must respectfully disagree with your comments to Prudent ie. the odds vs the stakes.

I like to put it another way"better safe than sorry"

If I 'm correct the majority of people on the fora weren't IT gurus or longtime computer experts,that would leave those minimally tech oriented and the rest just regular people trying to weigh and judge the facts,rumors,reports etc.,all playing the "if" game.

Now me, whom I consider to be a reasonable and rational fellow,told myself that everybody else could debate the issue till the cows come home(or till the rollover)but I was not up to that debate.

I simply chose to be "better safe than sorry", the only error I could make was to not be prepared.Everything I bought,stocked up on were things we use in the normal course of life(with the exception of 80 gals of kerosene,that I will lose my shirt on,selling at 3/4 value).

I think Prudent reacted much the same as I, "better safe than sorry"

Good to run across ya again.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 09, 2000.

I too must disagree with Ken's implication that you were either smart (did what he did) or you went overboard. Almost like practicing good driving habits, keeping your car in good mechanical condition, and wearing a seatbelt don't count as preparation because such precautions are too "normal".

We're dealing with quite a wide spectrum here. Perhaps Ken means to ask how much nonrecoverable expense went into essentially useless preparations, and how much inconvenience and financial pain resulted from such expenses? Hell, I "bought ahead" long-shelf-life stuff I normally consume until I had a year's worth for 2 people. The "pain" was the loss of some cubic footage of living space, a very minor inconvenience.

Yet the world could have come to a standstill for an extended period of time and (barring invasion) we could have lived in solid comfort, hardly noticing. So Ken's repeated all-or-nothing depiction of the stakes concept is unconvincing. It was indeed possible to prepare for considerable stakes without going overboard or suffering any net loss.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 09, 2000.

Ken,

I would have hated to be a person of some authority and credulity prior to the rollover. I think someone like Ed must have had a thousand eyes and ears on him wanting to know what Y2K would bring. The problem is I believe in the old refrain, "no one really knows". I think what Ed was saying is that there was a potential problem and IF it occurs we can expect such and such. I truly think he acted with the best of intentions. Again, going back to stakes, he would have carried a much bigger burden today had he remained silent and things had worked out differently.

As far as preps are concerned, I really have wondered long about this, why would it matter to anyone else how I choose to spend MY money? I see people all the time spending money in ways I don't think sensible, however, do I chide them or attack them? No. I personally think buying lottery tickets is a waste of money, but hey, it isn't my money, therefore I don't care. Haven't we all at some time made a foolish purchase? Have you ever bought something that you thought you would use and never did? Ever buy a stock that didn't pay off, or an insurance policy that you never had to make a claim on? It was my decision, my money, it hurt no one and it is nobody else's business. I am not directing this complaint to you Ken, I am just stating it general to all those who seem to take such glee in chiding those who prepared.

-- prudent (one@home.com), March 09, 2000.

prudent:

Are you kidding? If I am selling something, how YOU spend YOUR money makes all the difference in the world to me. THINK about it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 09, 2000.

Flint:

I think you missed the last line on prudent's post.

"I am not directing this complaint to you Ken, I am just stating it general to all those who seem to take such glee in chiding those who prepared."

He/she isn't talking about folks who sold something.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 09, 2000.

Anita

Excactly!

I don't think the majority of us relied or got caught up in the sales pitch,we simply spent our money here and there with the interests of our famalies and selves of 1st importance.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 09, 2000.

Before one suggests that Ed or anyone else missed the boat, perhaps a rigorous examination of their position is in order. There has been a LARGE amount of bandying about of a position set that has not got a lot of support under rigorous examination.

A rigorous examination of EY's position reflects the following:

1) "No one KNOWs how things are going to play out"

2) " My belief is that we are looking at a year of depression and a decade of recession"

With the exception of the "NY like Berut" quote, which was explained several times as, not an EXPECTATION but a POSSIBILITY, EY didn't espouse any of the really radical positions represented on the old forum, nor the positions attributed to him.

His writings were CAUTIONARY in nature, and targetted at an audience which MAY have needed a VERY STRONG message to take what begin to look like prudent precautions.

As far as the year of depression goes, the Oil question hasn't quite been answered to MANY people's satisfaction. If the shortages predicted by the DOE materialize, things might get a bit dicey for you flatlanders.

Joss

-- Joss Metadi (warhammer@Pride.of.Mandeyne), March 10, 2000.

oss:

[A rigorous examination of EY's position reflects the following:

1) "No one KNOWs how things are going to play out"]

Here we have a subtle illustration of the all-or-nothing fallacy Gary North made so popular. Essentially, you are saying that if we lack *complete* knowledge, then we have *no* knowledge. In real life, we almost never have complete knowledge, but we can still know enough to be highly useful and productive.

And not everyone's knowledge is equal. We live in an age of specialization. I'm sure that in some important respects, your own knowledge exceeds mine significantly. I would certainly expect your opinions in your area of specialty to be better informed than mine, and your assessments to be more accurate. After all, you know a LOT more than I do in these areas.

Now, y2k happened to fall squarely within Yourdon's area of expertise -- an expertise sufficient for Yourdon to be a fairly well-known authority. You would expect his assessment of y2k to be pretty damn accurate as a result, right? Isn't that what expertise is all about?

Say you went to a physician who specialized in some disease, and he *falsely* diagnosed you as having that disease. By itself, you might consider this simple incompetence. BUT, let's say you found this physician had a financial interest in the cure he prescribed. Would you be somewhat suspicious, or would you argue that "nobody knows" whether you have this disease or not, so this error is natural and forgiveable?

[2) " My belief is that we are looking at a year of depression and a decade of recession"]

Not quite. Yourdon predicted a year of *disruption* and a decade of *depression*, purely as a result of computers mishandling dates. That sounds a LOT more serious than the phrasing you "recall" in this apologia. Interesting that in your own mind you would substantially downgrade Yourdon's prediction to be more nearly in line with reality, rather than question his motives, eh?

Yes, I freely admit I am assuming Yourdon is competent and knowledgeable. I am assuming he was well aware of what everyone in the IT world knew, with the exception of a tiny handful who were selling something that required public fear or considerable public doubt to create a market.

I also admit I am drawing indirect inferences. Why did Yourdon select nothing but known petty pessimists as his "moderators"? Why did he say nothing when he knew from his own direct experience that the extreme positions taken were unsupported by reality? Why did he take no action at the clear censorship of optimists that was happening? Why did he choose to exclude those whose only "crime" was to point these things out, and then refuse to explain his decision? Why did his articles and essays increasingly come to lean on inapplicable metrics, and carefully avoid any mention of real-world experience happening all around him? Why did he write that "nobody really expected" what he himself had written was the "most likely scenario"? Why has he never discussed how he got it so totally wrong? Why did *all* of his posts the first few days after rollover request documentation of every dire rumor, and never mention the nearly everything that worked fine? Who might constitute his market for his current opus on how to recover from what never happened? Why did he participate in "Get rich off of y2k" marketing schemes?

Sure, if you wish you can choose to believe that Yourdon was sincerely, overwhelmingly (and *still*) utterly fooled by such a major event in his own specialty, and on which he focused a large part of his energy and attention for several years. A bonafide ignoramus whose blunders supported his income sources by pure coincidence, a coincidence that continues in force to this day!

For me, a willing suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 10, 2000.

"Why did Yourdon select nothing but known petty pessimists as his "moderators"?"

Flint, you show a strong bias here. You're putting all the moderators into a stereotype.

Diane Squire was a well known moderator, (who has moved on now btw and is not moderating the new forum, but helping to maintain the old archives). How do you justify her "pettyness"? Diane was contributing heavily in the research department before she became moderator, bringing links and articles on both sides of the issue. I was against moderation when the issue came about, but if moderation HAD to take place, I viewed Diane as a middlegrounder with a stable personality and bright, and logical unbias choice from Ed's part. Am I wrong to believe she was the first moderator? I think Ed's forum started degenerating when more moderators came aboard. Now the question is, who selected the subsequent moderators? Diane? Ed? both together? Was Diane aware of manipulation towards the "doomerism" atmosphere slowly taking place? Personaly, I don't believe she did, nor had she any dishonest motives. Too many of us ex-doomers have been taken in by this whole thing.

Everyone would do well to read Dr. Schenker's "doomers" articles.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 10, 2000.

Correction: "How do you justify her "pettyness"?" should have said "how do you justify calling her petty?"

Flint, I view your comment as character bashing and just want to point that out, since the same was done to you. This sort of thing clouds the issue at hand; Ed's motives. I realize that's in itself a character bashing issue, but lets try not to bash all the innocent and not so innocent bystanders in the process.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 10, 2000.

Chris,

You said, "Was Diane aware of manipulation towards the "doomerism" atmosphere slowly taking place?"

She HAD to know. I believe she was the one to initiate all of the global bans. Do you honestly think it is coincidence that Only polly's were banned? NO! It cannot be a coincidence!

Now, I know some people are going to say, "What about Decker, Flint, and Hoff?" I've wondered that same thing myself, and I think I know the answer. Ed and Diane weren't stupid, they knew that if they banned anyone who posted from work, gave their real name, or were VERY popular, it could create a lot of trouble for them. It was easy to ban an anonymous polly who posted from home! Nobody knew who we were anyway, so what difference did it make? By doing that, they were able to keep your attention focused on FUD, or else they just didn't want you to hear both sides of the issue.

I think the sysops (I refuse to call any of them moderators because that's a misnomer) that followed were just brainwashed and doing their job without questioning what was going on.

It really doesn't make any difference, but it really aggravates me that she and Ed are getting away with it scott-free.

~*~

-- laura (ladylogic@.....), March 10, 2000.

al-d was banned (or at least heavily censored), he (it?) was not a polly, more of an "idiot savant for Jesus".

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), March 10, 2000.

There were only five names on that banned list, unk. NONE of them were Al_D. Be fair; only pollys were banned.

~*~

-- laura (ladylogic@......), March 10, 2000.

No, Laura, I think Deedah is right. Prior to when the incidents involving yourself occurred, posts were getting deleted without explanation. I know because I watched it happen numerous times. Al-d was one whose posts were simply deleted without a word. There was no official ban list at the time, but the deleting started way before the ban list did.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 10, 2000.

Yep, Unc is correct, as is Buddy, I outta know, was there a LONNNGGG time... deletes started before the 'hit list'.

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), March 10, 2000.

Al-D, if I remember, started being deleted when more moderators came on. But I remember Diane had a huge conflict with Doc Pauly, who wanted MIT to remove the forum from its server. (I didn't pay much attention to all that sort of stuff going on, there was just too much to read and I was primarily interested with events directly related to y2k.) Diane obviously disagreed with me on moderation, as she became one herself eventually, but at the time the conflict she had with doc Pauly seemed justified. Who wanted the forum taken down back then? Unreasonable people, IMO.

But my problem in all of this is that people in general, and even Flint who apparently thinks more critically than I do, appear to be morphing all the sysops into one entity, agreeing on all issues. Many sysop actions were done against Diane's will and endorsing. There lies the caveats in moderated forums. And the more numerous the moderators, the worse it gets.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 10, 2000.

Random thoughts...

I respected Ed Yourdon more before rollover than after. The Rodney Dangerfield essay was laughable and the "new" forum is silly. Perhaps you can argue that he should have known better... but he certainly knows better now. His response... avoid responsibility and gather up the true believers.

A layperson says "better safe than sorry." An economist asks, "but at what cost?" The law of diminishing returns applies to many human endeavors... including risk management.

Preparation, as an issue, has many shades of gray. Like driving, there are modest precautions one can take to ensure a greater level of safety. And there are more extreme measures. The real key here is why we tolerate high risks in some areas and react strongly to low risks in others. To me, we bear familiar risks like driving rather well... and we overreact to unusual risks.

As for "chiding" people, I support economic freedom. Some people collect beanie babies, others spend money on pay-per-view wrestling. If a person wants to store food, I have no particular objection. In fact, my only disagreements on "preparation" happened when I was attacked for "encouraging" people to "not prepare" and thus having "blood on my hands."

As for the moderators, I agree with Flint's characterization as petty and pessimistic... (though I do like Chuck Rienzo.) Unlike some, Diane was willing to make amends with me. She has always been a dyed- in-the-wool Yourdon follower. As for representing "both sides," I NEVER ONCE saw Diane defending the optimist position.

I do question the policies of the old sysops including Squire. The delete-on-sight policy raised authorship above content... a nasty turn of events. And I always fought the double-standard where the Yourdon followers were allowed (even encouraged) to engage in personal attacks while the heretics were castigated, edited and eventually deleted.

In a truly odd twist, I agree with Laura's contention that certain "pollies" were tolerated because open deletion would have caused an uproar. I think Flint's ban from the "new" forum was a catalyst for this venue.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 2000.

Ken:

Some comments about your comments (why not?)

1) With respect to Yourdon, I suggest that what today is clear to all but the determinedly blind, really was clear before rollover to those with sufficient technical knowledge and experience to grasp the issue in all its glorious detail. Nontechnical people, as discussed by Hoff, were not equipped to see this at the time.

2) About risks, you raise a point many have puzzled over. The more comprehensible the danger, the higher the risk we are willing to take. People feel sorry for all those lost in coal mine collapses, but they *understand* such accidents. Nobody has died in any US nuclear accident, but 3-mile-island is a byword nontheless, while who can name a coal mine? I suspect if we can't understand a danger, we can't be sure that it doesn't endanger us personally, or we don't feel we have any effective control over the situation.

3) On preparation, if you weren't part of the "solution", you were part of the problem. Anyone not a true believer is an unbeliever, and failure to profess faith is to deny it. And "odds vs. stakes" is still misunderstood. Saying there is no hurricane at all, is qualitatively different from saying there's a big hurricane almost (but not quite) sure to miss us. But I despair of ever communicating this difference.

4) As for Diane, see my response to Chris below.

5) I probably had some catalytic effect. After all, those who don't like me couldn't even have the joy of attacking me anymore. Deprivation! More seriously, many participants understood the concept of the loyal opposition. I firmly believe Yourdon selected sysops for their *inability* to grasp this, and their reflexive equation of disagreement with disloyalty.

Chris:

No, I don't deny a strong bias here. Of course I have one. Nonetheless, I submit the following for your consideration, if not necessarily your agreement.

1) While Diane was roundly thanked and applauded for her yeoman efforts cleaning up after spam attacks, it was at the very least highly plausible that the censorship policies, in which she was instrumental, were the *cause* of those attacks. Those censored people are now free to post, they do so, and Lo! there's no spam. So by now it should be obvious that the reason Diane had to keep fixing her foot is because she kept shooting herself in it.

2) While Diane *claimed* she was a moderate, this is belied by her posted comments. a) She "invited" many people to leave, and EVERY ONE of them was optimistic. She invited me to leave at least 3 times by my count. She never ONCE "invited" even the most mindlessly vicious doomer to leave. b) She condemned personal attacks, but named ONLY optimistic attackers, and posted her condemnation ONLY in response to "polly" attacks. When doomers attacked (and any count from the archives will show these were overwhelmingly more common), she was SILENT. c) When she disagreed with a position taken, it was *invariably* with an optimistic position. To my knowledge she NEVER ONCE took issue with even the most baseless and ludicrous doomer claims.

3) About those links. She produced a huge number, and NONE of them were links to good news, or statements of compliance, or progress reports, or successful testing. Every one of them was a link to either a problem report, or a pessimistic speculation, or an expression of deep concern, or to material widely interpreted in a negative light. You say her links were to "both sides", but I invite you to go back and look at the pattern. No links to the "corporate self-serving lies" now shown to be correct and accurate.

4) A goodly amount of the effort she put into "disappearing" disapproved posters was spent excising legal (and often topical) posts made by those who had done something to get on her wrong side. Y2K Pro never once spammed the TB2K forum. He submitted a post, and when a censor found it and removed it, he submitted it again. Some of the threads became impossible to follow, there were so many deletions of LEGAL posts. In other words, she was out to punish the *person*, rather than the behavior. This fits my description of "petty". Yours may differ.

Somehow, none of this ever struck me as "middle ground" or "unbiased". YMMV.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 10, 2000.

Flint, some comments on your comments on Ken's comments (why not? ;-) ) and then my reponse to your comments on Diane.

Ken:

Some comments about your comments (why not?)

1) With respect to Yourdon, I suggest that what today is clear to all but the determinedly blind, really was clear before rollover to those with sufficient technical knowledge and experience to grasp the issue in all its glorious detail. Nontechnical people, as discussed by Hoff, were not equipped to see this at the time.

As proven by my own admissions in several threads so far, I agree with this statement of yours. Hence my comment above "everyone would do well to read Dr. Schenker's "doomer's articles". He explains what you're saying, and expands on other points you haven't mentioned here.

2) About risks, you raise a point many have puzzled over. The more comprehensible the danger, the higher the risk we are willing to take. People feel sorry for all those lost in coal mine collapses, but they *understand* such accidents. Nobody has died in any US nuclear accident, but 3-mile-island is a byword nontheless, while who can name a coal mine? I suspect if we can't understand a danger, we can't be sure that it doesn't endanger us personally, or we don't feel we have any effective control over the situation.

So in other words, what you're saying is "better safe than sorry". Which is the stance I saw most of us "ex-doomers", that is those of us not in the "determinedly blind" camp, held.

3) On preparation, if you weren't part of the "solution", you were part of the problem. Anyone not a true believer is an unbeliever, and failure to profess faith is to deny it.

I was aware of this prevailing atmosphere( although I did not personaly believe that "failure to profess it is to deny it". To me that was an extreme stance), and was in a sense part of it, by contradicting this extreme stance. I honestly did not think that I was doing anything wrong though, on the contrary. I was part of the "better safe than sorry" crowd. Hindsight being 20/20, I realize now that my tiny voice, and my lack of more forceful challenge, was contributing to that atmosphere.

And "odds vs. stakes" is still misunderstood. Saying there is no hurricane at all, is qualitatively different from saying there's a big hurricane almost (but not quite) sure to miss us. But I despair of ever communicating this difference.

You mean you despair to reach EVERYONE, is it not so? You've communicated it to me and I'm sure quite a few others. As you said yourself, there are people "determinedly blind". Noone can save the entire human race from its foolishness and ignorance. We must deal with this and learn when to let go.

4) As for Diane, see my response to Chris below.

5) I probably had some catalytic effect. After all, those who don't like me couldn't even have the joy of attacking me anymore. Deprivation! More seriously, many participants understood the concept of the loyal opposition. I firmly believe Yourdon selected sysops for their *inability* to grasp this, and their reflexive equation of disagreement with disloyalty.

In hindsight I agree with this. And you yourself say that the sysops had the *inability* to grasp this. If you understand that, then it's only a step away to understand that their motivations were not necessarily dishonest, but simply misguided. I'm not defending all of the sysops in this discussion, only Diane, because she's the one whom I knew most. You and I were here when she came on the forum. I've watched her evolve as I've watched you evolve, and I also evolved, over the months.

Chris:

No, I don't deny a strong bias here. Of course I have one. Nonetheless, I submit the following for your consideration, if not necessarily your agreement.

Having admitted your bias, you realize that your perceptions are heavily filtered through negative emotions. Having said that, I also admit that my own perceptions could as well be filtered through more positive emotions. But I'll give it a shot at considering your comments on Diane anyway.

1) While Diane was roundly thanked and applauded for her yeoman efforts cleaning up after spam attacks, it was at the very least highly plausible that the censorship policies, in which she was instrumental, were the *cause* of those attacks. Those censored people are now free to post, they do so, and Lo! there's no spam. So by now it should be obvious that the reason Diane had to keep fixing her foot is because she kept shooting herself in it.

Define "spam attacks" If by spam attacks you refer specifically to LL's spam attacks, I agree. But who else did those attacks? You yourself below defend Y2K Pro has never having done such, which to my knowledge I agree he hasn't.

2) While Diane *claimed* she was a moderate, this is belied by her posted comments. a) She "invited" many people to leave, and EVERY ONE of them was optimistic. She invited me to leave at least 3 times by my count. She never ONCE "invited" even the most mindlessly vicious doomer to leave. b) She condemned personal attacks, but named ONLY optimistic attackers, and posted her condemnation ONLY in response to "polly" attacks. When doomers attacked (and any count from the archives will show these were overwhelmingly more common), she was SILENT. c) When she disagreed with a position taken, it was *invariably* with an optimistic position. To my knowledge she NEVER ONCE took issue with even the most baseless and ludicrous doomer claims.

a) The administrator here, who professes to be simply the enabler of freespeech, has him/herself invited people to leave if they weren't happy with the forum. This proves nothing, except maybe that the moderator did not want to argue the person's choices/views.

b) My recollections are different. When she was a "fresh" moderator, and basicly doing the moderations by herself, she condemned BOTH sides flamings and attacks. I recall her often admonishing the likes of INVAR, as well as Jimmy Bagga Donuts (remember that time?)

c) As I said before, I watched her evolve...into a doomer. But so have I. My contention remains that her motives were not dishonest, but misguided. I see no pettiness in standing up for once's convictions.

3) About those links. She produced a huge number, and NONE of them were links to good news, or statements of compliance, or progress reports, or successful testing. Every one of them was a link to either a problem report, or a pessimistic speculation, or an expression of deep concern, or to material widely interpreted in a negative light. You say her links were to "both sides", but I invite you to go back and look at the pattern. No links to the "corporate self-serving lies" now shown to be correct and accurate.

See my response in c) above. For the time she wasn't a moderator, my recollection is that she heavily contributed links and articles on both side of the issue. So much so that she would get my head in a spin with one article saying one thing, the next one contraticting it, on and on in a slew of threads, day after day for weeks.

4) A goodly amount of the effort she put into "disappearing" disapproved posters was spent excising legal (and often topical) posts made by those who had done something to get on her wrong side. Y2K Pro never once spammed the TB2K forum. He submitted a post, and when a censor found it and removed it, he submitted it again. Some of the threads became impossible to follow, there were so many deletions of LEGAL posts. In other words, she was out to punish the *person*, rather than the behavior. This fits my description of "petty". Yours may differ.

Again, you're describing the more recent events. I'm wondering how YOU would have handled the kind of trolling, impostering and poison that went on this forum, from an insider's view, knowing who was really who. Wondering if it would not have affected your views on what the truth was, especially if you were like her, a nontechnical person trying to make sense of all this collective garbage.

Somehow, none of this ever struck me as "middle ground" or "unbiased". YMMV.

She came on definitely with a middleground open mind, not taking sides and tried to make up her own mind like the rest of us.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 10, 2000.

Chris:

On some of this, we will again simply have to agree to disagree. You say you watched Diane evolve. From my perspective, this "evolution" happened quite suddenly, and started immediately after Yourdon gave her the keys to meddle. Very often, you don't know who is corrupt until they have power to abuse, y'know?

And I never did understand why Y2K Pro was hounded so assiduously, and his posts removed even when thoughtful or well buried. Granted, he generally had unflattering things to say about others, which made me uncomfortable as well. But certain no worse, nor *nearly* as often, as (say) Ray, or Andy, or even KOS. So if these deletions were solely on the basis of content, why not leave in the benign posts, and why not delete Andy or Ray? Certainly the *simplest* explanation is that the latter two held the "approved" opinion. As Ken points out, basing censorship on author and NOT on content is petty.

Chris, I am far from the only person to point out that a double standard by the "moderators" was rampant. That odious "OutingsR" persona did more than lucky guesswork, and NEVER went after pessimists. Diane didn't admit Milne was popping up as different people and calling me profane names until I challenged her directly. And *then* she said it was "tongue in cheek". Aaah, I could go on and on, but we both saw what we chose to see.

Nonetheless, I stand by what I wrote. The old forum went downhill quickly under Diane's reign. I'll go along with "misguided", though, why not? I never felt she was coherent enough to be evil.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 10, 2000.

Flint,

After Ed Yourdon's inept Senate performance, I thought he might simply be man in well over his head. Oh, I challenged the obvious conflict of interest between his business schemes and his try at Y2K reporter. Like you, I hammered at his misplaced metrics and his off- base analysis. Until rollover, I thought he might have made an honest mistake.

You make an apt point about risk. John Stossel has an excellent piece entitled, "Are we scaring ourselves to death?" It would be fascinating to come back in a few hundred years and assess how our fears have evolved. I suppose we'll become used to nuclear power, and find something novel to frighten us.

Your essay on Diane is objective and quite accurate. I am not sure any of the old sysops understood how they made the situation worse. And I'm not sure they really cared.

I am still surprised by individuals like Chris. It is as if he (or she) was reading a different forum. From my first posts on the forum, Diane was disapproving (initially in a new age "Earth Mother" sort of manner.) In the end, it was difficult to tell her apart from the legion of "polly bashers." Oh, and her reaction to the "Debunker" threat was almost laughable. Diane prattled on about how the "Pollies" planned to destroy the TB 2000 forum. Does anyone else share the sense of irony.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 2000.

Flint, I accept your "on some points we'll just have to agree to disagree". Since we both have different emotional filters, it would be masochistic to continue on at this point.

Ken, my original post about Diane in this thread was to point out that the original issue of Ed's motives should not be turning into a character bashing on the sysops.

You said " am still surprised by individuals like Chris. It is as if he (or she) was reading a different forum." You, like Flint, are filtering what you perceived through a more negative filter. And you as well as Flint, are missing some very important pieces of the puzzle, such as the mechanics of the Lusenet forums, which enabled Diane to see some goings on which you did not. Also, we both were most certainly interested in different threads and/or did not always read the same garbage/info/misinfo/whatever.

My point to you is... get over it, Ken. Try to move on like the rest of us, and Diane herself. Lets focus on Ed's motives, since that was HIS forum, he had ultimate control over it.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 10, 2000.

Just a piddly little point. the sysops on the EZboard forum are self-selected.

Oh yeah, another little point- Until you run a board like this, with the data and intervention options that both ARE and ARE NOT available to you, and receive the e-mails that a sysop receives, you can have ABSOLUTELY NO CONCEPT of what it is like.

Now, if you are running a board where the subject is not contentious, or is not shrouded, or believed to be shrouded, the situation is in no way the same.

Chris is correct in that the moderators/sysops were NOT monolithic.

OY VEY We were and are the farthest thing FROM monolithic. I defy you to get 6 or 8 people into a room and find that they agree on everything. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!

If you weren't on the distro list for the e-mails you haven't a clue, and it would be WAY too hard to reconstruct, since most of mine are gone. (as it is I STILL have 1 to 1.5 gig of email, much of which I will be deleting soon as it is digests form the forum)

BELIEVE me, part of the reason I have backed away from BOTH fora is that I REALLY didn't enjoy going through 200-300 emails a day. Half of which were from forum regulars complaining about something the sysops had or had not done. the interesting thing was that half the complaints were about stuff we had done something about and the other half were complaints about stuff we had left alone, with NO consensus. Most of us figgered that if we had pissed off the range of people we had pissed off, we were steering a reasonable course. Hindsite MIGHT or MIGHT NOT bear this out, but it IS past, and I just don't have the desire or energy to go and revisit the issues.

chuck

PS attributing everything one objects to to Diane is as shortsighted and as narrow minded as the most rabid doomer is/was reputed to be.

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), March 11, 2000.

I agree with Chuck's last comment. There is no reasonable basis for concentrating even on Ed Yourdon. Mr. Yourdon wrote a book, true, but I doubt that many people made radical changes or preparations because of one book (hopefully). I also don't think Flint should be viewed as a heretic for questioning motives, and subsequently banned. I HOPE that Flint is wrong, but I think time will tell. I'm content to leave that issue to time. Wherever...however the miscalculations came, we were in good company. I feel our own government was ambiguous in many respects. Yes, yes, we heard the "three day storm mantra", but we also saw them sinking millions of dollars into 'control centers/bunkers'. We read the words of Senator Bennett, who ought to have had the inside scoop, and of Koskinen himself that put more than a bit of doubt into the pot. Remember when Koskinen commented that he sometimes couldn't sleep...it seems he had to wonder himself how it would all come out in the wash. If it was a hoax, it was on a gargantuan scale.

Ken, you keep asking for insight into the mindset of those who prepped. Gilda mentioned parents from the depression era... ditto that here. We have small children, and I don't like the feeling of risk when it comes to certain basics. It was initially and mostly just less anxiety to prep. Towards the end, I was getting burned out with it all, but that was the 'unknown' factor of the whole thing. You seemed sure of your predictions, but other credible people and sources seemed very concerned. I wouldn't put all my eggs in an Ed- basket or a Ken-basket personally. I watch some of the possible 'glitches' with mild interest, but honestly, I only cared about the grid staying up (having my washer and dryer for my mountains of laundry was truly the very first thought at midnight). My husband and are somewhat Bohemian in personality and lifestyle, but lots of kids and lots of pets kind of puts us in a minority group anyway. I did pass on quite a bit of information to family/friends before rollover, but tried to mainly limit it news articles, links to the Senate report, and the most credible sources I ran across. Now I regret any anxiety I may have contributed to, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. I stopped reading Gary North early on, because I had a problem reconciling his 'testimony' with his cold and abrasive condescension (seemingly) towards others. Also, I was only moderately concerned that the grid 'would' go down, just thought it possibly 'could'. I was more concerned about the unpredictable nature of unscrupulous humans in charge of weapons of mass destruction. When the rollover passed, I was relieved and thankful. I still think TSCHTF, but that is not from an apocalyptic mania or religious mania. It is because I don't believe that we who live in this present time are different from the rest of mankind historically, and history does tend to repeat itself. Nations rise and fall. Power ebbs and wanes. I just think it is very possible that we may live to see such a sea change in our nation. I'm basically the kind of person who likes to have Plan B. That is what prepping was mainly about for me. I plan to retain this 'insurance' within reason.

PS I still remember your post dealing with defending a fixed position. I really enjoyed that post.

-- Mumsie (shezdremn@aol.com), March 11, 2000.

[Just a piddly little point. the sysops on the EZboard forum are self- selected.]

Now HERE is an interesting tidbit. So tell me, Chuck, just how do I go about self-selecting myself as a moderator of that forum? I don't recall the procedures ever having been publicized. I distinctly recall that FAR from being able to select myself as a moderator, I'm not even allowed to express an opinion.

I have no idea what Chuck's statement means, but I pose the challenge. Either this is BULLSHIT, or it's fact and I can select myself as moderator. Which is it, Chuck?

And Chris, most of your apology for Diane rests on "inside information" she had and I (and Decker) did not. But where did YOU get this inside information? As I implied, it seemed such information was indeed being shared with cronies and carefully kept secret from anyone on the "enemy list" or suspected "fellow travellers". And this too is petty. And if you were NOT privy to such information, how can you use your "knowledge" of it as the heart of your position?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 11, 2000.

Changing the subject back to Mr. Yourdon, Flint, have you seen the responses on the EZBOARD forum to Jim Lord's "Farewell to Y2k" essay? I found it interesting in that Ed defends Lord's "a source that must remain anonymous" statement regarding the Asian country which presumably lost 50% of power. One of the moderators disagreed. Do you think the thread will be closed?

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 11, 2000.

Anita -- Of course it won't be closed.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 11, 2000.

Hi, Bigdog.

Do you think the discourse will continue, or do you think it likely that the subject will simply fade away?

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 11, 2000.

Anita:

I don't think it will be closed so long as the focus of the discussion involves the propriety of protecting the anonymity of sources. Any reporter understands this requirement.

But, should the discussion veer over into a heated debate about Yourdon's motivations in doing all he can to flog even the most preposterous doomer nonsense, then I'd expect a stern warning. Failing that, the thread will be closed.

But I think Big Dog is being practical here. The few posters left there who might ask uncomfortable (read: important) questions know better than to try, and the rest are here.

Meanwhile, the identity of this Asian country remains a secret even to its residents, who never noticed they lost power, and neither has anyone else except Lord's source. An issue Yourdon carefully sidesteps. Can we say "laughingstock", boys and girls?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 11, 2000.

Flint, Of course the identity of the country concerned must remaijn a secret. And the reason for this does involve national security, as explained in the statement:

He also said that one major Asian country (revealing the identity would endanger a source) lost 50 percent or more of its electrical power during the rollover. How close this country came to a cascading total collapse is uncertain. The incident was not made public by their (or our) government for unknown reasons. I have good reason to believe it involved national security. I do know the identity of the country, and I agree that keeping the information under wraps was necessary.

Any country that has developed the means to keep the loss of half of its generation capibility from the population has in its possession the greatest propaganda tool ever invented. Just imagine the use that a military power (USA for instance) could make of this ability. China could nuke the entire West coast, yet TPTB could use this propaganda tool to keep that fact from the entire population. Oil and gas supplies could be totally disrupted, yet the average person would never know. Y2K could have already caused a complete collapse of civilisation, and we are still not being told about it.

This is a truly amazing tool, and the fact of its existance must never be leaked.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), March 11, 2000.

Whats not funny is Yourdons unabashed kissy facing with Michael Hyatt. Ive stated before that the unholy trinity of Hyatt, North, and Yourdon were, and still are, conniving together to spread fear and BS for profit. Any doubts that you may have been harboring should be dispelled by reading the Jim Lord crap at the EZ board. Shame on you Ed, I thought you were a little smarter than that. Cream rises, scum sinks to the bottom.

-- Ra (tion@l.1), March 11, 2000.

Flint:

You mentioned: "An issue Yourdon carefully sidesteps." I noticed this myself. His argument leaned toward "If the US government is unwilling to relate the truth regarding the refinery failures, etc. that are happening, why would one think that ANOTHER government wouldn't ALSO cover up failures?" 50% of power lost...that strikes me as a bit LARGER to cover up than a few refineries down for maintenance.

In addition, if the 50% of power lost was at rollover, what possible consequences could there be to admitting this in retrospect? I surely understood when our government didn't admit to an important security function failing at rollover. There WAS a security risk in admitting such at the time. However, when the time was past, the truth was told.

I agree, Rational. It kindof reminds me of students at Princeton [or another upstanding university] who do something wrong and get together to coordinate the story that will be told later. There will be no variations. When one is queried, the other will simply say, "He's right."

Paula Gordon is doing the very same thing in supporting the anonymity of HER sources. She gave a LONG list of why these folks SHOULD remain anonymous, one of which was "unwillingness to discuss the topic with those outside the field." Um...uh...yet they're willing to discuss it with HER?

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 11, 2000.

Anita,

Paula Gordon was writing about the variety of reasons that people may have for wanting to remain anonymous.... she was not advocating that they should remain anonymous. Here are the words that you were referring to. She was explaining to a poster why she had used some anonymous sources in a posting of hers.

"Reasons for not being able to use names in the instances you sight can be wide ranging. Some of the reasons can include any or all of the following:

~ Sources have requested that their names not be used.

~ Sources have only agreed to share information if I promised not to reveal their names.

Some of the reasons for their wishing to remain anonymous may include the following:

~ They feel that their position might be in jeopardy.

~ They may feel constrained by their position in their company, agency, or organization and may not feel that they can fully forthcoming.

~ They may feel concerned that their professional reputation will be harmed.

~ They may expect that their character, integrity, or motives would be impugned if their name were to be connected with messages, information, or perspectives that are unpopular, unwelcome, controversial or readily misunderstood.

~ They may be kept by non-disclosure agreements from sharing information.

~ They may be concerned about their personal liability or the liability of the organization that they are part of.

~ They may be concerned that people will misunderstand or misconstrue what they say. They may not have the time or the inclination to help people understand what it is they are trying to say. An easy way around this is to put your ideas forward anonymously.

~ They may have been subject to direct or indirect threats.

~ There are those who are most comfortable talking with people in their own area of specialization. In fact there are some experts who, for whatever reasons, are not at all comfortable communicating their views. Being anonymous provides them cover. Potential embarrassment, as well as potential conflict can be avoided by remaining anonymous.

~ Some individuals have gotten burned badly when they have tried to share important information. They may agree to passing on information anonymously because they do not wish to risk getting burned again. There are others who will no longer share information even on any anonymous basis out of fear of repercussions.

~ It can be very hard for some people to discuss Y2K and embedded systems issues with objectivity. There are many people who do not wish to get involved in discussions that could give rise to rancorous debate or attack. Therefore they remain anonymous. Some will drop out of the discussion altogether.. "

It is one person's list of many possible reasons why some people may choose to remain anonymous or not say anything at all.

-- abc (abc@add.bc), March 11, 2000.

Somehow, I think it will be a LONG wait before we receive instructions for "self-selecting" ourselves as sysops over on the Censorboard -- and an equally long wait before Chuck (or anyone else) admits this claim was, uh, untruthful.

I'm reminded of the scene in Connecticut Yankee where the Yankee asks the charletan (who is telling a gullible audience what famous people are doing elsewhere) what he (the yankee) is doing with the hand he has behind his back. When questions are subject to immediate, unambiguous verification, they somehow get ignored by the charletans.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 11, 2000.

Yes indeed ABC, you have stated some valid and respectable reasoning regarding the actions of anonymous sources. However, to associate these points with the writings of Paula Gordon and Jim Lord shows a gross lack of comprehension on your part. I would like to give you the benefit of doubt and assume you are just uninformed not delusional.

-- Ra (tion@l.1), March 11, 2000.

Ra:

Please take a closer look at what I wrote to Anita above. Most of what is there in my post is quoted material written by Paula Gordon. The quotation marks are there. Sorry, I should have made it clearer what I was quoting.

The statements appear on another thread on this forum, the one about the GW panel program on March 15. Also, I mentioned no other names but hers.

-- abc (abc@acdc.again), March 12, 2000.

Sorry about that Flint, but I DO have a life outside the Internet and have been enjoying said life for the last couple days. Only spent a couple hours over 3 days on line. Which is a new record low for me when the capability has been available.

In ref "self-selected". Perhaps I used the wrong term. What I MEANT to indicate was that the sysop crew was completely volunteer, aproved by Ed, and consisted of a different group than had been at TB2K. There are a couple repeats and several who were not involved at TB2K.

Didn't mean to indicate that anyone who asked was OK'd. Sorry for the poor choice of words.

Next time you feel that I have been less than forthcoming in answering a question on a thread, try my e-mail. It hasn't changed. About the only thing I am doing nowadays is answering e-mail and QUICKLY lurking on a couple of boards. No more 7 hour Internet days after 12 hours of driving. [THANK GOD]

Night train

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), March 12, 2000.

Chuck:

In this case, I think your "correction" collapses under its own weight. The distinction between Ed "selecting" and "approving" sysops is purely procedural -- sysops must fulfill Ed's requirements and serve at his behest, one way or the other. I've certainly seen no instances where the "majority vote of the sysops" and Ed's preferences are at odds. If I had approval and veto power over a committee of my own choice, I'd expect the same. But I certainly wouldn't try to claim that decisions I made indirectly therefore weren't mine. Even volunteers know when they've been bought.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 12, 2000.

Been enjoying this thread, and have to interject. Charles Underwood Farley, Esq. may hold the key to the issue. I have been conditioned to expect a biting political comment from Mr Farley (always enjoying if not assenting) but he posts a thoughtful comment on a very important problem here. Thank God Houston isn't immediately impacted by the spill referenced this week-end in East Texas. I can assure you that having to make decisions on the welfare of a visiting 7 and 4 year old did not lend itself to eliminating "sensational" hype. I am totally sympathetic to Ft. Worth-Dallas and fears over possible water contamination. The point is that we are allowed to interject on different issues, think, rethink and express as we assess information. I still think that the old board was hitting too close to home on sensitive issues. It's better this way. Until MIT yanks us-and that will send red flags up all over the world-let's enjoy the outcome of the new paradigm and recognize the value of all the boards. So who gives a rip about reason as long as the ground rules allow us to be unreasonable? That's what makes this group dynamic. Sometimes an "unreasonable" thought takes a little while to take hold: and proof of that is in the Pope's apologies. Any dynamic thinking engenders conflict. I say go for it.

-- mike in houston (mmorris67@hotmail.com), March 12, 2000.