Bunfight at the Virtual Beanery

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - But it is said with the deepest of affection .

Nina - Actually that isn't the case. I don't hate John. I just have a bone to pick with him about how he feels free to comment on the other members of the board. If you were to go back and read through my points, you will see it is limited to that topic and points that are tangential to it.

[Wilfrid]

I like both Steve P and John. What I am taking issue with are John's repeated statements of a conclusion that he believes in, but that is unsupported by publicly available facts and that John knows I and certain other members are uncomfortable with.

Someone suggest a solution. Hounding John will not answer any of these questions. Repeatedly bringing threads back to the same issue is viable, but is bad for the site. Anyone got any ideas?

[Jinmyo]

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo!

A new page!

Oh.

I thought that this was the balic biothread for a minute. I see it is instead a thread of import and serious discussion.

Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. Excuse. Sorry.

[LaNiña]

Wilfrid - But it is said with the deepest of affection  .

Nina - Actually that isn't the case. I don't hate John. I just have a bone to pick with him about how he feels free to comment on the other members of the board. If you were to go back and read through my points, you will see it is limited to that topic and points that are tangential to it.

I didn't really mean hate, on the personal level. I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. I have a big problem with Whiting myself. While you can drive me nuts, I never doubt your motivtes for one second. I don't feel the same way about Whiting, even before the issue of his article came up.

[LaNiña]

I like both Steve P and John. What I am taking issue with are John's repeated statements of a conclusion that he believes in, but that is unsupported by publicly available facts and that John knows I and certain other members are uncomfortable with.

Someone suggest a solution. Hounding John will not answer any of these questions. Repeatedly bringing threads back to the same issue is viable, but is bad for the site. Anyone got any ideas?

Unfortunately, the only way for this to end is just to stop posting about it. Which we can't seem to manage (myself included).

[bigbear]

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo!

A new page!

Oh.

I thought that this was the balic biothread for a minute. I see it is instead a thread of import and serious discussion.

Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. Excuse. Sorry.

Welcome.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrd - Well it would help if John responded to the various questions on the merits. His lack of doing so is what makes issues regarding his membership keep popping up. When you asked me about my quick trigger finger in accusing someone of being a troll, I responded in the next post. John not only has avoided a response but has tried to steer attention away from this thread by posting an ad hominen attack against me in a new thread. It's the same with Suvir unfortunately. His unwillingness (or maybe it is how he was instructed to act) to apologize directly to the members he offended, nor to clear the air over his head about his involvement with any of the troll posters has kept his matter alive. What I don't understand (and I think this is at the heart of Cabby's question) is why they are allowed to get away with it?

Nina - And thank you for drawing that distinction.

[rich]

How about this for a solution:

Amendment I

Congress (substitute eGullet here) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government (substitute eGullet here) for a redress of grievances.

It seemed to work once before.

[Jaymes]

I like both Steve P and John. What I am taking issue with are John's repeated statements of a conclusion that he believes in, but that is unsupported by publicly available facts and that John knows I and certain other members are uncomfortable with.

Someone suggest a solution. Hounding John will not answer any of these questions. Repeatedly bringing threads back to the same issue is viable, but is bad for the site. Anyone got any ideas?

Unfortunately, the only way for this to end is just to stop posting about it. Which we can't seem to manage (myself included).

I hope we all can manage it.

I arrived at eGullet at about the same time as the "Nazi" thread.

Everyone kept talking about how much they enjoyed eGullet and how happy they were to be here. How they treasured the interaction, the comradarie, the foodie lessons learned. One person referred to it as "my beloved eGullet"; another said that, regarding one particular food topic, they had "learned more in two days on eGullet than in twenty years of professional cooking."

And then it all got caught up in the stink rising from an open wound of acrimony, dissension, and accusations, some undoubtedly justified, some surely not.

I feel like the girl who arrived at Woodstock just as the crowd was leaving....the girl standing there on the edge of something wonderful, listening to the crowd laughing as they streamed out, chatting about the cosmic event, the seminal moment in history, the coolest most fabulous thing ever.

Only by the time I got there, all that remained was a couple of farm boys throwing cow chips at each other and arguing over whose fault it was that there was such a mess, and who should be responsible for cleaning it up.

I just wish we could stop pointing fingers and slinging cow chips, and get back to the music.

[Miss J]

I have some pretty good analysis in my inbox about Cakewalk being a troll. Someone said it best yesterday in a PM. Any new member who starts out with a negative post is suspect. And that's because it echoes the tactics of the trolls.

Steve: I like you and think you're a good guy. And I am NOT trying to pick on you - or on the others who are taking this line - by making the following statement. But there seems to be quite a - how can I put it? - irresponsible approach to identifying trolls at the moment, and I think it's time we stopped.

Years ago, when I was a regular on usenet, I used to "track" trolls. The main method was to track down what computer, servers, and ISP (the real one, as real trolls often used false names and addresses) the suspected bad apple used. The BEGINNING of suspision was based on "analysis" of behaviour. It was NOT a positive identification. That's what all the technical tracking was for, and even then we couldn't always be certain that someone wasn't on a shared machine or having their accounts highjacked.

A troll is someone who doesn't believe in what s/he's saying, but instead formulates a personae designed to cause a storm in the targeted group. And it's rather important - and relevant - that we often found that a lot of friction-causing people were legitimate.

I think it would be a good thing if we tried to keep in mind that where there may be a consensus of opinion, that doesn't mean that anyone who disagrees with it is doing so out of a simple desire to be provocative. And a free speech site - which many egulleteers seem to feel is a good thing - supports that. It doesn't immediately try to muzzle dissidents by a) insisting that their opinions "aren't real" and then b) "prove" that without any facts to support it. And given that the only people with facts are the mods, the rest of us are in no position to wind ourselves up on what may/may not have happened.

This is all I'm going to post on this subject. If anyone has questions, comments or arguments that they'd like me (specifically) to respond to, please PM them to me and I will correspond privately.

[Jinmyo]

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo!

A new page!

Oh.

I thought that this was the balic biothread for a minute. I see it is instead a thread of import and serious discussion.

Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. Excuse. Sorry.

Welcome.

Whoooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I've finally earned the much coveted "Welcome" from the venerable bigbear.

Oh.

Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.

[John Whiting]

Some people are not reading carefully. My last post said goodbye. Plotnicki has won. He now has two notches in his pistol. I'll join Suvir and post occasionally in the Indian ghetto, but mostly I'm back to caring for my own web site again. Steven Shaw should do the same; the last time I looked at his prize-winning site the latest item was almost four months old. He's too good for that.

This place is insidious. A thousand postings in a few months? That's ridiculous! So please don't ask me any more questions; they're blowing away in the wind. Just talk amongst yourselves.

[Gavin Jones]

I would be extremely sad to see John go.

I will also point out that Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is an extremely serious form of child abuse.

SteveP. has suggested that he used it as a 'joke'.

I hope he will either edit his original post (if he has not done so) or explain why it is appropriate to suggest 'jokingly' that active members of this site suffer from this syndrome.

[Bux]

Cabrales, I've already taken Whiting to task for speculating and for making assumptions read as facts, but okay, I understand it could lead you to speculate further. My question is really to what end? Is this to become a court where we try those who offend the majority or will it be a place where different opinions, including the unpopular and even the unfair, are heard? If so, how are we to react when one member attacks another by accusing him of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and then ingenuously complains of an ad hominen attack when the baited party returns the slur in kind?

[Simon Majumdar]

The Egullet Theatre Company presents:

Helen

I would have thought that "Time & The Conways" was a more appropriate Priestly play for The Egullet Players to put on as their first presentation. Isn't that about a group of people going round and round in time as they move closer to hell?

I will be sad to see John go. I was one of the ones who invited him here and he contributes much if in his mischievious way.

To equate him with the trolls is slightly silly. Didn't Arthur Miller write a play about that? Perhaps that could be our second play

" He's a troll I tell you. Burn Him"

S

[Wilfrid]

As I said earlier, hounding John gets us nowhere, except in the direction of losing an excellent contributor. The issue lies elsewhere, and we can either drop it or beat it into the ground.

Which reminds me, Simon, I had a dream about you last night. And your brother, whom I have yet to meet. You were jointly running a restaurant. I, and others from eGullet, had arrived to conduct an oyster eating contest, following which I was to braise some beef in the oyster juice. The curious thing about the restaurant was that you had food supplied delivered by having them dropped through a hole in the roof by an airplane. You were in the RAF, for some reason. If anyone thinks I am making this up...

[=Mark]

What's a Virtual Beanery?

[Jinmyo]

Mark, it's like a real Beanery but it's not real. What's a Beanery?

[Bux]

If anyone thinks I am making this up...

Wilfrid, you loom scarier and scarier by the day.

The only response will be to post "I'm even scarier by night."

[ahr]

I held off on posting this, in response to pleas by Messrs. Fat Guy and Plotnicki to “just let it drop,” but with three subsequent pages of thread under the bridge, what the hey…

Mr. Whiting’s article was, as always, beautifully written and highly entertaining, and I will defend unto the death his right to see it published. Whatever its charter and target audience, however, it also had two related agendas: to rehabilitate a disgraced eGullet coordinator, and to denigrate, in a medium in which they could not readily respond, certain eGullet members whose circumstances and attitudes might diverge from his own.

One wonders how different the article might have been had some coordinator and/or his surrogate posted messages like,

[Here I’ve deleted a bit of beautifully elegant scatology, modeled on actual eGullet posts, reflecting on Mr. Whiting’s genealogy, appearance, personal habits, politics, and worthiness to remain an eGullet member and living, breathing human.]

Repeatedly.

Note again the purely hypothetical nature of the above. It is in no way intended as a derogation of the estimable Mr. Whiting, nor is its context meant to suggest in any way that any eGullet coordinator past or present might actually have engaged in posting similarly disgusting material, either directly and/or through a surrogate.

---

By the way, I’d be among the saddest to see John cease posting. His wit, concision, and minority opinions should always be welcome. So, of course, should be member discussion of those opinions.

[jordyn]

I feel like people are trying to 'win' something here, but the irony is that the more we talk, the farther we get away from the worthwhile goal of a happy and sustainable community. What's the endgame here? Why are we still talking?

I have some old high school debating trophies lying around. If people want, I will be glad to send them to anyone who needs some affirmation of their rhetorical abilities before they are willing to stop yabbering.

[cakewalk]

To equate him with the trolls is slightly silly.  Didn't Arthur Miller write a play about that?  Perhaps that could be our second play

" He's a troll I tell you.  Burn Him"

To equate him with trolls is VERY silly. As are a lot of other things.

All along I've been thinking to myself, why am I reminded of the Salem Witch hunts? Especially the trials. You know, where they dunk the accused "witch" in water, and if she drowns it proves she's innocent? Undoubtedly this post will offer further "proof" of my troll status. I have decided to be amused, I can't take such nonsense seriously.

Let me know when you start tryouts.

[Wilfrid]

What's a Beanery?

I'm glad you asked (two, three four...)

"In this virtual beanery, where Jason paints the scenery,

Just thousands of crazy people together,

While you broil your broiler, let your eyes drift to eGullet,*

If it burns, it'll taste like leather.

And if you're good, I'll search for wood,

So you can cook, while I stand looking.

Beans could get no keener reception in a beanery,

Bless our virtual beanery home!"

*Fantastic inner rhyme by Lorenz Hart, replicated here by the brilliant Wilfrid.

[Wilfrid]

I feel like people are trying to 'win' something here, but the irony is that the more we talk, the farther we get away from the worthwhile goal of a happy and sustainable community.  What's the endgame here?  Why are we still talking?

Well, exactly, and hence my request for some practical suggestion. I think people who are perpetuating the discussion of these ideas may as well come out and say what they want - except it's all been said before. Let me guess:

Some people want (correct me if I'm wrong)

- The moderators to disclose everything they know about Sweetpea and any related trolling

- Suvir to resign

- Some sort of restitution - an apology? - for removing the thread about France and anti-semitism

and, as I have observed more than once over the last few weeks, threads are repeatedly being diverted in this direction.

I am trying, quite honestly, not to have an opinion on whether those desires are appropriate or not. I ask the practical question: if those things are not going to happen, what then? Carry on trampling the site into the dirt? As Jordyn says, what's the endgame?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Apologies to anyone who thinks my use of Munchausen Syndrome was to imply that John actually abuses children. I wasn't trying to imply anything of the sort. I only used it as an analogy to show an instance where people create a scenario to draw attention to themselves. The specifics of the syndrome was not what I was pointing to. But what I was pointing to was how John's personal involvement in the anti-Semitism thread, which included egging on Suvir as well as the trolls ended up as an article criticizing the site. And if I had the time to comb through older threads or even back pages of current ones, I think I would find that simultaneous with John unleashing some personal comment or politicizing a thread, the trolls often appeared. And then instead of his warding off the trolls as many of the rest of us would do, he would bask in their glow. Now Bux might disagree with that assessment, but it's the way I see it. So I've used it in that context but I thought that was clear. And again apologies to anyone who didn't understand that it was a metaphor for other behavior that had nothing to do with child abuse. And my apologies to John if he took it that way. But I see no need to edit it out of that post with this explanation in place. But I would gladly do so if John still feels offended by it after this explanation.

As for winning or losing, gee I didn't realize this was that kind of pissing match. It's unfortunate that this had to be do or die and there couldn't be a resolution that allowed things to normalize. But if you think about it, the chutzpah of portraying people who are complaining about being personally insulted as trying to limit free speech, or as descirbing them as big brother sort of sums things up well. Those two positions simply can't co-exist. Because the latter position shows absolutely zero respect for the former.