On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 04:19:06 -0700, slimvirgin(a)gmail.com <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: What did he actually do that was blockable? Theresa

He called the Holocaust the "alleged Holocaust." No one denies there was a Holocaust, even if they dispute the numbers and the intention of the Nazis, so that edit amounted to vandalism, as did changing the "wars against Jews" on [[Jew]] to the "wars caused by Jews." Admins are empowered to block new users who make disruptive edits, which Zero did, so I'm wondering why Silsor unblocked him. It's one thing for a person with these views to become an editor, but it's a different matter when he comes as Sgt. Whatever of the political party he's with, posting a picture of himself in his "uniform," which I believe you deleted; thank you for that if you did. Sarah On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:13:42 +0200, NSK <nsk2(a)wikinerds.org> wrote:

NSK (nsk2(a)wikinerds.org) [050215 23:34]: I've just blocked it "trolling account, no good edits". - d.

Is this a photograph of the same person? http://www.nsm88.com/commandersdesk/commander.html If it is, the name is supposedly Jeff Schoep. I don't recall the photo he posted well enough to judge whether it's the same guy. I was just thinking this could be a known user with a sockpuppet, pretending to be a Sgt. Walter, using a photo from this website to cause trouble. Just speculation though. Sarah On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:28:25 +0000, Theresa Knott <theresaknott(a)gmail.com> wrote:

You were, of course, right to block him. Fred

In fairness, I should say Commonwealth English. Could be a number of countries of origin. On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 05:44:16 -0700, slimvirgin(a)gmail.com <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 05:40:19 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi regime with Soviet Russia. I would think the Hammer and Sickle is not as immediately abhorrant a symbol (although admittedly I am not in the US). Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

Fred Bauder said: The swastika is illegal in Germany and some German politicians have called for a Europe-wide ban on use of that symbol. The BBC reported that senior Christian Democrats and Social Democrats were taking this suggestion seriously. A group of politicians from Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic asked for a matching ban on the red star and the hammer and sickle. I think it's unlikely that either ban would gain widespread enough support to pass, but if forced to choose I'd say the German ban had far more chance of passing.

I have to agree with Zoney here: few would consider them equivalent. Soviet Russia was directly responsible for an order of magnitude more deaths than the Nazis, and indirectly responsible for two orders of magnitude more. I have to disagree with Zoney here. Despite the best efforts of [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt|Uncle Frank]] to rehabilitate the image of his buddy [[Joseph Stalin|Uncle Joe]] here in the United States, I, at least, find the Soviets far more abhorrent than the Nazis. -- Sean Barrett | Some days it just isn't worth sean(a)epoptic.com | chewing through the straps.

Zoney wrote: I'm not sure how the supposed reasons for murder are relevant to the repugnance of symbols associated with those murders. The fact that they are murders and were committed under the auspices of that symbol seems to be the salient point. The fact that many more murders were committed under the auspices of the symbol you dismiss as being less abhorrent further raises confusion in my mind about your system of measurement of the worth of a life and the crime of taking it. Apparently, to you, killing someone for being a Jew is more wrong than killing someone for speaking out of turn. To me, it's equivalent in either case, because in both cases it is murder. Completely aside from that, the swastika has been used for other purposes for hundreds of years before World War II, including as a Christian symbol, while the hammer and sickle went from obscurity to symbol of an oppressive, mass-murdering regime in a relative blink of an eye. Let's not start with the circumstantial ad hominem comparisons. It would be nice if you'd retract that statement. -- Chad

Tony Sidaway wrote: If you think the ideals on which the Nazi Party traded were overtly murderous, you are mistaken. Essentially, what you're saying appears to be: "The hammer and sickle is okay because it has been sensationalized differently." That roughly equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol." If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika. If the swastika is "a symbol of a murderous regime," though, then the hammer and sickle is as well. Please, either ascribe abhorrence to both or to neither. I'll respect either decision. Just don't try to pretend that one is okay and the other is not. -- Chad

Tony Sidaway wrote: I'm not saying you (or anyone else on this list) did. I'm just saying that there's a bit of logical self-contradiction to personally object to the swastika and not to the hammer and sickle. I don't personally think there's anything wrong with using either for historical or satirical purposes (for instance), and though I do think there's something wrong with using it to push a political agenda that involves murderous intent I do not begrudge others the right to express themselves in that fashion. -- Chad

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:24:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Any chance of you'all taking this to private email? You are no longer discussing a wikipedia related issue. Theresa

Wouldn't it be better to top-post, so that we won't be required to downscroll pages of text just to read a paragraph? (alternatively, wouldn't it be better to quote just a line or two?) Anyone knows how to make KMail display my signature properly in topposting? -- NSK http://portal.wikinerds.org On Tuesday 15 February 2005 22:53, Chad Perrin wrote: wrote:

+-------------+ | Do Not Feed | | the Troll | +-------------+ || _||_

Nicholas Knight (nknight(a)runawaynet.com) [050216 11:58]: [[user:The Epopt]], and no. - d.

On Wednesday 16 February 2005 00:38, the Epopt of Boskone wrote: I hope that all list participants see that I asked a simple question and I received a very damaging accusation from this user. -- NSK http://portal.wikinerds.org

NSK wrote: Not to be too blunt, but . . . If that's the case, perhaps you should take his advice and not respond to him. -- Chad

Theresa Knott" wrote <snip> Oi! Malign my intelligence all you like. I have OE and never once have I top-posted. We should all edit posts down to the part to which we are replying, and there's an end to it. Charles

NSK said: If the quote is too long, it should be trimmed. Only quote enough to provide context for your statement; the earlier emails are all archived and can be consulted by those curious about the full content.

Nicholas Knight wrote: A: Yes. ;-) -a -- Imagination is just intelligence having fun. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 14/02/2005

Rick wrote: The one setting you might want to double check is under "General Preferences", "Composing E-mails", "Mode". If it's not set to "Compose messages as plain text", try setting it to that.

Rick wrote: "Requires"? Can't you just scroll to the bottom and use the carriage return to add blank lines for bottom-posting? -- Chad

Rick wrote: Wow. Things have changed since the last time I used a Yahoo account. I'm glad you got it sorted out. -- Chad

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 23:29:39 +0200, NSK &lt;nsk2(a)wikinerds.org&gt; wrote: I find gmail very useful for the large amounts of thread-based email conservations that an email list gets. It keeps messages in their own threads (by and large), displays all messages in the thread when you call it up (but already read messages are collapsed by default, one click expands them). Any messages in a thread can be expanded/collapsed. Quoted text is by default hidden (a click expands it). Generally it's just nicely designed - better than Thunderbird (which I use for personal/work mail) for long thread-based conversations. Although you can bottom post or top post - the nicest thing is that it doesn't matter so much whether someone top/bottom posts to you, and it doesn't even matter if they quote the WHOLE conversation! I wouldn't use gmail for other stuff though, as all mail is scanned (in theory just for ad placement). Ads are not distracting, as they are just text, and in a long conversation, usually only at the end rather than the side. Plus I like to possess my own mail where personal and work stuff is concerned. I can't imagine having all my personal mail stuck on a webmail account!!! Oh, and with gmail, it's great for keeping/searching back through old threads. There's no adverse side-effects to keeping every message. I haven't particularly used it for this list, but one of my other mailing lists (Irish railway news in fact) is full of interesting and useful information that I might want to find later. Zoney P.S. Disclaimers: No I don't work for Google, I don't think they are great just because I like gmail, I'm not necessarily in favour of their advertising methods (though it's a good way to make money), and so on. -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

Theresa Knott wrote: Theresa, have you already forgotten that you were the one who started this thread just because you didn't like someone having Nazi symbols on his user page. Determining whether the Hitler, Stalin or Bush regimes were in fact murderous may indeed be outside the scope of this mailing list, but addressing how we handle symbols is very much on topic. It is certainly more on topic than an extensive thread about trivialities such as autofellatio. Ec

Chad Perrin wrote: Some years ago, when I was working in the administration of pensions for a large insurance company someone answered the application question, "Are you single, married, widowed or divorced?" in exactly the same way. :-) Ec

I'm sure you can find millions of kulaks who would politely disagree with you. No, wait, you won't -- they all starved to death.

Charles Matthews wrote: It's not a personal attack. It's a statement of my analysis of your apparent views on the matter. I didn't say "Apparently, to you, killing someone for speaking out of turn isn't wrong." What I said was that you apparently think it's MORE wrong to murder someone for ethnic reasons than politically oppressive reasons. If that is not the case, you might want to think about the logical contradiction in your earlier statements. To claim I'm making a personal attack is to misrepresent my words and my intentions. I don't think you're doing so intentionally, but that opinion will change if you continue to do so after I've explained it for you. -- Chad

Charles Matthews wrote: 1. I don't tend to save old emails, so yes, I may have confused the two of you. For that, I apologize. 2. You're still misrepresenting my words and intentions with that crap about a policy on personal attacks. You didn't inform me of it for the sole purpose of being randomly informative: you did so with the intent of pointing out some imagined personal attack I made. Of this, I'm convinced. In that regard, you are mistaken. -- Chad

Charles Matthews wrote: Ditto. Does that make my point clear enough for you? Many of my posts have been for the purpose of defusing possible flare-ups. On the other hand, I wasn't aware there was a post quota as well as a "no flames" policy. Actually, I just type quickly (typically close to 100wpm), and my computer beeps when new email arrives. It kinda comes with the necessities of one of my jobs. Claims that you understand my intentions based on how quickly I offer responses are spurious at best. Yes, I have: Don't try to demonize me. You can make veiled threats about shutting me up all you like, but the fact remains that you've made inaccurate statements about my actions and intentions, and you don't seem to care that I tried to correct those innacuracies. I even apologized for my misstep, but (again) you don't seem to care. I've made my point to my own satisfaction. If you insist on continuing to berate me for something I haven't done, you can do so without my help. -- Chad

Chad Perrin wrote: The idea of "hate crimes" is a fairly recent one. This would mete out punishment according to the intentions of the person doing the killing. If a "hate crime" deserves harsher punishment, then a "love crime" such as euthanasia clearly deserves more lenient treatment. That's why the swastika was such an effective symbol. I see nothing "ad hominem" in that general statement. No specific individual is being attacked. Ec

Chad Perrin wrote: Ultimately we agree. A person killed in a hate crime is no more or less dead than one killed in the course of a bank robbery. The lack of malevolence is a strong argument in favour of decriminalizing euthanasia. While I can readily recognize that there is such a phenomenon as "circumstantial ad hominem", I still can't see how it applies to the present circumstances. While the disreputable figures may have been very well identified, it strains the imagination to attempt to identify which participants were being thus compared. Any participant who so imagines himself to be the subject of such comparisons by virtue of that simple statement could very well be the victim of his own paranoid imagination. The reference to the US may reflect upon the leadership of the US, whose stars and stripes are viewed by some with equal repugnance. But to the best of my knowledge the members of that leadership are not participants in our debate, and none of us living outside of the United States has suggested that our American participants should be held responsible for the excesses of their government. Ec

Zoney wrote: To say that it was the "USSR" that wanted to control those countries suggests that you have ignored all history prior to 1917. Russia had visions of pan-slavism long before that. The Soviet system became a means to an end; it permitted a level of industrialization that was previously inconceivable in Russia. It almost succeeded, leaving Yugoslavia as the only slavic country that was never under Russian control. The problem there was that Tito chose his own independent form of communism, and Russia could no longer take it over without putting itself in a contradiction. The other thing that reading a little history will reveal is that anti-semitism in Russia did not suddenly spring up in 1917. Transferring that attitude to a symbol, and pretending it is brand new is a gross misrepresentation of history. Symbols can be a magnifying glass that focuses pre-existing tendencies in a society. It is not unusual for politicians (in the broadest sense) to manipulate symbols for their own purposes. The symbols don't do anything by themselves. The swastika like its Christian ancestor in the Crusades promoted and still does promote militancy, and that is probably what makes it more hateful than the hammer and sickle which after all are more keen on promoting hard work in the factory and farm respectively. The neo-nazis don't want to relegate themselves into obscurity by promoting hard work. The hammer and sickle represented a movement (at least in theory) that would improve the life of the workers. The swastika primarily grew out of resentment for the onerous reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. Berlin was one of the great sin cities of the 1920s; in that context the Nazi Party could promote itself and its Christian swastika as the defender of wholesome family values. Many of the Soviet and US crimes during WW2 were absolved because they were both on the same winning side. The Dresden and Hiroshima massacres were no less odious than anything the Nazis did, but I wouldn't class them as "indirect", unless "indirect" includes dropping bombs on people that you can't see. "Indirect" might more appropriately include deaths of children from inadequate medical care occasioned by sanctions against any medical equipment that might even remotely be converted to military purposes. The United States manipulates symbols when it requires schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In that, The Flag is foremost, and "the republic for which it stands" is only an afterthought. The entire US national anthem is about the flag in battle, and the single phrase "land of the free" doesn't show up until the last line. When you succeed in making people believe in a symbol it is very easy to transfer that belief into whatever you want that symbol to stand for. Ec

Nicholas Knight wrote: I don't think that actually addresses the point brought up. -- Chad

NSK wrote: That's a bit much. (I say nothing of what he might have done elsewhere.) There should be a lot more latitude on a user page. A picture of oneself in Nazi regalia says a lot more than a page full of words. It immediately gives an impression about the person's credibility. Unless it was maliciously posted there by someone else I would leave everything there just the way he wanted. Ec