Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00810)

Jerry H-E:

>John Mead intervened by
>suggesting that since theos-roots was originally set up for
>historical discussions, that it might be best to move all of them
>there. It seemed like a good solution at the time, since those
>who have no interest in theosophical history could just not
>subscribe to theos-roots.

>I feel that it is a fair compromise, and everyone expressed
>satisfaction with the decision at the time--even Liesel announced
>that she canceled theos-roots. Other historical discussions

Here you are talking about one situation, where some participants
in a discussion that was getting too hot move off the general
discussion list. That was a different time then when Daniel Caldwell
and Paul Johnson were in a discussion and Daniel was told by several
people to move his postings to theos-roots.

There's a difference between a group of people, discussing a
topic, to agree to move the discussion to another list, and some
people on theos-l *telling* someone to post elsewhere.

>Other historical discussions might do well to move to theos-roots also.

One can choose to post there, or choose to post to the general
discussion list. If you decide that all comments regarding theosophical
history that you post are to go there, that's fine, because it's your
choice.

>Personally, I don't
>feel that it is censorship to have historical discussions on
>theos-roots any more than it is censorship for one to post
>announcements and reports of meetings and events on theos-news,
>which I do occasionally.

It is not censorship to decide to post to the different lists. It is
censorship to tell people to not post to the general list on topics
that one personally prefers not to read.

>These four boards were set up for this purpose long before the
>CWL issue ever arose.

We've grown and accomplished a lot on theos-l by the very fact that
we are a single, hetrogeneous mailing list. Everything shows up in
one place, and we're all exposed to a greater diversity of views and
information than we would have been otherwise.

As we get bigger and bigger, we may start to choose to post topics
and have discussions on side lists in order to better follow them,
so that our discussions aren't lost in hundreds of unrelated messages.
But this is something that will arise naturally and voluntarily as we
continue to grow, and is not the result of structure being imposed upon
us because someone does not like a particular topic.

-- Eldon