File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-05.012, message 11


From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept-AT-turk.net>
Subject: Re: M-I: Consistency in treatment of long posts on M-I!
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 23:51:40 +0200


The rule is clear. No more than 3 posts a day. If your post is too long, it
will get rejected by the mailserver. So, don't post too long, don't
overpost. Lou has made that clear.

We don't suspend anyone for overposting once or twice. One person got
suspended after he posted about a dozen after being warned three times. 

Also, more people read shorter posts.

As for the list. Of course there are limits to e-mail lists. Last year, the
internet was the fastest access I had to get the news out that the Turkish
police were surrounding many leftist political parties and trade unions and
mass arrests were taken place. That was in June. The phones of the places
that were surrounded didn't work very well, and people were all arrested
shortly after. I was probably one of the few people that got the news, and
the internet is pretty fast a medium for distributing news like that. The
mass arrest before that, one person had been murdered (beaten to death).
That time nobody was. We can't know how much the immediate national and
international outcry helped, but it helped some.

In July, people on this list with rather different political views (Hugh and
Doug and Louis Godena, among others) all tried to help me find help and/or
advise on how to treat the hunger-strikers if and when the hunger strike in
the prison ended. Twelve people had already died and we were afraid more
would if they weren't treated properly; long hunger-strikes (60+ days for a
few thousand men and women) are a special branch of medicine, and the
doctors' union here asked me to get them in touch with experts on the
subject, wherever they might be.

To use this medium properly, we must cut the flaming, increase the content,
decrease the volume and get more subscribers outside North America. The
three-post a day rule is very sound for that reason. This list already has
too high a volume. I hope, (that's why I'm spending all this time with
(trying to) moderate), if we keep this going and establish a culture of
tolerance that does not mean we have to put up with megabytes of ego, we
might attract more people outside the major imperialist countries. 

The internet is becoming more common in the third-world. We should have
places like this list and I hope the contributors will realise the
significance of what we are trying to do, that is, create a core that might
be an international network of solidarity and debate. I wish more people
thought about how to improve this list, and, if they don't like it, how not
to obstruct it. 

Zeynep



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