ingo makes these excellent points:
<< 1) At what point do we decide that an e-mail needs to be censored? Sarcasm can often be seen as a personal attack by others, who's going to decide when a message crossed the line?
can't you see someone complaining 'you censored me but, you let that through???' and they'd be justified. being offended by written words is subjective. any 'bergering rhenquist' (to borrow from gore vidal) can get offended if they try hard enough.
2) A certain amount of disagreement is healthy and may even lead to new insights. This list would lose some of it's value if contributors would stop challenging each other's assumptions (which unfortunately will lead to the occassional disagreement).
i'm sure there must be an e-group that more resembles amy vanderbilt's 'girl talk' and there are e-groups that discuss politics which are all nasty. the only thing we all have in common is a love for singing. beyond that, we have widely different ideas and experiences. if we set out to squelch the sometimes stupid insult battles on the one hand, i fear we will lose the occasionally beautiful revelations that come from heated discussion. some of you may remember the vigorous debate lloyd and i had on 'operatic vs. pop singing'. i know we both received private e-mails from people from both sides of the argument saying how much they enjoyed that debate. i know there was a lot of passionate discussion on the subject. it was fun, enlightening, infuriating. we both said things that we would not have said had we not been in the position of opposing viewpoints. that discussion would not have taken place in a censored forum. aside from the fact that i wouldn't have been here, we would have to have considered what would make it through rather than just writing freely as we both did. if you want to make sure those types of wonderful debates never take place again, vote for censorship.
3) It would create extra work for Isabelle. >>
she is also opposed to censorship. do you want to insist that our gracious hostess act in opposition to her own principles?
mike
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