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		+++	 MAIL 7: pburo -> psb
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Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 03:52:24 -0700
From: Aaron McKee <amckee@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
To: "Partha S. Banerjee,,," <psb@ucsee.eecs.berkeley.edu>
CC: politburo@soda.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [CSUA] To the Stalin/Soda Mausoleum

Consider whatever you want. The CSUA governing body is currently a five 
person Politburo. What you got was the opinion of one of its members, not 
necessarily representing the others. If you're attempting to threaten or 
intimidate me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I've faced tougher critics 
than you in my 30 years of life, and I'll face tougher still.

And as for your deft legal snooping, maybe you missed section #A? You're an 
associate member, which means you can't vote. #C points out 'may be' active 
members. Note the subtlety. Perhaps you should save the legal work for the 
lawyers, eh?

As for the note about not hosing on csua@ - we have an environment that is 
largely open and trusting to our users. Perhaps this is naive. In general, 
though, we try to keep as few barriers in place as possible and rely upon 
the better judgment of these users. This means we haven't yet made csua@ 
fully moderated. Just because you got a bounce, however, doesn't mean that 
you weren't obviously hosing. And, although free speech is generally 
protected, there is still no law or right that says that you can come into 
our home, our office, or our business and practice that right. In any case, 
I was suggesting that you not do it again - not giving you an official 
'you're about to be sorried' note. But hey, it's one of those things that 
-is- technically a sorry-able offense. Wearing blue on a 'red-only' day is 
also a sorry-able offense, if 3 of 5 politburo agree. It's arbitrary, 
always has been and probably always will be. What you're relying upon is 
our level-headedness and apathy. I guess if you doubt either, you're kind 
of SOL.

As much as many of the trolls on the MOTD might think, no one in the 
politburo or root staff has such a copious amount of free time that they 
lurk around trying to find every transgression. Hell, I don't even read the 
MOTD anymore - it's just too much a waste of my time. It's only when items 
like what was discussed are BROUGHT to our attention that we're forced to 
deal with it. Again, as with your note, we -WILL- be getting complains in 
the morning from users complaining of your spam. (they always complain when 
getting mail from unexpected sources) We'd rather be programming than 
dealing with this stuff, so in general we like it when people behave and 
treat our systems and group with the respect that they'd treat their family 
and friends.

 > what do you suggest does govern here?

Well, like it or not, we (the politburo) do. It's not a democracy. We're 
democratically elected, but once in office we have near complete authority 
to implement the policies that we see fit. Think communist russia, not 
democratic greece. This is the system that we were given from your 
generation, this is the system we operate in.

 > the anonymity on the internet decision, "here is what some smart
 > people think". arent you the ones with the view "we need to act
 > because of potential liability under external corpuses of law"?

No, that's mrauser. He's more level headed and egalitarian than I am. My 
opinion is much more admittedly draconian. I'm used to being a corporate 
manager and overseeing teams of 30+ engineers scattered across the world. 
That doesn't exactly work with the consensus view of management, so I go 
for autocratic. (It's okay, you can say it, I'm used to being the resident 
asshole on the team - but at least shit gets done.)

My opinion is that the MOTD is an embarrassment to the organization, is 
offensive to current students, and is not a service we should be providing. 
The only benefit, which is an important one, is that it allows the alumni 
to stay a more integral part of the CSUA community. I honestly, deeply 
value that and view it as an important goal and benefit to the CSUA. 
However, where it conflicts (in the opinion of the politburo) with our 
primary goal, we need to do what's right for the current students. I've 
moderated my own beliefs a bit, because I do value the community the MOTD 
brings, but I am clearly of the opinion that it dramatically needs to change.

I honestly couldn't possibly care less about people complaining of losing 
anonymity (go back to the 'I'm an asshole' statement above, if you want). 
It's not something I see as being important to the CSUA, certainly not the 
current students. Sure, we might miss out on the occasional salary 
discussion - but who cares? 99% of the anonymity is used to post trollish 
crap. I'd love to continue to provide the alumni a place to chat, but I 
feel absolutely no obligation to meet every absurd requirement that is 
imposed on us. They're our servers, it's our service, we can run it as we 
see fit.

As we've clearly said, anyways, the whole issue has blown way out of 
proportion. At no point did we ever say we would "uncover" someone we 
deemed as being problematic. We would deal with that as we deal with every 
disciplinary issue - the issue would be brought up in a politburo meeting 
and we'd decide what to do. We don't take notes during these meetings, we 
don't tell people who we're disciplining, and we don't share the details of 
the issue. We sorry people all the time, but you probably never even know 
about it. We have far better things to do with our time than to try to 
argue on the stupid MOTD or identify people. This holds for the root staff, 
as well. And if you're worried about 'bad root staff', then the MOTD should 
be the least of your worries. They can read your email, monitor your 
keystrokes, intercept your network connection, and basically rape your 
account any which way you can imagine. This somehow doesn't bother you, but 
finding out that someone called someone else a 'rednecked faggot' on the 
MOTD does? Sure, I'd agree that the root list should be continually audited 
- and if we found someone abusing their privileges like that, we'd boot 
them - but again, at no point have we guaranteed any degree or privacy on 
our boxes and we don't need to make them (or us) jump through any hoops. 
You're not -entitled- to the MOTD.

And, for the record, the root staff here is a tremendously dedicated group 
of individuals who sacrifice massive amounts of their time for the 
organization. I'm far more concerned with making them happy than random 
MOTD posters.

Your arguments, although obviously passionate, have the same generic 
weakness as most geek posts. This is why rhetoric needs to be a mandatory 
class for people to take. You're confusing a million unrelated issues, 
using strawmen arguments, and grossly guilty of slippery slope style 
reasoning. The FBI trying to censor an external business and artistic 
expression of an unrelated entity is, in no way shape or form, the same as 
a student group clarifying usage policies for ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS. You 
do realize that we're talking about HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS, right? I 
mean, this seems to be a rather important point that many people are 
missing. So please, leave your legalese elsewhere - it doesn't apply here.

Aaron McKee
PRESIDENT / CSUA

And don't worry, I don't plan on running again next term. Dealing with the 
vocal minority of alumni that cause us grief has been such an 
overwhelmingly miserable experience in my tenure here over the past year, 
that I'm done with it after this term. Quite frankly, I think I have some 
pretty stiff competition for 'asshole of the year' award out of your ranks 
and the vague sense of indebtedness this organization feels towards wiping 
every complainer's ass and its fear of change are what, in my opinion, 
single-handedly keep this organization from not sucking anymore. I love 
helping out current students, and coming up with ideas to make their lives 
here more productive and useful, but the amount of time we waste on issues 
such as this boggle the mind. This organization has a tremendous potential, 
part of which could really be amplified by the alumni community, it's a 
shame when your type browbeat current students into place so strongly that 
they're afraid to 'think out of the box' to realize it.

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	+++	MAIL 9: psb -> pburo, reply to mail 7
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From: "Partha S. Banerjee,,," <psb@ucsee.eecs.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 04:13:15 -0700
To: amckee@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: [CSUA] To the Stalin/Soda Mausoleum
Cc: politburo@soda.csua.berkeley.edu, psb@ieee.eecs.berkeley.edu

>Well, like it or not, we (the politburo) do. It's not a democracy. 
>
can you elaborate a little on your position "the csua is not a democracy"?

>reasoning. The FBI trying to censor an external business and artistic 
>expression of an unrelated entity is, in no way shape or form, the same as 
>a student group clarifying usage policies for ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS. You 
>do realize that we're talking about HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS, right? I 
>mean, this seems to be a rather important point that many people are 
>missing. So please, leave your legalese elsewhere - it doesn't apply here.
>
just out of curiosity, do you think
1. the csua politburo is bound by the csua constitution?

2. is the politburo allowed to say turn off the accounts of say
all non-american citizens ON ITS OWN DAMNED SERVERS?

are you suggesting the CSUA has as much freedom to make policy on
it's own machines as say the elmwood petunia appreciation society?

i have only taken a few rhetoric [or law] classes, but i vaguely
remember this notion of "state action" which it seems would apply to
the CSUA and HARDWARE THAT THE CSUA OWNS.

are you familar with the concept of "state action"?

ok i have a race tomorrow.

						--psb

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