A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 1 of 1 MARCH 89 HIGH TREASON The following actions will be considered High Treason against the ADORE-L list and the people on it. 1.) Failure to read in their entirety the list charter and all present and future ADORE-L Policy Letters (APL No. x) IF such failure leads to serious upset that would have otherwise been avoided. The charter is available from the listserver. TELL LISTSERV AT UALTAVM REVIEW ADORE-L The APL's will soon be available there too. Do not confuse ADORE-L POLICY LETTERS with ADORIAN VIEW LETTERS (AVL No. x). ADORE-L POLICY LETTERS make the list safe. Therefore you must read them. ADORIAN VIEW LETTERS make the list dangerous. Trash them as you see fit. 2.) Communicating with or complaining by any means whatsoever, whether electronic, written or verbal, except by direct posting to the ADORE-L list, to any Authority, University Administrator or Bitnet personnel in a negative or derogatory manner about the ADORE-L list, the people on it, the material discussed herein, with or without the intention to harm the list or the people on it or to restrict their access to computing resources or the ADORE-l list, without first communicating directly with, ONE AT A TIME and in the following order: Homer Wilson Smith CTM at CORNELLC, (list owner) Eric Thomas ERIC at CEARN, (writer of listserve). It is not acceptable behavior to deny a person access to computing resources because of what they say or how they say it. It is one thing to kick someone off a list, it is quite another to kick them off the system. If you do not take action against this kind of bevavior in a swift and clear cut manner, then you will not build up the attitudes that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and one day it will be done to you. What goes around, comes around. If you let the cat out of the bag it may come and sit in your lap. Cornell University is not responsible for the existance of ADORE-L and does not host the list. As for complaining to Cornell Administrators, some are already on the list. These people rub shoulders with the highest brass every day, so you can be sure that they will be aware of what transpires on this list. For your information, I am very well known at Cornell. From time to time I have written letters to EVERYONE at Cornell from the top down, including IBM and NSF, letters that would make your hair stand on end. Cornell is a very conservative institution as befits a major world center for super computing. However it is a multi national community that is capable of tolerating multi national views. As Ezra Cornell said, 'I would found an institution where anyone can find an education in any subject.' I make Cornell nervous, but I am still here. As long as we keep to the 50 percent rule (see APL No. 3) ADORE-L should thrive. We look to you to give ADORE-L a good name and to get as many intelligent, open minded people of good intent on this list as possible. So let's get educated. Homer A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 2 3 MARCH 1989 FAIR GAME. If you post to the ADORE-L list, you become Fair Game on the list. If you exercise your Right to post on ADORE-L, then you must exercise your Duty to take what comes back to you within the constraints of the 50 percent rule. Even if others violate the 50 percent rule in responding to you, you are still under oath to remain within its bounds yourself. It does not matter who started it. If you get involved in it, it is YOUR responsibility. ADORE-L is not a forum where your person or ideas will be treated with respect just because they are your ideas or just because you posted them. We are not a society of daisies. We get respect the old fashioned way. We EARN it. The PURPOSE of posting to ADORE-L is to find out where YOU are wrong, not to convert others to some fixed rock solid belief. Nor is it a forum for you to put up your ideas expecting them to be left alone because 'you have a right to your ideas and a right to be accorded respect regardless of your viewpoint.' You don't. Not here. If you post that 'all sinners should go to hell' and other readers find this a vaguely rude notion, they will probably respond to your posting in a vaguely rude fashion. For you to then say that you were being polite in your posting so they should be polite also will probably not be met with much favor. People will accord you respect either because they agree with you, or because they agree to disagree with you. People will not accord you respect just because you are human. If people can not agree with you, and can not agree to disagree with you, then you will probably get roasted in accordance with the Fair Game principle and the 50 percent rule (See APL No. 3). Homer A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 3 4 MARCH 1989 50 PERCENT RULE. Simply put, the 50 percent rule is that all communications to ADORE-L should have a content to flame ratio greater than or equal to 50 percent. Flame is anything that is not content. Content is specifics. You do not have to prove everything you say, you do not have to support it with endless references, but you should say something. Meaningful and specific. If you think someone is wrong or ignornant, do not just say 'so and so is wrong and ignorant'. Quote EXACTLY the viewpoint you disagree with and state an exact counter viewpoint. You do not have to prove you are right. The first goal here is to STATE the Truth, not to prove it. Just getting it said would be a major leap for mankind. VIOLATIONS If someone violates the 50 percent rule in responding to you, this does not give you the right to violate the rule in return. You are ALL under oath to abide by the 50 percent rule no matter what. This is your HONOR at stake. Honor is the ability to make, keep and trade fair chosen promises. The promise in this case is to stick to the 50 percent rule. On many lists flames are not allowed at all. What can happen there is that people will intentionally misinterpret your content and consider it a flame. For example if your content happens to be a criticism they will take it as a flame. Their intention of course is to suppress your communication as the criticism is usually of them. This makes other people very afraid to post. On ADORE-L the 50 percent rule gives you a WIDE MARGIN OF ERROR. You can flame people or ideas for 1/3 of a page and give content for 2/3's of a page and still be well within game rules. This makes it impossible for someone to nit pick you into silence. Defend your rights to this rule. It exists for you. Every once in a while someone will step over the line. Short postings containing nothing but value judgements such as 'I like...' or 'I dislike...', sweeping generalities (not specifics) and endless dripping sarcasm and slime are good candidates for this kind of posting. Endless dripping sarcasm is fine by the way, as long as it is followed by 100 percent specific content. This produces a perfect 50/50 message. It is really walking on the edge though. HANDLING VIOLATIONS. A good way to handle violations of the 50 percent rule is to analyze in detail the content and flame of the message, add up the percentages, and post the results. Suggesting what content could have been added to the message to balance the flame already present is also very constructive. Suggesting what flame could have been left out of the message is not so constructive. Teaching people not to flame is teaching them to speak LESS. Teaching people to post more content is teaching the to speak MORE. Thus if people flame too much, get them to post content to match it. This is fitting justice. OFFENSE Do not confuse the 50 percent rule with OFFENDING someone. The statement 'The Bible was written by the Devil to mislead Christians into a life of irresponsibility for their own birth, a fear of God and His Universe, and to further entrap some Christians in their own wish that there be a Hell FOREVER that they could send all their enemies to by providing an All Powerful Being to do it for them.' is 100 percent content although it might offend some. In fact some would consider it a direct blaspheme of their religion. On the other hand, the statement, 'Some Christians are stupid jerks who deserve to go to Hell forever.' is 100 percent flame and 0 percent content. One can improve the ratio on the above sentence by altering it in the following way. 'Some Christians deserve to go to Hell forever because they themselves wish non believers to go to Hell forever.' This statement is 100 percent content and in fact can be argued with by returning, 'It does not take going to Hell FOREVER to get someone to give up their desire to have it happen to others. About 5 minutes will do. Since it is not NECESSARY to send a person to Hell FOREVER to change his mind, and since God is not only BIG but also SMART, it is unlikely that such ever occurs. However it is possible that some are roasting there for a while. The good Lord probably checks in on them periodically to see if they are well done. Some Christians need a little longer to cook. Then he lets them all go and gives them another chance. He gives them as many chances as they need. Thus one day ALL Men attain the awakened state.' The following is a statement with 100 percent flame and 0 percent content. 'I love Christians. They are such wonderful people. We should encourage them all we can and accord them all the respect in the world.' One last example of a perfect 50/50 statement. 'I was born and raised a Christian, of COURSE I hate Christians!' HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL. When you are ALLOWED to flame, you are much less likely to do so. When flame is matched by content, people will respect you in spite of the flame. Content heals the wounds so to speak. If you look closely to your Duties and Rights in this matter, ADORE-L will thrive and you will have a forum not elsewhere provided. Homer A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 4 6 MARCH 1989 The PURPOSE of ADORE-L The purpose of ADORE-L is content. Flames are allowed, but the purpose is content. Flame without content is like fire without wood. This list is here for you. To make friends. To find a common bond. Not to agree. Not to prove yourself. It is your importances that will give life to ADORE-L. You are free to speak. You wanted this, didn't you? Content. A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL NO. 5 of 14 NOV 1989 CONTENT FREE POSTINGS. When some people disagree with what I have to say, they call my postings content free. That they could not disagree with a truely content free posting seems to escape them. What they mean is that they think I am wrong, but if they said that they would leave themselves open to further argument and counter argument which they undoubtedly want to avoid at all costs. Thus they claim that I have not said anything, which effectively puts me down without having to materially counter anything. The postings that I made to DISARM-L and POLITICS-L were the most quality content filled postings I have made in my entire life. The view that I stated there over and over again was simply that war is a religious problem, born of religious views and prevailing religious insanities, and that with out an address to our past lives and our future lives we will never solve the criminal element in our societies that start and make wars and otherwise ruin our lives. This view was totally unacceptable to 100 percent of the audience of DISARM-L and POLITICS-L and so it was called content free. In my view refering to these postings as content free is pure intentional evil and should be dealt with in a suitable manner. As I have no control over DISARM-L, I left. ADORE-L is a different matter. I have never bounced anyone from this list, although I have been sorely tempted. Unfortunately the longer I go with a perfect record the harder it is to break it arbitrarily. Further I am at odds with myself over bouncing people because I can not determine an absolute criteria by which a person should be bounced. Lord knows though that some should be. Most have left long ago. Also people tend to change. They may start off bouncable and then start to make intelligent postings. This has happened many times and I remember them well, so I am very hesitant to just can someone for a first or even second, third, fourth and fifth offense. On the other hand I must avoid at all costs getting caught up in the flame wars engendered by people who make postings that are truely 100 percent content free, yet who tell me mine are content free. These flame wars fill our mailboxes with efforts to defend myself against ridiculous charges and are a waste of time and cause other people to leave the list in disgust. The pattern seems to be that when ADORE-L is absent of the flame wars, which means only I am posting or intelligent exchanges are talking place the subscribership grows. When we start to get flame masters signing up berating me endlessly for what a bigot I am and I get involved in defense of my position we start to lose people. Probably if I just let these postings go and did not answer them, these people would get bored and leave as they have no serious intention on the list anyway. They just want to berate a moderator that has locked himself in with rules that say no one gets bounced. Of course there is always the fear that if I am silent on these attacks, that will be taken as defeat by those of you who are spectators. Silence is agreement, you know, the guy said something so right I just cant find the words to say anything back, or some such thing. Or it will be taken as a sign of fear that I can not defend myself, a sign that I am hoping the attacker will just go away and people will soon forget what he said and that I had no answer. Most of you are not that stupid. Those of you that are, good. My purpose is not to endlessly convince border line cases that I am right. If people like Karen can sway you into thinking I am a totally empty headed ego maniac, then one presumes that your head is emptier than mine. And hers. I am not going to take up bouncing people. But I am going to take up asking people to leave. My response to them after that point will be silence. You can draw your own conclusions. Those of you with any grey matter left will see the wisdom of my decisions. And ADORE-L will become a quieter and higher quality list. I need to avoid getting caught up in the flame wars with the pure assholes. Telling me my postings are content free is not the way to get on my good side, and it is no longer the way to draw me into further communication. Since the 50 Percent Rule is most often invoked to put down my 'content free postings' and is routinely broken in the process of doing so (note Karen's recent posting about DISARM-L), I hereby suspend all content to flame restrictions on this list. You may speak what you will, how you will. If I don't like you, you will be asked to leave. For me, you will be gone. Since I am the only attraction on this list to those people who would make noise, if I do not respond, they will leave or shut up and the rest of you will not have to be bothered by their and my mail in your mailboxes. Attila the Hun. A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 6 of 10 OCT 1991 ADORE-L has one remaining rule. If you leave it, you leave forever. Exceptions will be made for extraordinary circumstances. A D O R E - L P O L I C Y L E T T E R APL No. 7 of 25 AUG 1992 MANDATORY READING FOR MEMBERS OF ADORE-L ADORE-L COPYRIGHT POLICY ADORE-L is a confidential list. Your presence on this list is a privilege extended to you by me and those who supply the resources. A privilege is a package of rights balanced by a corresponding package of duties. Your rights on this list are laid out in detail in earlier policy letters, but basically consist of the right to speak your mind as you see fit about any subject of importance to you. In return your duties to this list are to obey to the letter and without exception the few rules and regulations imposed on you by those same policy letters and future ones. Keep in mind that some of the restrictions imposed by earlier policy letters were canceled by later ones. You are free to leave ADORE-L at any time, but if you do you may not return, exceptions will be made for administrative leave. ADORE-L IS A CONFIDENTIAL LIST. In the past I have tolerated cross postings of ADORE-L to other lists such as BELIEF-L and others, and have allowed gateways to subscribe to ADORE-L that allowed wide public dissemination to unknown destinations of the postings placed here. I have removed all such non individual accounts from the ADORE-L subscription list, and of course ADORE-L subscription has been locked for a long time allowing no new members, except a few that I personally know and trust. Those of you who remain on the list are either real jerks or are serious about this list. Anyhow, as of today, 9/1/92, you may not under any circumstances repost material sent to ADORE-L to any other list or any other form of broad public issue without the explicit permission of the author of the piece. You may of course share this material with friends that you trust, via private e-mail or other forms of communication, with the clear understanding that they are bound by the same rules and regulations regarding the broad public issue of such materials. In the future those found violating these rules or who are negligently responsible for others violating these rules will be removed from ADORE-L. If you are not sure, ask the author. I am sure that you all understand that I can not provide an absolutely secure forum for you to speak your mind among friends without repercussions from the world around you. It takes some measure of courage and willingness to die or be ruined to speak one's mind freely. Not to mention the danger posed to one's family, loved ones and friends. YOUR PURPOSE FOR BEING ON THIS LIST Your purpose for being on this list should be and ONLY BE personal spiritual gain. Anyone who is on this list solely to attain personal spiritual gain is welcome, no matter who they are. If you yourself have no hope of personal spiritual gain, and are here for any other reason you should consider leaving the list now. If you are here only to entertain yourself at the fool hardy Immortal Aspirations of others, or to laugh at, denigrate or otherwise put down or harass others or myself in our pursuit of personal spiritual gain, you should consider leaving the list now. You are strictly forbidden to be on this list if you are reporting to or are yourself an operative of the government, the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, the Church of Scientology, the news media be it television, radio, or newspaper, or a member of any international, political, criminal, corporate or other organization sent here to spy on this list, or to take notes on its members or otherwise keep track of their activities, viewpoints and opinions. If you are so discovered to be such a person you will immediately face charges of civil and criminal trespass along with the intent to violate first amendment rights of freedom of speech, religion and personal PRIVATE assembly. In general private e-mail sent to me concerning matters important to ADORE-L will be reposted to the list without warning, so if you have something to say post it to the list. This is a GROUP here, and we will survive as a group, not as members talking about each other or ourselves behind each other's backs. You have no duty to speak up on this list, nor even to read the postings to this list EXCEPT ADORE-L POLICY LETTERS which are clearly marked in the header. You have only a duty to speak the sworn truth before God when you do speak, and to not broadly disseminate postings from ADORE-L with out permission of the author. Some posters may place tighter restrictions on their own postings. If they do you MUST OBEY THEM. I will show no mercy on this account. You know I am just egoistic enough to think that some people want and need to hear what I have to say. I never say anything I don't wish someone had said to me as a child, but I also know that there are a lot of people in the world who really don't want you to say anything deep lest they be out of a job or out of a life. It is these people who endanger us and who we have most been like in our past lives if we are frightened by them, and it is these people who we need to speak about the most. If they scare you, think what exposure does to them. So we all have to balance our own personal fear and cowardice with our goal to improve life in this universe with free and open communication. I am doing my best on ADORE-L to start a small fire here in the middle of our dark night of the soul. The problem with fires of course is that they save your life by keeping you warm all night but they also act as a beacon to all your enemies. The route IN towards a safe life with a grave at the end is to build no fires at all or let others build them for you with warmed over lies. The route OUT to eternal freedom and willingness, is to build as many fires as you can with truth and take a few hits along the way. Fires are built with wide open communication within yourself and others. In the words of LRH, your own personal integrity is more important than your immediate life. This does imply you have more than one, probably more than you care to remember or foretell. Well now you know the way in... If your own Immortality seems totally and utterly preposterous to you but you really really want it to be true, well then you are on the dusk side of your dark night of the soul. It's going to be a LONG night, you don't want to be alone. Do you want another body and life on Earth after this one? Do you want to be a boy or a girl? Do you need some rest first? Could you do better than you've done this time around? Would doing worse somehow be doing better for you? The first step on the long road to truth is to start asking the right questions. If you wish to sign off this list, do so now. TELL LISTSERV AT UALTAVM SIGNOFF ADORE-L The door to this list is always open, out. Homer Wilson Smith Owner, ADORE-L.