When the Global Hits the Local – Part 2

To read part 1 go here.

To the Wakefield News:

The Wakefield News has seemed like a peaceful place for the past little while, after the flurry of posts discussing what should be allowed on this list. But I have recently learned that this is a manufactured peace, imposed on us by the list’s admins.

I know of two list members whose posts have been flagged for moderation, meaning that all their posts must first be approved by the admins before being disseminated, and that some of their posts have been deemed inappropriate, and censored. There may very well be more that I am not aware of. (If you don’t hear from me again after this post, you’ll know what happened.)

When these two members have asked the admins why their posts have been censored, they usually receive no answer. Once, one received the answer: because “you disrespected us.” You can read more about this member’s interaction with the admins, in his own words, here.

I reached out to the admins privately, hoping to persuade them that they owe it to our community to be transparent about how they are administrating this list. I was not aware that moderation was an option, as I suspect many of you are not either. They did answer me once, saying that, “The majority of members want local content,” and that they intend to use post moderation and, if necessary, banning members to keep it that way. When I followed up that email with another in which I asked them if they intended to inform our community of their actions, I received no reply.

So I am writing the list today to inform everyone that this is how our list is being managed.

I want to say here that I do not think our admins are bad people. They are community members who are volunteering and doing what they see as best for our community. I’m sure their actions make perfect sense to them.

But the people they are censoring are also not bad people, and yet their voices are being excluded from our community. The admins claim that “the majority” want only local content on this list, and they base this on the “many emails” they have received privately saying so. But we were all witness to the many people who wrote publicly on this list that they would like to be exposed to content that goes beyond the local. I don’t think that any empirical claim can be made by anyone as to what “the majority” wants this list to be.

It seems to me that an opportunity was lost by the admins to take all the feedback received about this list and do something with it. Convene a committee of volunteers to suggest a compromise; rewrite the rules to make them clearer; create a poll. But instead, the admins simply ignored it all, and imposed a “local only” interpretation of the rules.

In one of only two posts the admins made to this group during this controversy, on Feb. 2, titled “Reminder of the purpose, rules and how to get banned from this group”, they quoted the “editorial statement” of the News as:

“The Wakefield and Outaouais News is a community bulletin board for information about the Outaouais.” (their red added)

However, the actual statement on the website reads that the Wakefield News is, “An uncensored, bilingual, community bulletin board for information about the Outaouais.” (my red added)

The admins chose to highlight the “information about the Outaouais” part, but literally censored the part about it being uncensored. Oh, the irony!

Now, some of you are probably asking yourselves, “How can you have a list that is supposed to be about only one thing that is also uncensored?” And you’re absolutely right. This editorial statement is internally inconsistent. But my point is that the admins could have interpreted it either way, and they chose the “local only” way.

Even if your interpretation favours the local, there’s no reason why the mission of this list can’t evolve with the times. We’re living in an increasingly dangerous world, and hiding our heads in the sand will only make us less prepared as a community to deal with it. The global, sooner or later, becomes the local.

This list doesn’t belong to the admins. This list is a commons, a community resource, of which they are just the current, temporary, caretakers. I do not recognize their authority over it. They are not even following their own rules. They:

– ignore the “editorial statement” about the list being “uncensored”

– censor people who have not broken the only two stated rules: “Be nice”, and “Do not post the same message more than once per 24 hours”

– refuse to tell the list that they are moderating some members

– moderate members on the basis of them “disrespecting the admins” without making a request to that member (as the “How to get permanently banned” section states) or even informing them that they are being moderated

– refuse to clarify what are confusing and contradictory rules

– continue to allow some non-local content that they deem inoffensive (or meet some other criteria – we don’t really know because they don’t tell us)

You can read the rules here: https://groups.io/g/wakefieldnews/wiki/13982

Those who wish to keep this list focused on the local have stated repeatedly, “Why don’t those who want a more broadly focused list just create their own?”

To this I answer: “Why don’t those who want a solely local list create their own?”

Or, even better: “Why can’t we all coexist on the same list?” Is it really so hard to skip – or mute – topics not of interest to you? Why does the need for some people to be totally unexposed to anything beyond the local trump the need for others to freely exchange ideas and information in the same forum?

Wakefield is a very outward looking community. While we work hard making a better world close to home, we also don’t turn our backs on the wider world. We are lucky to live where we do, and we feel an obligation to share our privilege with those less fortunate. It seems so anomalous to have a flagship local community space, such as the Wakefield News, voluntarily emasculate itself.

True community is a messy thing, but a beautifully messy thing. It’s a place where radically different people learn to live together, maybe even learn to see things a different way. If the Wakefield News split into two groups, it would be a failure of community. The more we talk only to people with whom we agree, the less community flourishes.

And this is a community that knows how to talk to itself. Without exception, all the comments posted on the Wakefield News during the recent controversy were respectful. The admins have it wrong: it’s not respect towards themselves that should get people censored, it’s respect between members of this community that should matter, and we’ve proven ourselves more than capable of having grown-up conversions in a constructive manner. We don’t need to be treated like children.

Phil Cohen said that he created the Wakefield News to make a “stronger community based on love.” You don’t learn to love your neighbours by avoiding difficult conversations with them. You learn to love them by having those conversations, in a respectful way, thus gaining a better understanding of their point of view. I share Phil’s desire to strengthen our community, and I strongly believe that strength is in our diversity.

The opportunity to listen to the community and respond is not gone. I believe our admins are willing to listen, as caring members of our community, if they believe there is a strong desire to expand the mandate of the Wakefield News beyond just the local. If you’d like to write them, you can reach them at wakefieldnews+owner@groups.io.

May a different sort of peace come to the Wakefield News – not one based on the suppression of voices raising uncomfortable subjects, but by the collective action of a community showing strength and love in its diversity.