[Wplug-web] [wplug-plan] Logo Contest (fwd)

[David Tessitor]

Jonathan S Billings wrote:

> >snip< we don't need any members submitting their favorite kiddie pr0n.
>
> You know who you are.
>
> -- jonathan

Jonathan, how can you impugn the reputation of the club with
such a remark?
Such a salacious open remark not only maligns the group and
its members by
implying that WPLUG is a haven for ped0philes, but worse, it
casts an eye of
suspicion on everyone associated with the group.

Imagine how this must be taken by any thoughtful parent who
might look through
the archives, maybe to find out more about the group or just
to understand the
contest their child is participating in.  They would certainly
be immediately
dissuaded from allowing their child to have anything to do
with the group and
they could very well report the matter to law enforcement
authorities and then
... I'll leave it to your imagination to carry it further, but
the horror
stories of destruction to peoples lives over even more
frivolous accusations
is real.

Needless to say, your careless, shoot from the hip, hide
behind the keyboard
style of cowardly, reckless remarks are one thing when
assailing efforts to
improve the organization of the group.  However, while those
harm the group as
a whole, here your crass thoughtlessness can have a serious
negative impact
upon WPLUG members' individual lives as well.  You have
certainly gone too
far.


Jonathan, maybe you and others of the inner clique (and yes,
Virginia, there
is an inner clique) have some idea of whom you are accusing. 
But I dare say
the majority do not, nor could it justify the comment even if
it were common
knowledge.  In the Internet age of distribution and permanence
of email
communications, in an age of search bots that read through
entire sites to
categorize and index words, your careless remark risks setting
an egregious
label that can cause great harm to the organization.

Jonathan, I could echo your most recent attack on me and ask,
why don't you
name names?  However, I don't want you to publish the names of
anybody and
risk carrying the group into such libel territory.  I should
point out though,
that in psychology there is a term called "projecting" in
which a person
projects their own short comings onto others and then tries to
call
everybody's attention to them.  I think you demonstrate that
at least once
here:  you attacked me with, "Name names, rather than hinting"
for my saying
that many members are satisfied with the status quo ("members"
being a loose
term, because other than through an action of the member
meetings that you
have sought to undermine, membership has never otherwise been
defined), and
you have acted as if I was making an accusation (which amazes
me, because I
don't know how you can think that either being a member or
being satisfied
should be taken as an accusation).  Yet here you have made a
truly serious
accusation.  One might say you've exhibited a case of the pot
calling the
kettle black, but really it's more like the pot calling the
milk jug black.

Finally, not only have you cast aspersions upon WPLUG and
denigrated the group
before outsiders, but you have asked every member to now look
askance at every
other WPLUG member and wonder about them from this point on.

Jonathan, I think you owe the group a very serious apology on
this one.
Unfortunately, the damage is undoably done --- you have begged
the question
and neither the most sincere apology nor even your resignation
from the group
can remove the suspicions you have raised.


About the only positive product of your remark is that you
have provided a
perfect example of "begging the question" (and you did it
without using a question yourself) -- clearly demonstrating
why begging the question is considered disreputable and is
disdained by civil individuals.

David Tessitor