Ben, your overwrite of Richard Kulisz's response to me in v4, which I have now restored, was I assume unintentional. Keith and I have asked everyone here not to use Delete Me. Please don't therefore. The bracketing with Curse Of Meta I found particularly irritating. I have no interest in replying to your points. I am interested in the ongoing conversation with Richard. I remain interested in issues of clarity and politeness here and in how Keith and I can continue to influence things in those directions, which was part of my motivation in this case. I also remain very interested in your views on Real People Please, as I've indicated to you on a number of occasions in the last six months, without receiving a response. Given the daring nature of your edits in that period I would like to know

1. that you accept the principle of Real People Please as I've defined it
2. quite a lot more about "where you're coming from"

Satisfying me on those two counts will make it much more likely that I will let you to edit radically my own text (and other peoples') without complaint or reversal. -- Richard Drake

Obviously, we want to make progress. Yet, for some of us a claim like Inelegance Of Human Body Proves No Caring Gods may go a bit too far.

Are we quite sure that we have successfully enumerated the Set Of All Possible Caring Gods? Indeed, is this set countable? Have we accounted for every one of them in our argument so far? What if in seeking to eliminate just one there turn out to be three to be accounted for, not only continuously caring for each other but even, with the hint of an enigmatic chuckle, for us, thus deliberately distracting us from our most vital and serious cosmic accounting?

--

This is missing something "je ne sais quoi" about the original. Hence the restore. That isn't to say the original, which is mine, can't be improved. But I don't want to spend any time improving the page right now, except for restoring my original. My interest in debating any of this with Ben will again depend on the points raised above. -- rd

Note carefully the transitions

• from v2 to v3
• from v5 to v6

On 17 Jun 2003 I reverted to my original with small additions in the previous section, reversing yet another major signal-reduction by Ben Kovitz that lasted twenty one months, from two days after 9-11 indeed. Only today, on 5 June 2004, did I notice something similar had been done to Josh Grosse. Given my growing focus on this as a Connection Centric Medium the removal of links chosen by an author from his own text is grievous signal reduction. But the patronising nature of Ben's reply to Josh, having so insulted him by what he has done to his text, now beggars my belief. There must have been something really strong here on Why that first year, that made people think this kind of treatment was worthwhile. Well, for a while.

These too I now judge to have been radically distortive reductions, even simply because of the removal of the Why Referents chosen. Ben also removed my signature in v3, as if that really helps in such personal and emotive areas. At the time I thought it was worth running with the unknown zealot's radical "Document Mode" and reductionist instincts. But the pervasive, Highly Insensitive Influence of Kovitz in the aftermath of 9-11 eventually put paid to any Cosy Illusions of benevolence in this case. Oh well. -- rd

Noticed today because later linked to from Carl Jung On Jesus. But the moment Walden had injected something Real World to the discussion in v4 the reaction was abysmal. Such abstruse arrogance is bound to provoke anger, leading in this case to a spat with Keith Braithwaite, whose comments strike me as entirely fair. But in all these pages Ben was acting as "host". It was a different way of misusing the openness and Wasting People here, their time and their good aspirations.