Prince,
Like you, i have misgivings with these so-called "guidelines". As you rightly
pointed out, the deficit in these so-called "guidelines", is not so much
their attempt to harness/shackle our liberties to be matured adults, but the
inconsistency in principles. Point in case - and as you queried - Essa Bokarr
Sey was the first to go on the rampage and with more personal words to hurl
at people which warranted some form of action from the "management", yet our
self-righteous mullahs were nowhere to be found! And when someone less
profane goes somewhat along the same lines, he gets booted off the List
without a warning. Unless i'm missing out on something, this is double
standards.
Also in the so-called "guidelines", we are informed that we should avoid long
articles because - that's right - people have lots of mails to read from
other lists they belong to. Here i must declare an interest: I'm amongst a
few handful who send most of their postings in the form of articles/pieces or
whatever one chooses to call them. If they want to circumscribe our liberties
to write as we deem fit, what has happened to choice, which, i always say is
the most important contribution the internet has brought to our age and
lives? If people have a difficulty in reading long pieces, need we tell them
that they have a "delete" key to punch and their lives would be freer? If
this is not an attempt on the part of the "management" to dumb down healthy
debate, i don't know it is? If people have a problem with lengthy essays, big
words and long sentences, they are at liberty to "delete" such stuff. I don't
whinge at the weird stuff i see online; i simply "delete" them and get on
with my life without complaining. When i see something that i know is
freakish, i simply "delete" and get on with it.
The so-called "guidelines" also want us to be part of the "netspeaking"
generation by simplfying our messages with such acronyms as FYI, BTW blah,
blah..... Well, speaking for myself, i'm not a nerd and or a netsquatter and
to this end, i merely use the net to complement the resources i have in the
form of books, tapes, newspapers and other "old-fashioned" medium of
communication. So i'm not going to dumb down the way i write simply because
everyone is suddenly part of this over-hyped but vacuous net age.
The "managers" also want us to refrain from sending in postings that have ads
in them. Are they kidding me? Are these people for real? I mean most
web-based e-mail hosts have as a snag to you using that "free" e-mail space,
tagging at the base of the shell of a mail their ads which they partly
utilize to generate income to run their sites. My FTNETWORK.COM which is
hosted by the Financial Times always has these forms of ads. So what do they
want me to do? Write to the folks at the FT and tell them that some
self-righteous ayatollah wants them to re-design the shell of my mails so
they would not have their tacky ads. Talk about dictatorship.
Somehow, when it comes to dictatorship, Africans just can't help themselves.
Just happens to be in our blood. If i can go these great lenghts to resist
the repugnant dictatorship of Jammeh, i see no reason why i should tolerate
the benign dictatorship of this list's "management". I thought Katim's abrupt
departure from the helm of the "management" will end the dictatorship he was
hell-bent on imposing on everyone. Far from it. Seems that Tombong's lectures
on media management has been duly noted.
Having said that, there are good sides to the so-called "guidelines" and they
will be duly respected.
In the service against all forms of dictatorship,
I remain,

Hamjatta - Kanteh
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