[eDebate] who's number 8, who's number 7? where are the bios

[Burk, Christopher R]

There you go again, Ellis. Defending terrorists... 

Just kidding. 


But seriously, you got no link. There are some big differences between my role of the DCA process and the activity of Craig Rosenbraugh. I realize that your flow is ain’t the best so I’ll go through the link arguments very slowly for you.

First, there's no direct action or physical violence with the posting of DCA info or DCA biographies to eDebate. I’m not advocating violence or relaying messages for those who do. Give me a break. 

Second, the writers of the DCA bio's are not anonymous. It’s clear to everyone who the writers are when they post. Credit or blame is easily assigned to the source. I’m not hiding anyone’s identity. It’s actually quite the opposite – I tell the bio’s writers to post directly to eDebate since I will not post for them. You might even label that a “link turn.” 

Third, the better parallel might be the operator of eDebate since almost anyone can post here and can post under a fake name if desired. C’mon, a freaking gerbil posted last year!

And, finally, this clearly ain’t about social justice. The DCA bio’s might recognize debaters. They might poke fun at debaters. They might applaud achievements. They might be offensive and disgraceful. But are the goals of posters of DCA bio’s even vaguely similar to Rosebraugh’s goal of promoting social justice? No, that’s not what the DCA’s are all about. I hope that I have cleared that up for ya.



Overall, eDebate is clearly a very open forum (we all can thank Kerpen for maintaining it). Open forums can be both a blessing and a curse. There’s nothing really preventing any one from posting a bio to eDebate. Or anyone from posting anything to eDebate. The archives are filled with a huge variety of both posters and content. But, hey, that’s what we get when we are livin' la vida loca in a free speech forum. People are free to post something or not. Or to read the posts or not. Or to post a response or not. Or ignore all of eDebate completely. I am honestly a bit mystified when some people in the debate community – people who might have a large appreciation for the merits of a free speech communication forum – call for less freedom of speech. Debate writ large would seem to indicate that the one of best response to speech that one find’s annoying, distasteful, or erroneous would be some form of counter-speech rather than limits on speech. 


Christopher Burk
Director of Debate
University of Texas at Dallas
www.utdallas.edu/orgs/debate/new/




-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Ellis [mailto:andy.edebate at gmail.com]
Sent: Tue 5/8/2007 1:11 PM
To: Burk, Christopher R
Cc: edebate at ndtceda.com
Subject: Re: [eDebate] who's number 8, who's number 7? where are the bios
 
Craig Rosebraugh, is also not responsible, I mean im cool with that standard
as long as you are...

On 5/8/07, Burk, Christopher R <crb012000 at utdallas.edu > wrote:

>

> Malcolm and anyone else interested,

>

> The posting of the DCA bio's are a bit delayed but will continue soon.

> Shawn Powers bio of Alex Iftimie should be next be it is 'under review' and

> not because it might be published. So he suggested that we just go ahead to

> the next author for the bio for the #8 debate. Well, the author of that one

> needs to answer his email and post the bio ASAP. So the posting of the bio's

> has bogged down but it will proceed later today or tomorrow (hopefully).

>

> Again, I take no responsibility for the content of the biographies. Those

> who contacted me indicating their willingness to write a bio are only told

> when to post and the results of the vote. Everything else is their

> decision.  But, generally, please consider trying approaching these bio's

> with a sense of humor. Life's too short to seek constantly to be offended.

>

> cb

>

>

> Christopher Burk

> Director of Debate

> University of Texas at Dallas

> www.utdallas.edu/orgs/debate/new/

>

>

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