Rob wrote at 2007-06-27 00:29:

It's hard to know where to begin. The issue of censorship is a difficult one, but not in this case. It is absolutely ridiculous that you took down your post(s) because a small number of people in your goofy running club are embarrassed about their actions and how they conducted themselves, or what they said. You didn't say anything inappropritate in the posts and you didn't come by the information in some sneaky way. All you did was summarize information that was available (at the time you made your posts) on a mailing list or on a message board. This was information that was available to you as a member of a group. Unless you signed some sort of a confidentiality agreement then you have every right to repeat what you read. In fact, it's inappropriate for them to confront you to ask that you take it down. Well, they can ask, but there should be no expectation that you'd comply, and why you did is beyond me. It seems like you did it in the interest of popularity and I can't think of a worse reason to censor yourself.

I read the post(s). Let me try to remember the general gist of the issue.

There's some guy, who was the coach for quite a while. He probably did an OK job, maybe not as good as he could have. But then again, it's not even a full time gig for him (is it?). Even people with very big jobs, who get paid gobs of money to do very important things don't always do as good a job as they might be able to. It's sort of built into the human condition. On the other hand, it seems obvious that he didn't do a terrible job because there wasn't a unanimous outcry for his removal. In fact, if I remember your posts correctly, quite a few people were upset about the whole thing. As I said, he probably didn't do as good a job as he could have, held to some theoretical standard.

A small group of people, the duly elected officers of the club, or some subset of them, took it upon themselves to oust the guy. There's a mailing list, discusssion forum and of course there are the regular club meeting... it seems like there would have been plenty of opportunity to discuss the issue openly. But, instead this small group made a decision to act on behalf of everyone else. Now maybe they're entitled to do that, I wouldn't know. Let's pretend that for some reason it was inappropriate or difficult to have an open discussion beforehand, though I doubt that's the case. Regardless, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect that there should be an open discussion after the fact, during which those involved would answer to the group as a whole, explain their motives and all of the issues inolved, the process by which they conducted themselves, and the outcome. It may be the case that the officers were elected to act on behalf of the group but that doesn't imply that members surrender their opinions or right to be heard. I assume at some point these officers will be up for re-election. Isn't it reasonable that their actions now are fair game for discussion within the group (the mailing list, forum, etc.) so that members judge the performance? Is there some national security issue here that I'm not aware of? Are we trying to be careful not to tip off the terrorists by acknowledging issues and talking about actions taken by the Cambridge Running Club? In all seriousness, just about everyone finds it upsetting when the government is less than honest or forthcoming about the things that they do, supposedly in our best interest, and with good cause. They are elected to act in our behalf and ultimately they answer to us. But, as I alluded to at the beginning, there are may be some gray areas when talking about world politics, war, the lives and livelihood of hundreds of millions of people, not to mention the over 6.5 billion people in the world who have an interest in how the US government decides to throw its weight around. For example, you're the President of the US and, because of the resources at your disposal due to your position, you have access to information that seems to forecast the end of the world in 50 years... do you share that information... and with whom? Should you do it on Tuesday or do you wait until Thursday, hoping that something happens in the next 2 days? Is it in anybody's best interest to hurry the end of civilization by telling people their lives are over before you have carefully considered all of the possible scenarios? (Forget about the fact that a good number of those people will have died of natural causes, or for some other reason, over the course of the next half-century.) Anyway, like I said, there might be some gray areas. But in this case, we're talking about a running club. What are the stakes exactly? Because on the one hand, you have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and on the other hand you have the reputation of a couple of people associated with the Cambridge Running Club - a very nice club I'm sure but in actuality nothing more than a recreational group. I don't see where the justification for censorshp comes from in this case.

If everyone conducted themselves as they should have, then there's absolutely nothing to cover up, right? The officers of the club came to a reasonable decision that was, at least in their minds at the time, purely in the best interest of the group. The coach did his best to offer instruction and guidance and to conduct himself appropriately at all times. Sooner or later, these sorts of relationships are dissolved. Was the expectation that this guy was going to be the coach for life, so that anything short of a lifetime tenure is seen as some sort of a failure or disgrace? That's nonsense. So, as typically happens, the two parties part ways and each wishes the other the best... no harm, no foul. All of this activity intended to cover up what happened sugeests that something less apropriate took place. In that case there's every reason to talk about it. How do the concerns of a very small number of people affiliated with the club stack up against the interests of the rest of the members? If something inappropriate happened, certainly people should be made aware of it. Heather, you mentioned at some point that there was a waiting list. What about all the people lining up to pay money join, people who might think better of that decision if they were aware of how the club conducts itself? The problem is you can't appease the small group without doing a disservice to everyone else.

I hope that you repost the original content. If you don't, then I guess I'll look for cached copies on Google and repost it myself. Google may be willing to help China censor the world but, though the Cambridge Running Club may share the questionable moral inclinations of communist China, I doubt they have the same pull.

Congratulations Heather, you placated a couple of people.

By the way, the roommate thing was entirely different. Then you were dealing with a very personal issue. It's not hard to argue that having a roommate does not necessarily imply exposing your personal life to all of the other people you know... colleagues, family, and friends. By comparison there is no assumption of privacy here, nor should there be in my opinion.

By the way, I did find that cached posts, so you can go read about them on my site if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

heather martian wrote at 2007-06-27 00:38:

i guess i shouldn't even have a stupid blog if i cave so easily. i just wanted the stupidity to end and i guess i added to it. the reason people wanted me to erase them was because the former coach didn't want his reputation to be impacted negatively by the emails, especially the one i posted from the officers, even though i feel he's being a baby about it. it's not all made up accusations, he's not perfect, people have a right to their opinion and voiced it, it was put online, deal w/ it! he shouldn't be able to whine about it and get his way like a 5 year old but that's exactly what happened. my bad!