[EM] Re: electionmethods website is cancelled

[Russ Paielli]

Dear EM subscribers,

I just joined this list to reply to a post regarding me and my website 
http://ElectionMethods.org. Some of this post may be off-topic, but I am 
replying to a post that went off-topic regarding me, so I feel that I 
should have an opportunity to reply. [I haven't figured out how to reply 
directly to a message in the archives, so I am initiating a new message.]

Several years ago I found Mike O. on the web, and I emailed him with a 
question about IRV and why he opposes it. We had some correspondence, 
and he persuaded me that IRV is not what it is cracked up to be. I was 
impressed with Mike's knowledge, intelligence, and dedication to this 
important topic, so a few months later I proposed that we set up a 
website on the topic. He would be the "domain expert" and I would be the 
webmaster and editor/writer. He agreed, and ElectionMethods.org was born.

I realized very early that he and I were on opposite sides of the 
political spectrum. However, I figured that we should keep partisan 
politics and ideology completely off the site anyway, so I figured we 
could "agree to disagree" on politics. We consciously avoided discussing 
politics, and we got along well with regard to the content of the 
website. I thought it was actually a testament to the website that two 
individuals of opposite political persuation could cooperate so 
harmoniously on a website about something so fundamental to democracy.

Well, it couldn't last forever. I don't remember exactly when it 
happened, but a few months ago we started talking politics. Not just 
"garden variety" politics, mind you, but really bizarre stuff. Mike put 
forth the notion that the Bush Administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.

At first I thought Mike was suggesting that Bush had merely "allowed" 
the attack to occur because he thought it would help him politically. I 
  didn't think that was likely, but I was willing to consider the 
possibility. I then soon realized that Mike believed more than that. He 
believes that Bush or his aids actively organized the attacks. He also 
believes, for example, that the WTC was wired with explosives that were 
detonated on cue to make the WTC collapse.

Wait, that's not all. Mike is convinced that that a US missile, rather 
than an airplane, hit the Pentagon. Why? Because he read a book by a 
Theologian that says the hole in the Pentagon was too small for the 
airplane to have penetrated, and not much of the airplane was left 
outside the wall. I referred him to sites that debunk this claim, and I 
told him that most of the airplane probably just burned up in the 
massive fire, but his belief was unshakable. When I asked him where the 
airplane (and the people in it) went if it didn't hit the Pentagon, he 
said it could have simply flew out over the ocean and ditched.

I told Mike that such a massive conspiracy would not only be incredibly 
risky, but any net benefit to Bush was highly questionable. Had Bush 
been caught in such an act, not only would he be hung by the gonads, but 
the Republicans could plan to be out of power for the next 50 years! 
Beyond that, the attacks took something like $1,000,000,000,000 (that's 
a lot of zero, folks!) out of the US economy, which severely damaged the 
economy and nearly cost Bush the election. Yes, Bush did gain some 
political "capital" as a result of the attacks, but the downside to the 
economy was huge, and presidential elections are usually a referendum on 
the economy. But I digress.

Well, at that point I started to wonder what sort of person I had hooked 
up with, but I decided to just ignore it and keep the website as is. 
Then we started talking about the war in Iraq. Now, I respectfully 
disagree with the position that the war is unjustified and too costly in 
terms of lives and dollars, but I have no respect for the notion that 
the US is in it for purely immoral, "imperialistic" reasons. Guess what 
Mike believes. He believes that the people of Iraq would be better off 
with Saddam still in power. He also thinks that the US is torturing 
Iraqis as bad or worse than Saddam and his regime ever did. And 
apparently Mike's committment to democracy doesn't extend to the Iraqi 
people. I guess he thinks they have a "right" to live under the thumb of 
a murderous tyrant who gets 99.96% of the vote (and the other 0.04% are 
tortured to death).

But even that wasn't enough to end our collaboration on the website. It 
turns out that Mike is also convinced that Bush stole the 2004 election 
by means of rigged voting equipment with no paper trail. Now, I agree 
completely with him that we need paper ballots, and I even wrote an 
article at the website about it that has been there for years. 
Furthermore, I am even willing to consider evidence that the machines 
were rigged. But I was absolutely amazed that Mike is certain it 
happened when even the Democrats aren't making that claim. That was the 
straw that made me realize what sort of person I was dealing with.

Mike and I had some nasty email exchanges. (I have only met him once in 
person, by the way, and it was years ago.) I got frustrated with his 
apparent lack of connection with reality, and I wrote some really nasty 
things to him and about him. I probably shouldn't have written those 
things, but I am not apologizing -- at least not yet.

Things got really nasty when Mike ordered me to "take down the website" 
or, as he put it in his post to this group,

"I've asked Russ to either take down his website, or at least remove 
from it my articles, and anything there that has its origin in any 
suggestions or comments that I'd sent to Russ."

Well, Mike does not have the authority, either legal or moral, to order 
me to take down the website that I spent so much time developing. The 
website was my idea to start with, I own the domain, I wrote most of the 
material, and we certainly had no agreement that the site would "come 
down" as soon as he demanded it.

Also, the notion that I have no right to use any ideas I got from him is 
delusional. Because I learned about the deficiencies of IRV from him, 
does that gives him the legal or moral right to silence me on the 
matter? Of course not. But he apparently thinks it does. Then again, 
what would you expect from someone who believes ...

I think I have the right to leave the site as is, with no changes 
whatsoever. However, I told Mike that I would voluntarily remove the 
highly technical stuff that he sent me, which I have done. I also gave 
him the option of freezing the site as it appeared, with both our names, 
  even though we can't stand each other anymore. I did this as a 
voluntary gesture of fairness to him, but he scoffed at it and 
childishly demanded once again that I remove everything that I had ever 
learned from him on the subject. But I could have learned most of it 
elsewhere, of course. Mike is hardly the only person in the world who 
knows about the problems of IRV and the benefits of Approval voting.

He also wrote this in his earlier post to this group:

"Over the years, Russ's website has been an ongoing embarrassment on EM,
because Russ has often reworded my definitions in a way that is 
ambiguous or means something different from the wordings that I'd sent 
to him."

This is gross distortion. Here's how it worked. Mike would send me his 
definitions and other material, and I would edit them for readibility. 
His text was often convoluted and garbled. I spent a lot of time 
improving his text. Yes, there were a few times when I inadvertantly 
changed the meaning of something. But I always asked for his approval. 
Usually I would get his approval before posting, but sometimes I would 
get a bit careless and post it first and ask him to review it on the 
site. He was virtually always apprised of new postings and revisions. 
His claim that I made significant revisions without his approval is 
simply wrong.

This message is already very long, so I will leave it at that. That is 
my side of the story. I don't intend to get into a long discussion about it.

Regards,
Russ Paielli

http://RussP.org