Two great points of view, but they really do not address what this list
really is. It is not a deliberative body like Peter's post that has a
specific function and is under a set of rules, like a town Board. I have
been the Chair of the Bath Zoning Board for the past almost 30 years-
elected each year. I was asked to run the Board of Assessment Review
because i know how to run a meeting. I completely agree with the findings
of Peter's study, that inequality of knowledge is not a hindrance to a
body's final resolution of an issue. That is what the deliberations are all
about, , raising the level so there is no inequality. The same thing
happens with Dick's group, that everyone's knowledge arrives at a common
point. There still may be "no" votes or disagreement, but a closeness to
the truth is arrived at.

So we are not a deliberative body with a set of rules.

Second, we do not have a Chair, in Peter's group, nor specific rules and a
specific task, like the survival list, as Dick showed, Both keep discipline
which is essential if any real outcome is to be achieved. As the Chair of
the ZBA I have to keep the participants on issue and away from both rabbit
trails and personal attacks. Good luck with that on this list.I do try to
do that here but it is with humor (irony usually). There are several
examples on the thread.

Finally, as Dick noted-

I think the process does not need to look pretty to get to a good end point
> if people listen to each other.  I also do not think the process generally
> needs to take a very long time.  In the recent Bee-L case I think some
> stopped listening and the process drug on far too long.
>

Just go back and read the posts on the thread. There was a lot of not
listening to each other. Especially to not addressing the actual issue but
wandering far afield, such as defending Editors, when that was never the
issue.

Dick points out the key, and this is what I do like about this list, which
is we usually arrive at some end point and it was done on the thread when
Dr. Traynor responded to my post (which, if you read her comments confirmed
that it was not a normal edit of Randy's paper, but her own scientific
views) and Randy's gracious comments concerning her post, In essence it
took us full circle.

Truth won. As it usually does here.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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