NotSL now has a new home. I decided to get rid of the robwilks.com minisite and replace it with NotSL. There wasn’t really anything interesting at robwilks.com, and I never updated it, so easier just to have NotSL.

Bear with us while we modify the template, which is called “unsleepable”. You never would have guessed, would you? (!). Actually, bear with me while I experiment with different themes till I find one I like.  I’ve settled on Hemmed, which you can see in front of your very eyes.  I like it because it is neat and clean.  It’ll do for now.

Yesterday, someone posted to Deaf UK pretending to be John Savva. The following emails were sent:

Jen Dodds is banned.

There are 4 banned members of Deaf-UK.

One of them is Jen Dodds.

John Savva gave her a “Final Warning” after claiming that she is posting emails to Doug Alker without any proof whatsoever (Yahoo! does not keep records of where Jen Dodds is forwarding emails to from the website of YahooGroups)

To be frank, John Savva is making up the fact that Jen Dodds is forwarding emails to Doug Alker to give that Final Warning.

And without informing the Deaf-UK group at all, Jen Dodds is now a banned member. No reason is given.

Is the the sign of a moderator that is being fair?

Is it fair that Jen Dodds should be banned? You all know she is a valuable resource of information for Deaf-UK and always have been fair to all.

List of banned members

Here is a list of members that John have banned with the reason given:

Joseph Gwynne-Jones:
no reason given

Jen Dodds:
no reason given

Alison Bryan:
Banned from DUK for deleting her posts. Why did she delete them? Because John Savva (through his 100 per cent own Deaf-UK as stated on Deaf-UK website) thinks he owns the content of other people’s e mails, which is an infringement of copyright law. Not to mention he is breaking Yahoo! terms and conditions.

Tony Nicholas:
for swearing at John Savva – in Deaf UK policy, it states that normally emails of this nature would be rejected however it was during when Deaf-UK is unmoderated so this might be justified.

He was swearing at John’s action over deleting the entire Deaf-UK-Events members list (thousands of them) but this is up for debate if he deserve to be banned.

Some emails have been blocked by John Savva where members question the above. They was forwarded to us instead in those cases.

Deaf-UK to be unmoderated Poll

Rob Wilks have emailed to Deaf-UK talking about what happened. It was blocked.

He posted it to his own blog instead. He have provided a BSL video for John Savva to easily follow:

http://www.robwilks.com/blog/?p=314

John Savva have replied to Rob as below:

http://www.robwilks.com/blog/?p=315

He have created a poll on his website as to whetever Deaf-UK should be unmoderated or not. Since we have no faith in John Savva’s moderation, it is done outside of Deaf-UK (aka outside of John’s control)

http://www.robwilks.com/blog/?p=325

Please vote at the above.

Deaf UK Policy Rule 17 – I wish to complain…

Dear all,

JGJones is a banned member of Deaf-UK

However following the recent posting of Deaf-UK policy earlier, he read through and he came across this rule:

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17. The moderators reserve the right to ban or suspend a member where they have complete disregard to the rules. Members do have the right to complain, and this can be either done by contacting the 3 moderators direct, or where you have asked, we will post your complaint to the list.
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He now want to exercise his right to complain about his banning.

First some history from his point of view:

He is a member of Deaf-UK and Deaf-UK-Events.

One day in August, he got an email from Deaf-UK-Events asking him to re-join again. he was a bit puzzled as to why this is since he is a member. Soon he discovered that the entire membership list of Deaf-UK-Events was deleted – thousands of members was deleted on purpose.

he then got in touch with Jen Dodds who he know is one of the moderator for that list and was informed by her that John Savva had deleted the entire membership list of Deaf-UK-Events. Without any warning whatsoever to the moderators or members.

Please note, he have no idea nor do he care about any background dealings between John Savva and Alison Bryan and Jen Dodds about the Deaf-UK-Events – that’s nothing to do with him.

So he posted on Deaf-UK to complain about it since John Savva is a member of that list. he felt he had the right to complain about his membership being deleted without warning from a list without consulting with anyone on that list – remember, there are thousands of
members on that list – not one email came from John Savva asking if it was ok to close down the list or something else and that’s what he is complaining about in Deaf-UK.

In all of his emails to Deaf-UK where he was complaining about Deaf-UK-Events membership list being deleted – he did not swear to anyone. Instead he demanded an explaination as he believe it was a stupid thing to have done.

Very soon after he find hisself a banned member of Deaf-UK. And he get an email from John Savva to Deaf-UK saying that he was banned along with Tony Nicholas.

Now as for the reason of his banning…

he still have not to this date been given a reason why he was banned. All he have to go on was this line John Savva said in an email to Deaf-UK:

“JGJones is banned because he is asking for it”

It’s not the exact wording, but it’s along that line. That does not justify his banning. he have not broken any rules in the Deaf-UK policy and was simply demanding an explaination from John Savva as to WHY he deleted the Deaf-UK-Events membership list without warning or explaining.

he is now banned for asking that. To rub it in, John Savva claims he believe in freedom of speech. Yet he is denying freedom of speech to ask a simple question – why?

Once again to remind you of this Policy No. 17:

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17. The moderators reserve the right to ban or suspend a member where they have complete disregard to the rules. Members do have the right to complain, and this can be either done by contacting the 3 moderators direct, or where you have asked, we will post your complaint to the list.
========

JGJones and other banned members have the right to complain. Since we don’t have 3 moderators anymore, it’s all under a rather tight control of John Savva, they cannot contact him directly as they do not think he will give them a fair trial. And so…do it this way instead since JGJones is unhappy in his unfair banning from Deaf-UK yahoogroups. So
instead of asking “3 moderators” where it doesn’t exist, he is now asking you, the members for your decision.

If you think he broke the rules in Deaf-UK policy that was sent out as of 1st Dec 2006 and is the same one from when he was banned – and you believe that John Savva was right in banning JGJones – please do say so.

If you believe John Savva is wrong, please say so (I would appericate it if John doesn’t block those emails).

And to repair damages done to Deaf-UK-Events a new website was created. its better for events tracking etc and will prove to be a valuable resource for all Deaf people in UK because it is a completely unmoderated list with open membership (ie no pre-approval) and
membership are NOT needed to view, anyone can view without a membership.

Deaf UK Events: http://deafukevents.info

The Deaf UK Moderator responded with the following:

Dear Members,

I inform you that I do sincerely apologise for all inconvience it may
caused to you. I have already warned this would be happen.

But Hacking to send emails as John Savva are not acceptable, and as
seen as childish. This is seen as an attack to the DUK and the Owner.

Please support for DUK, and move on focus on deaf issues.

John.

So, once again, all Deaf UK members are denied the opportunity to discuss this really important issue. I’m almost tempted to unsubscribe, because this situation is beyond pathetic. Grrrr.

Those of you who have not yet voted on whether Deaf UK should be moderated or unmoderated, please vote here.

Just a quickie before bed.  I’ve not long got home from picking Oliver up from Newbridge Comprehensive and taking him home to his parents’ house (Dad-in-law has the car as he’s on night shift).  The weather is gawd-awful.  It is not just raining, it’s bucketing it down.

I had to drive through about three MASSIVE puddles/almost floods, and there seems to be a burst water pipe on Penmaen Road, flooding the road in the process.  Combined with the buckets of rain and the darkness, it was really quite a surreal experience.

The weather these days is completely bizarre.  We’ve had the warmest November on record, with fairly dry weather (actually, I thought it’s been quite cold, so it’s actually meant to be colder than this?! /shivers).  Now the weather is pissing down.  The nights are drawing in earlier and earlier, and everything’s just so miserable and dark!

Don’t you just love British winters?  Spring, here we come!

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will have to go up the mountain!

Here’s another annoying article: “Bionic ears ‘threaten deaf culture’”, which I first read in The Metro on the train to Beckenham Junction this morning.

A few points I’d like to raise in response to this article:

‘normal’ language skills

/coughs. So sign language is not normal?

Eleven children who received implants before the age of one developed language normally, a team at the University of Melbourne found.

I totally abhor the thought of all these poor little mites who have received cochlear implants without any say in the matter.

‘The children don’t have normal hearing, but they have normal language,’ a team member said.

There they go again with that phrase: “normal language”. Grrr.

Harlan Lane, a psycholinguist at Northeastern University in Boston said: ‘The idea of operating on a healthy baby makes us all recoil.

‘Deaf people argue they use a different language and with it comes a different culture, but there is certainly nothing wrong with them that needs fixing with a surgeon’s scalpel.’

Hear, hear (!). Nicely put, Mr Lane.