Subject: "Debate," backing up, and the SWC Sent: 1/15/96 1:26 PM To: E. Zundel, ezundel@cts.com CC: Ken McVay, kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca Hilary Ostrov, hostrov@uniserve.com CODOH, CODOHmail@aol.com Declan McCullagh, declan@well.com Greg Raven, ihrgreg@kaiwan.com Ingrid Rimland, the webmaster of Zuendel's site, wrote me: [IR's text deleted, private] I still don't see why you're making this into a big deal. Nizkor has been and will be linking to Zuendel's site, and every other Holocaust-related site we can find. The only question is whether that favor will be returned. The answer to that question is currently "yes" for Zuendel and "no" for other Holocaust-denying sites, notably Greg Raven. To be honest, after you put up the cross-link from Mr. Zuendel's web page, I made a mental check-mark on my mental to-do list, and moved on to my next item, which was getting Greg Raven to do the same thing. I was a bit surprised when you reacted so excitedly. I don't see how we got from a simple exchange of cross-links to "The Great Electronic Holocaust Debate." First of all, anything on the web is ersatz debate. The web is clumsy and slow. As you put it earlier, Ms. Rimland, running a web site is like flying a 747. I might add that conducting a web-based "debate" is like trying to _dogfight_ in 747s. It's hard to change content, and it takes time to make sure it all works -- much more time than the actual reading, researching, thinking, and typing that make up the actual process of debate. We're only pushing web-based linking because we've all but given up on getting Mr. Zuendel et al. to participate in _actual_ debate. I say "all but given up," because we have an idea or two for getting an actual debate going that Mr. Zuendel et al. might agree to. If it's technically feasible, we'll make a proposal to you and him (and other "revisionists"). We're still considering the possibilities. But now I see, Ms. Rimland, you've got a page up at: http://www.webcom.com/~ezundel/english/sm_pic.html You write: The first two documents we will debate are: * "The Aaron Breitbart Rebuttal" * "66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust" in reply to Nizkor. I don't know who this "we" is that you think you're speaking for. Debate is indeed a participatory event that requires more than one entity, so I assume this "we" does not refer only to those of you at Zuendel's web site. "We" must refer to Zuendel's web site and the Nizkor web site. Am I mistaken? Assuming I'm not mistaken -- You're not speaking for Nizkor with your "we." Nizkor has its own priorities and its own agenda, and I don't recall anyone at Nizkor agreeing to modify those priorities to include Aaron Breitbart, or even to continue discussion on the 66 Q&A beyond the information that we've already put up. Now, we may very well incorporate these into our future plans, because frankly it's refreshing to see a "revisionist" finally agreeing to actually talk about something, even if it is on the clumsy and slow web. We may put aside some of our sorely-needed web maintenance in order to address these topics. We can't say until we go over what our priorities are. Our resources are severely limited. So don't quote my words above out of context and hint that Nizkor refuses to debate on your terms. Don't you _dare_ take our _request_ that you reciprocate a simple cross-link, and turn that into some sort of backing-down from this "Great Electronic Holocaust Debate" that you've invented out of thin air! And I should add that I personally think it's rather presumptuous of you to put up a premature announcement about this "Debate." I think Mr. McVay and Ms. Ostrov will agree with me on this point. [remaining text deleted, mostly responses to private email from IR]
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