[liberationtech] New Book: Critical Theory and the Digital

[Yosem Companys]

Hi All,

As you may know from our list guidelines, we welcome brief
announcements of on-topic books by subscribers to the list.

It has been brought to our attention, however, that the recent chorus
of responses to David Berry's book violates the list's "zero-tolerance
policy for anyone who posts ad hominems, or otherwise inflammatory,
extraneous, or off-topic messages."  Some of the responses have also
violated the list's "please keep 'me too' replies to a minimum."

One of the list's goals, of course, is to share information.  But when
an author shares his work with the list, and the thread then
deteriorates into an attack about the author's work, it can have the
deleterious effect of making the author (or other authors)
apprehensive about announcing their work in the future, thereby
creating an environment that stifles free speech and academic
discourse, and thus an environment that is inconsonant with the
principles we espouse.

Of course, open access is a fine topic for discussion on the list, and
we encourage discussion on it, as we have done in the past.  But there
is no reason why one book should be more or less singled out for
attack than any others.

If you have any questions or concerns about the policies cited above
or any other issues, please direct them to me personally and not the
entire list.

Best,

Yosem
One of the list moderators