X-From-Line: nobody Sun May 16 12:24:13 1999 Newsgroups: uk.people.bdsm Subject: Re: Re Cocaine and the scene was parties References: <373c1389.552655@news.demon.co.uk> <373ca4ac.85647087@news.demon.co.uk> <5ZsE5MADeMP3Ywj1@janusbreed.demon.co.uk> <86g14y368x.fsf@hedonism.demon.co.uk> From: Paul Crowley Date: 16 May 1999 12:24:13 +0100 Message-ID: <87yaipqmua.fsf@hedonism.demon.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Lines: 41 Xref: hedonism.demon.co.uk misc-news:680 X-Gnus-Article-Number: 680 Sun May 16 12:24:13 1999 Master Laurence writes: > > There must have been quite > >a few players on some kind of drug over the years who were not > >sufficiently out of it to be a risk. > Again, I'm sure you are right however at the end of the day we have to > draw a line someplace and if someone is felt to be 'unsafe' then > intervention will happen. It sounds from your description as if you're drawing an entirely appropriate line *in practice*, but your description of it says something about "drugs" which serves only to muddy the waters. It seems to me there are four cases: A: Unsafe players who haven't taken drugs - will be stopped B: Safe players who haven't taken drugs - can continue C: Unsafe players who have taken drugs - will be stopped D: Safe players who have taken drugs - can in practice continue, since you can't tell. Clearly, this policy is best described without reference to drugs. If you're playing safely, you can go ahead. If you're playing unsafely, it doesn't matter whether it's because you're off your head, because you've had a bad day or because you're just plain careless - the club will intervene. A policy is something like a computer program, in that it's intended to be a description of an algorithm, in this case an algorithm by which other people can make better guesses about when you'll intervene, so that you can be seen to be fair. Good policy design shares some traits with good computer programming: predictable outcomes, generality, and clean design. The applicable maxim here is: "a designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- __ \/ o\ paul@hedonism.demon.co.uk http://www.hedonism.demon.co.uk/paul/ \ / /\__/ Paul Crowley Upgrade your legacy NT machines to Linux /~\