Beth,

While I understand your outrage who would submit to such a board or panel. There are some stellar people who frequent the Café. Those for whom I have a great deal of respect, but I would not allow them that kind of power.

To quote myself from another thread: "I could be ostricized by every major magic organization on the planet. They could even have a dark and secret "broken wand ceremony" at the Magic Castle where they actually break a wand over my head, and if little Johnny's dad down the block wants to hire me for his birthday, I'm a magician again."

I fear you are thinking with your heart and not your head.

Frank Tougas

Perhaps, Beth, but at least your heart is in the right place. The problem is that it isn't possible to legislate morality, i.e. you can't force people to do the right thing. The most you can do is try to make them see why doing the right thing is often in their own best interests.

People who are determined to do the wrong thing are going to do it, and all the arguments in the world won't dissuade them: they will download their files from LimeWire, make duplicates of tapes and DVDs from their friends, and basically steal anything they can get their hands on. However, I don't think those people are the real problem; the more serious threat are people who do the wrong thing without knowing that they are doing the wrong thing, and those are the people who can still be affected by boards such as these.

I have seen many posts from people asking if it's okay to do something that, to most of us, is self-evidently not okay. I think it's self-defeating to do what so many here do, which is to leap down the person's throat and berate him for his lack of ethics and character. I think a better approach is take the time to explain to the person why certain actions can be harmful to magic, and encourage that person to do better. After all, if they are taking the time to ask the question, then they probably are genuinely confused, and how we respond can have an impact on what they ultimately choose to do. If we take the time to guide them, they might choose to do the right thing; bite their heads off, and they might just say, screw this, you people are self-righteous fanatics, and take the easier, but ultimately more harmful course.

The only way to change someone's mind is present reasonable arguments in a logical way. Some issues are more complex than others, and warrant exploration, which is what some of us are trying to do here. Telling someone something is wrong is not as effective as helping him see for himself why something is wrong; the second path is more likely to lead to him making the right decisions on his own.

If we, as a community, want people to behave ethically, we can't really do it by fiat: we don't have any kind of real power to force people to do anything. However, we can continue to talk about issues in an attempt to educate people. You've done that yourself, and I hope you will continue to do so. Hopefully, the act of doing that will help more people realize how their actions impact magic, either positively or negatively.