as the original link is distorting the layout, i have edited it with a hyper-link.

本篇作者講的本人亦有察覺，差不多毫不例外的某些人的文章一出現，便必然只有一分，又有的幾個人文章差不多必然有4、5分評分，根據文章文筆內容，這些評分頗有 grudge 成份。若要求公眾捐款而原來最後成為圈子的養份，恕在下不打算再支持。

yt君，感謝你的意見，你是我們試驗新版面後最活躍地發表意見的作者，希望其他朋友也可以多提意見。

新版面嘛，很多人都會看不順看，我就是其中之一，有時也會很勞氣說了重話，例如「變番原本咁樣好過」之類。這次的改版有兩個重點，一個是擴闊焦點範圍，一是加入tag system，希望大家多給點時間，疑中留情，摸摸不同改動的好處和壞處，我們會努力作修改。

對於yt的提議，我只提一些初步想法。可以肯定的是，評分制的原意並不是鼓勵讀者打擊某人或刻意抬高某人。而事實上，實施了一段時間後，評分的人數依家這麼少，表示此制度得不到很多人重視。被inmedia每日幾千個讀者中的幾個人「抹黑」或者「抬高」，沒什麼大不了。不過我想，如果真的希望發揮評分制的好處﹝即讓更多讀者參與﹞，公布投票人名字似乎不是好辦法──可以預料，投票的人將會更少而不是更多。﹝可能yt君的想法亦旨在discredit那些刻意投低分的人，或者整個評分制﹞

有什麼方法可以令評分制更加多人參與，令它更加名實相副？我暫時想不出來，大家來獻獻計。

YT君這樣說，是不是在反過來要脅編輯部呢？因為以後但凡他的文章上不了焦點，他就又「掌握」多點編輯偏頗的證據嘛？

──若果認為這樣說太過陰謀論，那麼YT君又何以如此肯定

"I have suffered the fate of receiving unfavorable evaluations from readers who are so secretive, so miserly, and so cowardly, as not to enlighten me on that which has motivated them to do so."

要知評而不論的理由可以有很多，我覺得更重要的理由可能是機會成本──時間、打字速度（或英語流利程度？）等等。而評分機制某程度上就降低了參與的門檻。申報利益，我從來沒有評過YT君的文章，不過就評過一分，評一分時亦甚少不作評論（評邊個大家心中有數）。

要公開評分者的login ID是個不錯的建議，不過技術上做不到也沒有甚麼大不了。現在分數旁邊有評分人數，讀者編輯大概也知道要同時考慮這兩個數字吧？況且大家也應該心中有數，無論如何，評分所（大約）量化的的不是文章質素，而是受歡迎程度（當然兩者非完全無關）。如何看待、使用這兩個數字，是讀者本身獨立思考的問題。

至於編輯選文上焦點的方針，我不能越庖代俎，替人家說話。不過若對評分的意義理解得當，以之作選文準則之一其實又有何問題呢？

我因為個人原因在這兩個月都不會看太多 inmedia 的文章，應該說是社會議題暫時絕緣。但是，我確實有 chan charles 對小圈子的擔心，而且，我更擔心是對人不對事，有值得看的反思文章都被埋沒的程度。

I should like to add to your observations a few of mine; not solely for the sake of defense, but more for the sake of clarification. You pointed to the question of rhetoric (in the positive sense of the term), upon which I should have quite a bit to say.

"其實由YT君在這個平台貼文開始，就離不開一個主旋律︰就是監察獨立媒體的權力，換句話說，一直以綿密的語言邏輯，質問在這個平台提出某種反對聲音的人(主要是指對建制中的權力、既有主流價值等提出反對)，憑什麼？用一句曾被引過的說法，就是，你們(一個被想像的單一獨媒群體)憑什麼站在自己定的道德高位向其他人扔石頭？誰夠膽說自己沒有罪？

"問獨媒(姑且把它當是單一共同體)，你憑什麼向別人扔石頭？到底是出於一種對民主、平權更高的要求(希望獨媒能時時警惕自身)，還是曲線維護現有體制、價值，有時確難斷定，但細讀修辭有助判斷。

"還有一個有趣的問題是，這麼一個小小的平台，有多少權力可言、多少霸權可憂？對獨媒如蚊的力量擔心得要命，但對獨媒批評的如牛的力量倒又沉默，這是哪門子的權力監察？

"這個平台是什麼樣子，正是由參與者共同構成，就如我不能理解，YT怎能把自己獨立開來，指稱這裏有一種"inmedia critics"如何如何。"

(1) Criticism and Civic Dialogue

"監察獨立媒體的權力" is not my goal, at least not the main part of it; though my writing, I concede, might have regrettably conveyed that impression. I have never used, to the best of my recollection, the language of power to describe Inmedia until very recently; in the long past I rarely felt that editorial power was any problem at all. I have, no doubt, written a few articles against the majority position in Inmedia, some, read in a certain light, must appear to question the culture which Inmedia represents; but the questioning stops at the specific issue I wrote of.

In attempting to characterize the general shape of my engagement with Inmedia, you suggested that I was guided by such questions as these: "憑什麼？" "憑什麼站在自己定的道德高位向其他人扔石頭？""誰夠膽說自己沒有罪?" I was tempted to agree with your characterization, until I came to the last question; and I thought I could not but withhold my assent.

It is never my belief, that any writing which aims only to find everyone guilty of something, whereby no-one will ever be in a position to criticize anyone, is worth the name of criticism. Criticism is, to my mind, both an act of juxtaposition and an act of separation (on which I may enlarge in a future article); respecting the latter, it involves a judgment, but not a straightway resentment. In throwing stones at some target, one ought to be prepared as well to account for the act, by appealing to a reason, a value, or to a mode of perceiving things; as to answer objections coming from a different perspective. I take this to be the foundation of civic dialogue.

(2) Rhetorica

In my long engagement with Inmedia (not so long for the old-timers, but sufficiently long for me to have some sense of the culture here), I feel that this civic dialogue is not always present. In questioning my motive, subtly, you wrote:

"問獨媒(姑且把它當是單一共同體)，你憑什麼向別人扔石頭？到底是出於一種對民主、平權更高的要求(希望獨媒能時時警惕自身)，還是曲線維護現有體制、價值，有時確難斷定，但細讀修辭有助判斷。"

I love the last phrase very much: "細讀修辭有助判斷。" If my motive may be read from the way I put things (which I concede it may very well be), I have simply tried to do the same with other writers and writings in Inmedia, before you recommended it as a principle. Reading through the diverse articles in this place, I read not only the position, but also the vocabulary, the slogans, the tone, the bits taken for given, and the bits which are thought most promisingly to arouse sympathy, and gain assent; I read the subtle shifts in ways of speaking, when the writer moves from a routine target of attack to something that seems widely embraced by many in this community; I read how fierce the slogans are towards the outside, and how lame they, turning inward, become; I read these things, no doubt, from my own pre-commitments, cultural position and political persuasion, which I brag I never hide.

But this much reading done, I revert to the question: To what degree is what I read a form of criticism? And to what degree is it but a kind of collective resentment, wrapped up in a fashionable critical language? This is the point of departure I took. If I now call the reader's attention to the problem of editorial power, I do not insinuate that the editors are failing their job, or anywise breaching the trust we have in them; but I do want to describe Inmedia by the very language that is routinely used in this place against other people; I mean to see, how that language might now be received, as well by the editors as by other readers well-versed therein.

You might say, that there is but very little power here to require monitoring; but the point is, I own, not the amount of power, but whether we may call it by its name. I suppose that the language of power is not meant to describe only one part of society, and never the other part; nor do I suppose, that critical theory can be applied only to mainstream media, and not to Inmedia.

(3) My Undertaking

I distinguish my understaking from the question "誰夠膽說自己沒有罪?" in this very specific way: I do not take it as a precondition for any act of criticism, that the critic must be totally innocent; in other words, the stone-thrower, I hold, need not be as pure as the Immaculate or Christ. But I do hold, that the stone-thrower ought to recognize what he is doing when he throws stones, and contemplate whether in so throwing he has just been too cruel to one party, too indifferent to another party, but too lenient to a third or to himself. He ought, as well, to see why he is inclined to describe his act in one language, but not another.

In this light, then, I may revert to your charge, whether my undertaking is "出於一種對民主、平權更高的要求". From the pursuit of a better way to live together and to live meaningfully, I can hardly dissent. And a great part of my vision does, I assure you, conform to various elaborations of democracy and equal rights. But I also revealed elsewhere, that I am not as ardent a champion of democracy as quite a few others in this place are; and in this I have my reasons (which you may very well reject).

Apart from democracy and equal rights, I being traditional and nostalgic and, for some, very retrograde, also long for culture and elegance and moderation and things of that sort. (My short note appended of late to the thread on the Bell Tower should intimate what I mean by this.) If this part of my longing is added to 一種對民主、平權更高的要求, with the qualification to the phrase I made above, I should have reason to think, that my undertaking should not frustrate your description. Yet I do not want to be limited by the short form you put it.

In the same connexion, you questioned whether my undertaking might not "曲線維護現有體制、價值"; I think I shall agree in part, and dissent in part. I maintain that it is not the case that whatever is mainstream must needs be wrong; if I finding a mainstream value conformable to my vision, support it, and supporting it, criticize the position assumed by the majority of Inmedia writers, I do not think I have betrayed myself, or sullied the name of criticism.

In urging Inmedia to describe itself by the language of power; in demanding that the stone-throwers reflect on what they are daily doing; in insisting that the mainstream need not by default be wrong, and Inmedia, right, this being said without prejudice to the other combination of terms; in presenting myself as sympathetic, as well to certain leftist demands in econmoic affairs, as to certain traditional values in politics and culture; in, above all, delineating my view as specifically as possible and offering arguments as forcefully as I can; I try to preserve nothing but a certain conception of criticism, a certain vision of civic dialogue.

(4) Recapitulation

Life is very rich. Arguments, even when they fail to persuade, may, if made with sincerity, meticulousness and charm, enrich our rugged journey in this world. But in attaching ourselves to one set of arguments, or even to one set of slogans, we do but impoverish our horizon. Rarely, in this place, do we see critics praise their opponents in part and object to them in part; they fight, but do not discern; tear, but do not separate. (The phrase "Inmedia critic," to answer your last charge, may mean two things. If it means whoever writes in this Forum, then surely I am an Inmedia critic; but if it means, as I sometimes intend it to, they who write in line with the majority position in Inmedia, using the usual language, slogans, and so forth, then I hope I may count myself outside the phrase's scope of reference.)

I pray that the foregoing musings may have, by and by and at long last, answered your question: "這麼一個小小的平台，有多少權力可言、多少霸權可憂？對獨媒如蚊的力量擔心得要命，但對獨媒批評的如牛的力量倒又沉默，這是哪門子的權力監察？" If I may, with the same musings, deflect your attention, from the monitoring of power to the promoting of civic dialogue, and the restoring of criticism based on judgment and argument; then I should be thankful, for having achieved much more than a defense and a clarification; for having, so to say, gained your assent to adopting "civic dialogue" and "criticism" as new terms for this discussion.