I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than to those attending too small a degree of it.
–Thomas Jefferson
Non-sequitur. “Liberty” does not mean that anyone who wants can disrupt
anything, or harass anyone, they want. Decent moderation does not
noticably
impair liberty.
More generally, a liberty which is useless has been effectively removed.
I find it rather curious that in the thread Tony starts, out of concern for
spammers and security holes, he posts 4 times in a row over the course of
ten minutes, and links to code that can be used to remove anyone from the
list.
Isn’t he advocating an institution which, upon it’s inception, would be
obligated to ban him?
No.
He’s not spamming, and he’s not posting malware. He’s not doing things
that
could reasonably be mistaken for those, either.
More generally, a liberty which is useless has been effectively removed.
I think a better non sequitur is going from not wanting a moderator to
being
an anarchist. But that’s not the point anyway, I’m not talking about
their
liberty, I’m talking about mine. I would rather have a few people spam a
few
threads than have to censor my posts out of fear of moderation. You can
say
moderation doesn’t noticeably impair Liberty, but Jefferson also pointed
out
that "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and
government
to gain ground. "
anything, or harass anyone, they want. Decent moderation does not
moderation doesn’t noticeably impair Liberty, but Jefferson also pointed out
that "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government
to gain ground. "
Does this mean you are for moderation or against it? I can’t tell.
Personally, I don’t find the list that hard to wade through. I like
to think my shit detector is pretty finely tuned, albeit I haven’t
found many useful threads lately, but that’s also beside point. The
reason for subscribing to any list is to maintain some sort of
interactivity with the other subscribers which is the basic purpose.
If people feel that basic purpose is being violated then something has
to be done.
If there are more people for moderation, then I think the people
have spoken and we should implement some moderators. If there are
more people on the side of self-policing, then we should abide by that
as well. I also think if you’re really interested in talking about
Ruby the programming language, you’ll find that you really won’t have
to really self-censor much, so I also don’t find that to be
necessarily a valid concern (although I can see where self-control
should prevail which is, obviously, a form of self-censorship). I’m
for self-policing for the most part, with a gentle moderation of
posters like thunk. Otherwise, things were moving along as normally
as can be expected on mailing list.
This is precisely the case in which I feel a moderator should step in.
Relying on “the community” to police itself is silly.
Not at all! This is believing in maturity of people. I know, people
can be nasty and sometimes I don’t see any good in the human nature.
But most of the time it’s different - especially in this list.
Compare that community with others and you’ll know what I mean.
Are you people really just a bunch of anarchists? I like moderation.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than to those attending too small a degree of it.
–Thomas Jefferson
I could not agree more. And yes, there is a particular difference
between anarchists and liberals. I would rather think of us as grown
ups who know how to get along well with each other and help those who
do not - or forget it for a moment.
do not buy this argument. As far as I am aware, the MLM of
I am not sure that is a correct view of the system, but I am sure
someone will correct me if I am mistaken. As I understand it, there are
three ways to “input” posts and three ways to view posts. They can and
sometimes do operate independently, although when they do it is
considered a malfunction, because we don’t want to isolate part of the
community. They essentially replicate each other, so I do not think any
one part is considered a central authority.
As for your security concerns, they should be addressed to Matz if you
have not already done so.
As for your moderation concerns, I do not share them, nor do I really
understand your vehemence (my perception!) on the issue. Trolls should
not be fed, spammers should be blocked. Threads I don’t care about are
not read. I am with Robert in saying we should be a community that gets
along without the need of supervisors. If there is one rule in our
anarchist mailing list/forum/newsgroup, it is “Matz is nice so we are
nice.” That is enough of a moderator for me.
A long time ago, (15.04.10), in a galaxy far, far away, Justin C.
wrote:
:=As for your moderation concerns, I do not share them, nor do I really
:=understand your vehemence (my perception!) on the issue. Trolls should
not be
:=fed, spammers should be blocked.
In the absence of moderation or some central authority, spammers cannot
be
blocked. Or, more properly, it’s up to each individual subscriber to
block
a spammer at the point of receipt.
:=Threads I don’t care about are not read. I am
:=with Robert in saying we should be a community that gets along without
the
:=need of supervisors. If there is one rule in our anarchist mailing
:=list/forum/newsgroup, it is “Matz is nice so we are nice.” That is
enough of a
:=moderator for me.
This is a fine philosophy until someone is not nice. Recently someone,
namely thunk, has been “not nice”. If more people are “not nice”
ruby-talk
goes from being a valuable community resource to “that place where
there’s
too much noise and not enough signal.”
I do not share the same strident opposition to central authority that
others
on this list seem to feel. I’ve been a list owner, a list moderator and
a
member of lists where I’ve been moderated. As said previously, having
someone with the ability to say “Dude, stop being a wanker” and having
the
ability to back that up is nothing new on the Internet. Hell, moderated
e-mail lists were nothing new 20 years ago when I got my first e-mail
account. If you believe having a moderator (or group of moderators)
will
make the list a tool of control by the dictator(s) at the top, your
belief
goes against the vast majority of historical examples of moderated
e-mail
lists. The more important question would be whether you could find
enough
candidates a) trusted by the majority of the community who b) would be
willing to spend the extra time and deal with the hassle that is being a
list moderator. Libertarian ideas of freedom from tyranny might be
academic
concerns if only because nobody would want to moderate the list in the
first
place.
If you believe having a moderator (or group of moderators) will
make the list a tool of control by the dictator(s) at the top, your belief
goes against the vast majority of historical examples of moderated e-mail
lists.
Maybe I want to continue to believe that the Ruby community is special
at least in some ways (for example, because it does not need
moderation). You might call that “romantic” (which I believe I am
generally not) but you would have to concede that it has worked out
remarkably good for the longest time. If you argue with a recent
hiccup in favor of getting rid of a tradition then this is a weak
argument in my eyes.
As a poster and quite nonconformist I will always step on some folk’s
toe. If there were a moderator I probably could not.
That should make you wary of moderation, shouldn’t it?
Honestly I really do not know. I have this tendency to see everyone’s
arguments, I see Tony’s I see your’s, I guess I need a mind of my own,
anyone having one to spare ;).
Seriously I believe much in liberty of expression thus I kind of like
my second thought to have a filtered condensed version rather than a
moderation.
Cheers
R.
–
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
– Alan Kay
Maybe I want to continue to believe that the Ruby community is special
at least in some ways (for example, because it does not need
moderation). You might call that “romantic” (which I believe I am
generally not) but you would have to concede that it has worked out
remarkably good for the longest time. If you argue with a recent
hiccup in favor of getting rid of a tradition then this is a weak
argument in my eyes.
I have the same point of view as Robert. I like ‘us’. Ruby-talk, in my
eyes, does not need moderation. There is a difference between:
holding back a joke because it is inappropriate
holding back a joke because one would get banned
I also realize it’s not -exactly- the kind of moderation you meant, but
there’s a small step from one to the other.
I gave thunk his own forum. All he wanted was a place to write stuff on
the internet. He can yell as loud as he wants over there; he is even the
admin. He is not evil, just misguided. Ever notice how the worst
children will suddenly become great kids when they get a toy they like?
(damn - my analogy breaks down again. When they get bored, they become
‘terrible’ kids again!)
When ruby-talk grows further, there may be a need for moderation - but
without a pattern, I think we may be jumping the gun.
I send you this only to point out that ruby-talk is very much insecure,
especially for anyone who reads it via email.
Actually, all that will do is cause the user to get a confirmation
e-mail asking if they really want to unsubscribe. I suppose it could
lead to some annoying spam, but I hardly think it’s a critical security
bug.
Actually, all that will do is cause the user to get a confirmation
e-mail asking if they really want to unsubscribe. I suppose it could
lead to some annoying spam, but I hardly think it’s a critical security
bug.
That’s what a secure MLM would do. The ruby-talk one does not. If you
don’t believe me I can run it against your email address.
Strange… when I do it to myself it unsubscribes me with no confirmation.
That is strange. A by account setting maybe? Looking through the
‘help’ command I’m not seeing anything like that though. Probably a
question only Matz could answer.
A long time ago, (15.04.10), in a galaxy far, far away, Justin C. wrote:
:=As for your moderation concerns, I do not share them, nor do I really
:=understand your vehemence (my perception!) on the issue. Trolls should not be
:=fed, spammers should be blocked.
In the absence of moderation or some central authority, spammers cannot be
blocked. Or, more properly, it’s up to each individual subscriber to block
a spammer at the point of receipt.
Oh, as for that, Matz blocks spammers on the mailing list, and Google
has spam filtering on its side for the newsgroup. I am not sure about
the forums.
On the contrary, moderation not only slows things down but it also has a
different effect: the community delegates maintaining a healthy biotope
to moderators. I prefer the current solution where everybody is
responsible for balancing things out. I think it has worked out
remarkably well in the last years and I do not really see a major
degradation.
I haven’t see a compelling reason why we should have moderation now. As
long as that has not changed I am strongly against moderation.
I vote with Robert K. for the above reasons.
By usenet standards (or really any Internet public discussion
standards), the recent “spam” was a minor hiccup in the harmony of our
little group. This episode doesn’t seem to have reduced the overall
civility of the group, so why worry?
