Thanks -- this is a great post. I've been trying to find something like your post to have my students read before they get into flaming free-for-alls on course bulletin boards. May I use this? I would, of course, cite you. :-)
I'd like to toss a tactic I've seen used (rarely) by people who are putting foreward the "it isn't right to ban people / limit speach" arguement. First they ask a group (for instance an lj community) what they feel about being banned/deleted from a post/group and gather positive support for *not* using banning/deletion (because the people are thinking about those tactics being used on them) and condemnation for people who use those "horrible" tactics. Then the poster starts posting inflamitory or insulting comments/posts. When the group/person demands that they stop or goes to deal with them the group/person hesitates before using ban/delete and the attacker points at the previous post calling hypocracy on the group/person. This allows the attacker to do more damage and rally third parties more effectively than they otherwise might be able to do. It makes the arguement about "freedom" and "consistency" rather than about the attack.
I mod a couple of LJ communties. Two are rather drama free, but one occasionally gets a little heated (nature of the beast). My co-mod and I have come up with our own solution- we're active, and highly visible, and we tell people where the lines are. If someone crosses a line, they get a warning, then they are gone (unless it's maliciously sassing the mods. That one gets no warning). And then we mock them. The only consensus is that we're in charge. We've only banned one person outright, asked a few others to leave, and removed posting privledges from another until he gets back in our good graces (he chose to leave on his own accord
( ... )
A year after the massacre at the Polytechnique, a large group of women in area where I lived announced that they would be holding a remembrance vigil for the fifteen victims. When someone asked, "Don't you mean fourteen?" they stressed that it was fifteen, for they believed that Mr Lapine was also a victim of hatred.
Frankly, it doesn't much matter except to us academics.
Oh, I don't know. The anonymous jackass behind the attack in question managed to shut down one of the better blogs out there (CPU is one of those rare blogs that has both insightful and original content, rather than just parroting or analyzing others). If better understanding the phenomenon does anything to help prevent that from happening again, it's well worth pursuing that understanding.
Make them pay to host their own vitriol. If they want to enjoy freedom of the press, they can buy their own damn presses.
No kidding. When I had my stalker problem last year, the weirdest thing about it was how he clearly just didn't get the notion that it was *my* journal. He clearly believed that he had both the technical and moral right to post whatever the hell he wanted there, and I was genuinely surprised at how hard it was to teach him otherwise. (I'm still not sure I ever convinced him, but I at least got him to go away...)
Oh, I don't know. The anonymous jackass behind the attack in question managed to shut down one of the better blogs out there (CPU is one of those rare blogs that has both insightful and original content, rather than just parroting or analyzing others). If better understanding the phenomenon does anything to help prevent that from happening again, it's well worth pursuing that understanding.
It was precisely my point that understanding at that level of differentiation doesn't help prevent it from happening, yet people -- including, apparently, you :} -- get completely hung up on exactly that point, as if it were useful. It is precisely the wrong layer of the abstraction to be of any utility to the user-on-the-ground.
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I'd like to toss a tactic I've seen used (rarely) by people who are putting foreward the "it isn't right to ban people / limit speach" arguement. First they ask a group (for instance an lj community) what they feel about being banned/deleted from a post/group and gather positive support for *not* using banning/deletion (because the people are thinking about those tactics being used on them) and condemnation for people who use those "horrible" tactics. Then the poster starts posting inflamitory or insulting comments/posts. When the group/person demands that they stop or goes to deal with them the group/person hesitates before using ban/delete and the attacker points at the previous post calling hypocracy on the group/person. This allows the attacker to do more damage and rally third parties more effectively than they otherwise might be able to do. It makes the arguement about "freedom" and "consistency" rather than about the attack.
I've seen that in action a few times.
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A year after the massacre at the Polytechnique, a large group of women in area where I lived announced that they would be holding a remembrance vigil for the fifteen victims. When someone asked, "Don't you mean fourteen?" they stressed that it was fifteen, for they believed that Mr Lapine was also a victim of hatred.
And, yes, these women were hard-core feminists.
In my opinion, they really "got it".
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Oh, I don't know. The anonymous jackass behind the attack in question managed to shut down one of the better blogs out there (CPU is one of those rare blogs that has both insightful and original content, rather than just parroting or analyzing others). If better understanding the phenomenon does anything to help prevent that from happening again, it's well worth pursuing that understanding.
Make them pay to host their own vitriol. If they want to enjoy freedom of the press, they can buy their own damn presses.
No kidding. When I had my stalker problem last year, the weirdest thing about it was how he clearly just didn't get the notion that it was *my* journal. He clearly believed that he had both the technical and moral right to post whatever the hell he wanted there, and I was genuinely surprised at how hard it was to teach him otherwise. (I'm still not sure I ever convinced him, but I at least got him to go away...)
Reply
It was precisely my point that understanding at that level of differentiation doesn't help prevent it from happening, yet people -- including, apparently, you :} -- get completely hung up on exactly that point, as if it were useful. It is precisely the wrong layer of the abstraction to be of any utility to the user-on-the-ground.
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