i don't think it's that peculiar. there's a difference between a Post and a Reply in the general case. a Post requests, a Reply informs. sometimes it goes back and forth.

because the first applies across all Replies in all Threads in all of Perlmonks for Anonymous is it indescriminant in that regard. it is descriminant in Post in all Threads in all of Perlmonks vs Reply in all Threads in all of Perlmonks for Anonymous.

because the second applies only to Replies in certain Threads in all of Perlmonks for Anonymous it is discriminant in that regard. it is also descriminant in Post in all Threads in all of Perlmonks for Anonymous vs Replies in certain Threads in all of Perlmonks for Anonymous.

the first is therefore All vs All, the second is therefore All vs Certain. thus is born Policy vs Discrimination.

\Dis*crim"i*nate\, a. {L. discriminatus, p. p. of discriminare to divide, separate, fr. discrimen division, distinction, decision, fr. discernere. See Discern, and cf. Criminate}. Having the difference marked; distinguished by certain tokens. --Bacon. (Websters, 1913)

the first needs no special marker, as Posts and Replies are seperate concepts and the abilities of Anonymous are consistant across the Domain of each.

the second needs a special marker as Replies are but a single concept and the abilities of Anonymous are inconsistant across the Domain of the concept. therefore a marker must exist to distinquish the abilities of Anonymous across the Domain of the concept.

therefore the first is Indescriminant in Concept while the second is Descriminant in Concept.

OTOH

what is considering notes then? What about the actions of Nodereaper? What about not frontpaging a node that's about "how to enjoy cranberry sauce in your sex games"? What about not answering CGI or Windows related questions?

of the first three, i never considered myself qualified for such duties, but those are discriminations as in discriminating taste. they happen After and not Before.

the last is discriminating as in discriminating judgement. it's a matter of choice.

the Bad discrimination is a Verb, it's something you do. the OkDependingOnHowYouDoIt discrimination is an Adjective, it modifies a Noun.

what about running a spam filter? Or a firewall?

both are discriminating, the first in an Adjectivial way, the second in a Verbial way (unless it's a smart firewall, then the Adjectivial way)

SPAM is the best example of damage controll that once was done by people but quickly exceeded their capacity such that drastic measures had to be taken like having a filter do the work.

as to firewalls, a machine run with discrimination (adj) gains nothing from a firewall. a firewall protects the indiscriminate by discriminating for them. plus nobody makes one that fits my pipes. plus they all get some little feature wrong (having IE/Java only management, poor to no API for triggering events, failing in the wrong mode, running SCO, using giant animated images in their applications so performance sucks over remote SSL connections, the list goes on and on).