Re: Requesting a new tag for PM posts

++ for the effort of thinking about what is good for our Monastery, but I cannot agree with your proposal.

Freedom of speech is such a precious right that it does not support any censorship except in the most blatant cases.

Only 4 Monks of above Friar level and a score of -8 to hide the content of a node, is IMHO far too low a quorum.

At least one must take into account the keep votes as well and as a matter of principle I will always consider a node to be kept in such circumstances.

You understand that your arguments are exactly the same as those used by people favouring other forms of (political) censorship?

Freedom of speech: You are allowed to express any opinion you wish, but we will make it difficult for others to access it.
Fairness: It will be much better for all of us not to be bothered by your opinions, and neither will you be ridiculed for expressing an opinion which we do not look favourably upon. So censorship is a win-win for all of us!

Using the <ignore> tag for your own nodes is different of course, but I'm not sure if we really need it.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

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Re^2: Requesting a new tag for PM posts by graff (Chancellor) on Oct 08, 2007 at 22:51 UTC
I'm not advocating "censorship" of opinions (even if making people click on a link to see text could be construed as "censorship"). I'm expressing a sense of trust, based on years of observed evidence, that the PerlMonks community can use this sort of technique effectively and responsibly, in order to deal in a sensible way with nodes that do not express opinions, do not ask pertinent questions, do not offer help or any other sort of cooperative or meaningful communication. What value do we preserve by making every site visitor read that kind of stuff? What core principle of community spirit does that evoke for anybody? I appreciate your concerns, and I'm glad you presented them. When it comes to any sincere attempt to communicate, I agree with you completely. But my proposal is aimed at limiting the impact of those whose obvious intent is to interfere with communication. I'll admit that I proposed a fairly low threshold for establishing "consensus" for ignoring a given node, and as the population of active monks continues to increase, it makes sense to raise that threshold.	[reply]
Re^3: Requesting a new tag for PM posts (faith) by tye (Sage) on Oct 08, 2007 at 23:46 UTC
IMHO, the margin for nodes that some monks will think should qualify for such treatment would be so wide as to cause a great deal of thrash with this treatment being applied way too much followed by much complaining and arguing. The criterion "does not contribute to communication meaningfully" is too wide and vague. We have a continuing problem with over-reaping already. The proposed level of "punishment" is not low enough to avoid the strife when the tool is inevitably over-applied. You'd be better off proposing a slashdotian reputation threshold such that negative-rep nodes below a viewer's selected threshold would be hidden. - tye	[reply]
Re^4: Requesting a new tag for PM posts (faith) by graff (Chancellor) on Oct 09, 2007 at 04:24 UTC
Thank you. To be honest, I think you're right about my "criterion" being too vague. (I probably could have tried for something more specific, but thank heavens I have better things to do with my time.) And your point is well taken regarding the inevitable risk of over-zealousness in applying this sort of treatment to "bad nodes", and how the "cure" can be worse than the disease. I'll calm down now. Again, thanks.	[reply]