[extropy-chat] META: ExI List Quality & Future

[kevinfreels.com]

I can see where limiting the number of posts would help, but I see no use
for limiting the size of a post. Surely if a post is full of garbage, no one
would waste their time reading the entire thing. I really don't think
computer resources are a problem for most users either. I would prefer
someone take the time to put together a lengthy, well thought out post than
resort to slimming down the content to fit into some arbitrary file size
limit.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] META: ExI List Quality & Future


> Again, I offer up the idea of limiting the number and size of posts per
> member.  This limit, if fairly and strictly enforced, would, IMO,
> increase list quality because any member will have to be selective about
> her or his participation.  It imposes a "cost" on posting to the list,
> yet does not target specific content and thus requires no moderator
> intervention.  The cost would be weighed by each person against the
> benefit of participating in a given discussion.  Each person would
> experience the cost in a different way, making for a spontaneous,
> extropic order.  Someone might not want to blow her three posts, for
> instance, on one discussion, so she might be more concise and more
> wisely use posts.
>
> It would also prevent most flame wars.  If you have, say, only 5K of
> post and can only post 3 times per day, then it's going to be hard to
> flame someone in the usual sense.  The adversary would, likewise, have
> to choose between devoting her or his daily limit to continuing the
> flame war.  Sure, a slow motion flame war might smolder on, but I think
> most flame wars come about because of the heat of debate.  Checking the
> amount of material someone can throw at another person will reduce the
> heat, IMHO.
>
> Yes, conflicts are likely to still arise, but my guess is this would
> limit their damage, provided the limit is low enough.  E.g., if the
> limit is 50 posts per day with each post having a maximum size of 50K,
> it's too high and would likely have no impact.  Of course, one wouldn't
> want to make the limit so low that it stifles relevant, serious
> discussions.  E.g., one wouldn't want a post limit of 1 per day with a
> 1K limit.  That would probably strangle communication of any sort -- 
> other than posting URLs.  This might have to be fine tuned, but I
> propose an initial limit of 5 posts per person per day with a post size
> limit of 5K -- and nothing carries over.  In other words, use 'em or
> lose.
>
> Another variation on this might be to allow for trading in limits, but
> that would require more overhead and I don't have any ideas on how to
> implement it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>     See my works at:
> http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html
>
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