[extropy-chat] Appropriate List Content - was Malachy's Prophecies; Pope John Paul II, then two before the destruction of the Holy Roman Church

[Adrian Tymes]

--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > We're talking, of course, about "crap filters".
> > 
> > For this list, part of the crap filter is *ignoring*
> > prophecies from
> > sources that have usually been to be too vague to
> > give useful
> > predictions, or incorrect if they are not vague.
> > 
>  I agree. But the key word here is *ignoring*. If
> Eugen had just ignored the posts about the vague and
> useless prophecies, I would not have been so confused
> and upset.

Different sense of the term.  "Ignore" as in "they should not be
discussed here", not as in "don't pay attention to discussions of them
here".

> But ignoring a post is quite different from
> calling for the poster to be banned.

True.  Banning should happen if and only if milder forms of deterrence
fail, and if the poster's continued presence detracts from the list's
value.  For example, if a poster repeatedly brings up things irrelevant
to the list's topic, driving out discussion of things relevant to the
list's topic (and driving away newcomers who don't yet know what to
ignore), despite repeated warnings.

Key concept: it is possible for someone to take value away from an
email list that is owned by someone else.  #include standard arguments
for allowing limited defense of private property.  In this case,
banning someone does no (or, at most, negligible) harm to the banned
person.

> I am not saying that you should not use a
> "crap filter", I am saying that your "crap filter"
> should not be forced upon anybody else. To do
> otherwise is censorship plain and simple.

We're not "forcing" the filter on anyone, in the same sense that we're
not "forcing" anyone to be here.  If you want to talk about prophecies
and whatnot, fine: there are other places to do that.  Not here.

This is, ultimately, a private forum, even if it is open to any member
of the public.  That's the thing with cyberspace: almost all the forums
are private.  (Usenet is probably public, since few newsgroups have a
single owner.  But no examples in email or the Web come to mind
quickly, since almost every email server and Web site that allow
discussions has a single owner; this may be one reason why so few
government Web sites do not have open-to-the-public forums for
discussions.)