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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:25:00 EST
From:         JCOCURUL@DREW.DREW.EDU
Subject:      Re: On limiting posts ...
Comments: To: politics@ohstvma.bitnet

In article <tfilt419742@drew.edu>, jimmy donal wales <jwales@SILVER.UCS.INDIANA.
   EDU> writes:
>>"Limits are obviously a bad idea, since they are a kind of censorship,
>>which I don't like in nearly any fashion."  Better?  I proclaim myself
>>the king of bad editing, ok.

"Limits are obviously a bad idea, since they are a kind of censorship
which I don't like in nearly any fashion."  [this should have been a
question on a english grammer test!]  "Since limits are a kind of
censorship, which I don't like in nearly any fashion, they are a bad
idea."

>
> Actually, I was giving you a much more charitable interpretation.  Under
> my interpretation, your sentence actually made a good bit more sense than
> this one.

no wonder I got so low scores on my english achievement test.

>
> As written, your sentence says... oh, nevermind.  I understand your
> point, I think, even if you can't quite express it in English.

I should have quit when I was ahead

>
> At least, I *hope* you aren't claiming that whatever you "don't like
> in nearly any fashion" is "obviously a bad idea".  I rather suspect
> that a good many things you "don't like in nearly any fashion" are
> actually quite good ideas.

I hate commas and damn subordinate clauses

>
>>censorship is the suppression of speech for various reasons.  limiting
>>the number of posts per day does this, and as Val noted, the method
>>is liable to be flawed.
>
> I don't find this a very satisfactory notion of censorship.
> What is 'suppression of speech'?  What count as 'various reasons'?
> Suppose you decided to come over to my house at 3 AM and read the
> woes of Abraham from Genesis 22 at the top of your lungs.  Would
> my fervent actions to remove you bodily from my apartment amount
> to 'suppression of speech for various reasons'?

your criticisms of my editing was warranted, but this paragraph is a
more of a problem of not understand different degrees of suppression
of speech.  As noted, limiting what I say is suppressing speech --
even if I'm yelling obscenities at your daughter.  But, the real
question is one of degree.  Shouting at your house at 3 AM is not
really comparable to posting 10 times a day on this newsgroup, even if
the posts are often ad hominem attacks.  Yeah, what you decribed
warrants suppression (but it would still be suppression of speech
since [1] I'm speaking [2] someone is stopping i.e. suppressing my
speech), since disturbing the peace and the privacy of the home in
this case warrants it.  Please tell me how this is comparable to a few
jerks who post stupidity on this list, making up a tiny percentage of
it, and who we can just delete in 5 sec.?  The point is that all are
forms of censorship, but all aren't warranted.
   "Various reasons" include: libel, threats, harassment, fraud,
improper place of speech (loud political debate in the library is not
equal to it on the street corner), and excessive noise level.  Reasons
in addition to these are probably available and context is key in many
of these reasons.

>
> But onward ho!
>
>>Tell me how you plan to select who to kick
>>off or limit without it being via censorshiply (not a word) means.
>>And who are "we"?  Is this list lead by some group that can dispose of
>>the right of people to post (unless their posts go over the line and
>>do so after warnings -- some might fit this criteria, which is still
>>vague)?
>
> *ahhhh* Well, I didn't mean the proposal in any serious way.  But

ahhhh, well when we finally get to the nitty gritty you try to beg off
:-)

> I do think that it might be possible to construct a list which has
> some controls over membership.  I suspect that Valentine would agree
> with the following:
>
> THIS list should remain unmoderated and 'loose'.  But this doesn't
> mean that EVERY list should remain so.  It would be nice to have a
> place where certain idiots can be weeded out, so as to allow for more
> serious discussions.

at issue seems to be this list.  I agree that certain lists may be
less open, a more private list for a more select group of people.
This list doesn't seem to fit this criteria though, so I didn't like
the idea of limits (doesn't seem like you do either)

>
> I can give you the precise details of how I would make those
> decisions, if you really want to hear about it.
>
> --Jimbo

go ahead

  -Joe
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