IMO, too many people place too much of the emphasis on SI finding potentially offending posts. As I see it, the initial responsibility for offending posts is with those who are offended. IMO, that is the way it should be. If you (generically) are not offended enough to report it, why should SI or anyone else go looking for it or care. Placing the initial responsibility on the community makes everyone ask, as they read each post, "is this really bad enough to report?" If it is not bad enough to report it, then it is probably not bad enough to warrant any action much less investigation; there is also no right to later complain about it, IMO.
There are a lot of posts that I see that I would find VERY offensive if they were directed at me. But, unless they are directed at me, my view is to let others fight their own battles (or not as the case may be) in whatever way they chose.
I do not want to see Bob or anyone else at SI become snooping, prying, big brothers to all posts (nor do I suspect that is what they want to be). I do not want to see the Admin evolve into a system where every time I use some preordained inappropriate four letter word in a post, it pops up on some list. I suspect that the vast majority does not really want to see it that way either.
There will ALWAYS be posts that violate the TOU against which no action is taken. I suspect that if there were a program that could automatically identify any post that violated any one of the TOUs, there would not only be mass deletions (probably close to 10% of all posts), but many people would feel very chilled in openly expressing themselves. Ultimately, this lack of openness would be more damaging to SI than having some arrogant, childish, juvenile, insulting, or offensive posts go unpunished.
The initial burden is where is should be: on those who are offended enough to report it. Anything more than that is unnecessary, unwise, and unAmerican, IMO.
Troy
Had to get that unAmerican in somewhere. <g> |
