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Pastimes : SI Beta Site Launch - 7/01/99 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (1119)	7/31/1999 11:37:00 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2340

"...but not a single argument against the addition of an "ignore"..." Likely because only those wanting one post there, since the imposition of an ignore button is not being threatened at this time. Should it be, reaction will arise. Bet on it. I apologise for unclear wording - in no way did i mean to express or imply that you use these threads to push non-reporting garbage. I don't know you from Adam, and a brief scan of your bio suggests that you do not. Certainly i have never seen you do so, and you strike me as too genuinely thoughtful to do so as well. It's just that the majority of calls for an ignore button that i have heard have been from touts of non-reporting bulletin board paper. You may not share the leisure time activity of following the interaction between the Chickerati FBNers and the non-reporting carp pusher contingent, but i do from time to time and i assure you it is fascinating. The touts would love an ignore button. Clearly there are advantages - we all have posters we would use it on, the ones we click right past, the Total Wastes Of Time. But i do think the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages. You present an interesting scenario, which i will think about further, but somehow i doubt that's the way it would work out. It hasn't on ragingbull so far in my experience ... mind you what little time i've spent lurking there has been on threads of non-reporting carpstocks whose touts have been kicked off SI. In any case, an ignore button is contrary to the original vision of the Dryers, that of an open marketplace of ideas and information and analysis. I think we should pay the price of wading through the TWOTs to achieve that freedom, as it is a thing of great value. I use the Peoplemarks a lot - after catching up on a few threads in the morning, i follow several posters .. often as many as twenty or more ... and i agree, the poster-specific search is important ... can't imagine why they left it out of the Go2net production. In re SI's policy of disclosure of their posters - "Note that most of this behavior takes place under the covers, i.e., they don't talk about doing it. When one did, the aforementioned Westergaard, they were pilloried in SI, even though the object of their behavior was one of SI's, shall we say, less popular posters. That's because SI members know a sham when the see one, and acted accordingly. They'll do the same, though less publicly, with "ignore" and the touts you worry about will become less effective." The suits are filed in actual law courts, not 'under the covers' ... though there certainly are tout intimidation efforts taking place covertly. Filing a suit costs maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty dollars, and a little lawyer's time - and it gives the touts the right, by some accounts, to have their lawyer type up a 'subpoena' to hand to SI to request posters' identity and location. So it's a cheap intimidation tactic. Post on a thread without supplying the warm happy feel-good just-drink-the-lemonade thoughts that the touts love so dearly, and bingo - they threaten your family. And before you say 'O but no one would do that' i suggest that you lurk the ragingbull aznt thread, and follow the history of the same posters on SI aznt, ovis/rmil, and other threads. Anything is possible, sorry wimps that they are they will use any tactic to push their non-reporting paper ... such as threatening the filing of a suit against 111 posters [no kidding, check it out]. HITT is another one - 'John Does 5-100'. I'm proud to say i've posted there without pumping the 'stock', so i guess i'm one. Neither SI nor the Go2net lawyers have revealed current SI policy regarding these threats, though asked repeatedly to do so. I don't know if my family is being threatened at the moment or not. In the old days Jill would have told me straight-out, i know that. This is fully on-topic, i believe, because it could imho be another expression of what jbe so correctly called a 'change in philosophy'. Your last question missed my point, and is rhetorical anyway. In the old SI spirit of sharing i offer this in exchange - Should SI not reveal to a poster whether or not they have succumbed to a legal ruse and placed that poster's family at risk without giving that poster all possible warning?