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SI - Site Forums : Questions and Answers with SI Admin (s) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (268)	5/31/2000 10:41:00 AM
From: WTMHouston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4895

<<It's the difference between a clear set of laws and cops on the beat watching out for people, and just saying "Call me if someone robs you at the ATM when you are getting cash." Lots more crime in the second scenario.>> I agree with your conclusion, but not the implied premise of the comparison. The way I see it, we are "the cops on the beat" and SI Admin is the SWAT force as well as judge, jury, and executioner. The first line of defense on SI, as on every other internet board, is the people who post. If we, as the "cops on the beat," let is slide, then it goes unreported. There may be lots of times when "cops on the beat" deal with matters other than by formal referral to the system that deals with problems in a more structured manner. Not only is there noting wrong with that, IMO, it is far preferable to having everything constantly and-or automatically monitored. As advanced as the internet is, we have not yet reached Orwellian status; fortunately, IMO. <<Many SI posters will take all the rope you give them and then some. >> True, but equally true in life outside of SI as well. Eventually, though, folks with too much rope usually put it to less than effective uses and hang themselves. As a general rule, I find it more desirable that they do it to themselves. <<That puts SI admin in the position of trying to clean up a big mess instead of just preventing them in the first place.>> Prevention is a nice goal, but the reality is that there is no way, IMO, that many of the messes could be prevented without so chilling the overall discussion that this would be a pretty boring place. Terms of use will not change people. <<the deliberate misspellings (sheet, shyte, etc.)>> You left out sheeeit, which is pretty close to the way the word is actually pronounced in many parts of the South. <g> Seriously though, some (not all) good ol' four letter words are usually neither profane nor vulgar. They are good examples of things that may technically be TOU violations but, IMO, should seldom, by themselves, justify sanction. If something is being "clearly used to abuse someone," then the presence of a four letter word is usually only incidental. <<high-falutin'>> All I can say is spend some time on yahoo and you will be thankful for SI's high-falutin'ness, as imperfect as it is and will always be. As an aside, I have heard that high-falutin' sheeit is an essential ingredient to political success in some parts of the country. <<Community sites get to enforce community standards.>> Agreed. The community frequently does so by reporting to SWAT only when things get out-of-hand and cannot be dealt with by the community based on that localities view of the standard. Unfortunately, if we asked 100 people what the community standard was for almost anything, I suspect that there would close to 100 different views; but, that is as it should be -- the diversity is necessary to make this a useful and interesting place. If we all thought the same or expressed ourselves in the same way, there really would not be much point to the exercise. Troy Edit: Bob, isn't it about time that the spell checker recognized "internet" as a correctly spelled word?