The ACLU doesn't atually "shun" the 2nd Amendment. The ACLU takes a neutral stance on the 2nd Amendment and has argued 2nd Amendment cases many times. The ACLU spends the majority of its time protecting my "other" rights. I'm alright with that. I look towards the National Rifle Association and the Kansas Sportsmen's Alliance to protect my 2nd Amendment interests. In fact I was doing exactly this on this very day. Today the Kansas House of Representatives had a proponent's hearing on HB 2798. Kansas is one of 6 states (5 once Missouri's Supreme Court upholds their new CCW law) that does not issue licenses for the concealed carrying of weapons. 6 of 50. You can track the progress of the bill on the Kansas Legislature's website. I spent last night and this morning expressing my support for this proposed bill to my district's house representative and state senator. In short I'm only confused on days that end in "y" but not about the ACLU and the protection of my rights.:-)
All this derivative crap would be like Ford sueing Firestone clamining that they own all of Firestone's tires because Firestone made some tires to work on Ford Explorers. 'Obviously Firestone's other tires are derivative works of the tires made for our Explorer and therefore are derivative works of our Ford Explorer.' I can see it now....
That number is available in both of my local area codes. I wonder how one goes about getting it assigned to them from the telco? Anyone know? This ISN'T a number you want on your cell phone.:)
My mother likes Edwards. My only qualm with him is that I was told he was "a Bible thumper." I don't mean to pick on religious people but I don't want someone pushing their (or a) religion on me anymore than I plan on pushing my beliefs on him. Asscroft is bad enough as it is. I don't need someone else's alleged morals to dicate the law to me. Does anyone know if the comment about Edwards was right? I've listened to a lot of what he says and haven't necessarily heard more religious-speak from him than anyone else, although I might have missed something. Other than that I think he would be a fine president.
I probably should have clarified myself better. I'm not talking about the primaries when I say vote for the first step in the grand plan. I'm referring to the actual 2004 Presidential Election. You know, the one that matters. The primaries have already been won. No one will beat Kerry now. The only question now is who will be his VP? Clark maybe. Maybe even Edwards. His VP could be someone else we haven't thought about too. What about Hillary Clinton? That'd give Kerry a boost in the female vote. Hell that'd boost the female voting turnout period.
That's an interesting theory. We all knew that woman would be back eventually. Do you really think she'll try it now or in the next round? Interesting....
Voting isn't about voting for the guy you think has the best chance of winning, voting is about voting for who you think is the best person for the job.
Not necessarily. It a perfect world, a utopian dream if you will, you would vote for who you think is the best man/woman for the job. However this is a pipe dream and won't produce the results you want. We might all agree with what a person like Lieberman says and we might like a lot of what Sharpton says (but maybe not all of it) but we know there isn't a chance in hell that they'll win the 2004 elections. They have absolutely zlich electability. Nada. None. El Zero. It ain't gonna happen. A major change in the social and poltical views of America will not happen overnight. The first step is someone not quite as liberal as Lieberman or Sharpton. The first step is someone like Kerry or Edwards. The social masses are infinitely more likely to accept one of them for president than they are the other candidates. If we truly want a political change in the upcoming election then we must vote for the first step in our grand plan. We must vote the only person with electability. Doing anything else is a waste of your vote. Sure it's your right to vote for who you please but lets face facts people. If you don't vote for one of the candidates that can actually get elected (or a party that needs a certain percentage to be in the election next time) then you're wasting your vote. Of course voting out of the norm for your state is wasting your vote thanks to this damned electoral college, but that's another matter. You can't make a sweeping change overnight. Small steps people. Walk before you run a marathon.
I see this as a solution to the spammers that are flooding one of my boxes with 500+ spam-filled SMTP connections at the moment. Oh how I wish I had one.:-)
Wow, I agree with almost everything you say. You write with a lot of wisdom.
Thanks. I learned the hard way: trial and error, lots of them. c'est la vie!
Re:What is the problem?
on
Beyond Pay?
·
· Score: 1
(1) Is the person a salaried aka "exempt" employee?
When they are, there's no legitimate legal claim. The "exempt" pretty much means they have chosen to take a position that is classified as exempt from most labor laws.
Not necessarily. Lets say an employer represented the job as a 9 to 5, 40 hour a week job and after hiring the employee then required them to work numerous weeks over the advertised number of hours. A reasonable person could say that this is excessive and the employer misrepresented the job. Think of it like false advertising. It basically fraud. It would be comparable to the employer advertising health insurance with a dental plan and then not allowing the employee access to the dental part of the plan.
If I felt like my employer wasn't paying me enough (and if I didn't like it), I would focus on getting a better job rather than putting time and energy into a lawsuit.
Agreed. If I wasn't being paid enough I'd first look into the opportunities elsewhere (best to get a headstart on this in case management decides to oust you just for asking for a raise). Then, after looking at the outside market, I'd present my concerns to management. I'd show them how much work I've been doing lately: the responsibilities of those that left and weren't replaced or the new projects I've taken on since starting there. I'd ask them if there was a plan for pay increases. If they don't make any effort to pay you more money then start the interview process elsewhere. It's not a big deal. Don't go back to work talking about your interviews elsewhere. Do it and get it over. If you get an interview and subsequently an offer (make sure it's a garunteed offer that they won't retract) approach your current employer with the fact that you've been offered better pay and better advancement opportunity elsewhere. If they counter with an offer consider it. Don't tell them who your offer is from though. They don't have any business knowing. They could call that company and try to nix your offer. If they don't offer accept the other position and give your 2-week notice.
I really like my brother in law's approach to new job contracts. His last 3 jobs were salaried. He makes sure the contract outlines a method to receive compensation for his extra work hours. The last contract he showed me was his best. If he works over 50 hours in a week he gets paid standard overtime (time and a half) like a hourly person. His hourly rate is computed from his yearly salary divided by the number of business days in that same year. This doesn't account for other benefits like health insurance or retirement but it's better than nothing. If he works over 180 hours in a four week period, every hour over 180 is overtime. This keeps them from making him work 50 hours a week every week but not more (to avoid normal overtime). 180 hours is 1 x 50hr week and 3 x 40hr weeks. Weekend time is considered doubletime. Holiday time is considered tripletime. He also negotiated double time for weeks with hours over 60. So basically...
> 50 in a week = overtime
> 60 in a week = doubletime
> 180 in 4 weeks = automatic overtime for excess
> 200 in 4 weeks = automatic doubletime for excess
weekends = doubletime
holidays = tripletime
Much of this was negotiated for in return for him not charging for being on call. If they wanted him to be on call and not be more than 1 hour from the office, he wanted 1/2 time pay for all the hours he was on call. If he's on call from close of business to open the next day (5PM to 8AM) that would mean 15 hours of 1/2 time pay. They preferred his other requirements over 1/2-time pay. The rest of 4 week clauses were something he wouldn't budge on much. He didn't want the employer to require him to excessively be at work after hours every week for multiple weeks back to back. He wanted 2 week periods and 100 hours and 120 hours
Re:Interview questions.
on
Beyond Pay?
·
· Score: 1
There's more to a job than a paycheck.
Very well put! It looks like you and I think alike. No job is worth taking grief over. It's not healthy for you and the quality of your work will not be something you can say you're proud of. Move on a find a better job. Don't settle for something that will give you ulcers.
Re:Age is no excuse
on
Beyond Pay?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I turned 21 the very day I was offered a job as the netadm at one of our state universities. I remember that day well because my interview was the day before. The day of the offer was also the day that my apartment's AC went on the fritz and I ended up sleeping on a couch in another of our state university's campus library. Perfect timing for the beginning of July in my state. During my interview the average consensus was that I was in my late 20s. One gentleman guessed I was 36. They couldn't technically ask what my age was during the interview and I don't recall telling them. I'm sure some of them mentally pieced together a timeline and guessed my age.
Youth has its advantages. The energy, eagerness, and willingness to learn are a few of youth's best traits. It's a threat to all those that don't posess youth or at the least nurture their inner youth. Those without youth (youthless?) are proned to resist change. They are much less open to new ideas. They are less willing to learn new things. All of these things that the youthless lack build what is perceived as a threat. In many cases the youthful out-think and out-work the youthless. The youthful don't try to create conflict but they are frustrated by the youthless that put a stop to all change. A few months ago I contemplated writing a book geared towards youth in the IT sector, based on my own experiences. Age was a major stumbling block at that employer. My youth was hard to accept for a few people, one in particular. That person had their better moments for sure. Unfortunately that person only seemed to take my advice when they needed something from me. It was a difficult time I most assuredly admit. It was a learning experience that I'm glad I received. It is also an situation that I will never fall prey to again.
My advice to the article submitter is simple. Do not under any circumstances take any age-related crap off of anybody. You're an adult in a professional position doing a professional's job. They should respect you and you should respect they. Mutual respect between management and staff is something most institutions lack in this day and age. I feel this lack of respect is the reason employee loyalty and morale is at an all-time low. I made the mistake of avoiding conflict in the early months of that job. I didn't stand up for myself when an age-discriminatory comment was made about me, my knowledge, and my abilities. I put myself in the position of taking grief from one person in particular for over a year until I finally stood up for myself. Bullies in the workplace are just like bullies in junior high. They harrass those that they feel won't fight back. They do this to elevate their own perceived political status. Office bullies, like bullies from Junior High, also back down when their victim bites back. They will inevitably be a long-term enemy but you won't have to accept their daily dose of grief anymore.
Remain civil at all times. You will inevitably be presented with one or more occasions where you are right and they are wrong. Meetings are a great place for this conflict to arise. You'll find that your age will be used as an excuse for why you're viewpoint is wrong. Keep a civil, level-headed tongue. Don't ever be combative. If you remain civil and never let yourself become flustered, you will drive them to their wits end. Play your cards right and they will lose control. You will however be the calm, cool, and collected individual that operates well under pressure. Acting combative, swearing, and otherwise losing your temper makes you look childish. Let other fill that role. Don't sink to their level. If you can't ignore the conflict and you feel that the upper management will side with you if you're right, document your concerns or objections in writing and submit it to management. There are numerous books that relate very well to this topic. Search around for books on conflict management, conflict resolution, negotiations, etc. You'll find plenty of good reading.
What if you can't stand RH9 though? What if you absolutely can not stand what the morons at RedHat did with libraries like Kerberos and SASL? What if you can't stand the static linking the RH morons used in numerous inncouous packages? I have RH9 on a server of mine. The only reason I installed it was 7.3 didn't support the SATA controller integrated into that SuperMicro 6013P-T. 7.3 booted of course but that was it. 9 was my only choice at the time (until I could roll a replacement kernel with SATA support). If it wasn't for that I'd have never gone to 9.
I'm preparing to give Gentoo a whirl. I've heard good things about it. I need a replacement for RH on all my servers and I'm hoping Gentoo can live up to my needs.
I had to upgrade to RH9 to get support for the SATA controller in my SuperMicro 6013P-T server. Otherwise I would have used 7.3 (the last decent RH release). I'm now running 2.6 on my server and it works flawlessly (the kernel that is. RH9 sucks ass). You don't need Fedora or Rawhide to run 2.6 though. It's quite easy to get it running on RH9 and older. Just follow the instructions over at KernelTrap. I'm preparing to give Gentoo a whirl. I'm hoping I can scrap RH for Gentoo in the near future. Whoot!
LOL. Now that is funny. I've had some similar moderations. Now I wish I'd kept track of them. The best one I ever had was a post I made that went from 2 (karma bonus) up to 5, down to 1, back up to 5, and back down to -1 Funny. I never did figure out how the hell that happened but it was quite humorous just the same. I hate it when trolls get moderator points.
I vote for a trust method or mechanism to weed out the trolls. A review from a student that has only submitted a single review should have very little weight on the professor's overall score. In fact it should receive a low "trust" rating on the website. As that student submits more reviews of other professors that student's "trust" rating should increase. Think of it like karma; until you prove to a subset of the masses that your comments (reviews) are ontopic, well-written, and worthwhile your karma (trust rating) won't be high enough to adversely affect the thread (professor). This would be one simple solution.
Along these same lines they could implement a peer review process for review submissions. A new user's review could be kept in limbo until, say, 10 other reviews (perhaps once they reach a certain level of "trust") have given the ok to it. Effectively these Trusted Reviewers would act like moderators and weed out the intentionally inflamitory reviews, spam, or poorly written reviews from the well-written and on-topic reviews. The anti-spam project Razor uses something similar to this called the Truth Evaluation System or TeS. It's all done automaticly, using spam reports and revokes to ascertain what a registered user's confidence level should be.
Why can't something like this be implemented to solve their problem? It still doesn't prevent a person from commiting libel but it does help weed out the intentionally imflamitory reviews and blatent personal attacks on educators. I've often commented on how I think such a review system should be used on Slashdot for the moderation system. I think all negative-scoring reviews should be confirmed by a second moderator before the post is scored. This would be best accomplished by not penalizing the moderator for participating in the confirmation process by losing a moderator point.
I think it would be a worthwhile venture. The kicker would of course be MS and IE. However is support for the cert was created in all the core server software via a project OpenSSL then it would I think it eventually be supported by MS. I mean if you as a server admin can create certs that are supported by MUAs for IMAP or POP-TLS or the various SMTP AUTH mechanisms, #2 and lower browsers, SFTP apps, SSH apps, and all the other everyday apps that use CAs that we don't even realize then I think it would eventually have to be supported in IE. To not support it at that point would be a bad PR move IMHO.
I can't imagine MS being happy about the loss of revenue from Sitefinder. It would surprise me in the least if they didn't create a solution within IE itself to block Sitefinder or at least intercept its pages and redirect back to MSN.
Slashdot Mirror
The ACLU doesn't atually "shun" the 2nd Amendment. The ACLU takes a neutral stance on the 2nd Amendment and has argued 2nd Amendment cases many times. The ACLU spends the majority of its time protecting my "other" rights. I'm alright with that. I look towards the National Rifle Association and the Kansas Sportsmen's Alliance to protect my 2nd Amendment interests. In fact I was doing exactly this on this very day. Today the Kansas House of Representatives had a proponent's hearing on HB 2798. Kansas is one of 6 states (5 once Missouri's Supreme Court upholds their new CCW law) that does not issue licenses for the concealed carrying of weapons. 6 of 50. You can track the progress of the bill on the Kansas Legislature's website. I spent last night and this morning expressing my support for this proposed bill to my district's house representative and state senator. In short I'm only confused on days that end in "y" but not about the ACLU and the protection of my rights. :-)
I've always wanted to give Austrailia a try. I hear it's nice there and the woman are real women, not Malibu Beach Barbies.
Sorry
Is there a defense fund that we can contribute to? This is a worry cause in my humble eyes.
It's a little OT but Target Corp had a great year last year.
All this derivative crap would be like Ford sueing Firestone clamining that they own all of Firestone's tires because Firestone made some tires to work on Ford Explorers. 'Obviously Firestone's other tires are derivative works of the tires made for our Explorer and therefore are derivative works of our Ford Explorer.' I can see it now....
That number is available in both of my local area codes. I wonder how one goes about getting it assigned to them from the telco? Anyone know? This ISN'T a number you want on your cell phone. :)
I did not have sex with that woman...
He's got weapons of mass destruction...
My mother likes Edwards. My only qualm with him is that I was told he was "a Bible thumper." I don't mean to pick on religious people but I don't want someone pushing their (or a) religion on me anymore than I plan on pushing my beliefs on him. Asscroft is bad enough as it is. I don't need someone else's alleged morals to dicate the law to me. Does anyone know if the comment about Edwards was right? I've listened to a lot of what he says and haven't necessarily heard more religious-speak from him than anyone else, although I might have missed something. Other than that I think he would be a fine president.
I probably should have clarified myself better. I'm not talking about the primaries when I say vote for the first step in the grand plan. I'm referring to the actual 2004 Presidential Election. You know, the one that matters. The primaries have already been won. No one will beat Kerry now. The only question now is who will be his VP? Clark maybe. Maybe even Edwards. His VP could be someone else we haven't thought about too. What about Hillary Clinton? That'd give Kerry a boost in the female vote. Hell that'd boost the female voting turnout period.
That's an interesting theory. We all knew that woman would be back eventually. Do you really think she'll try it now or in the next round? Interesting....
Not necessarily. It a perfect world, a utopian dream if you will, you would vote for who you think is the best man/woman for the job. However this is a pipe dream and won't produce the results you want. We might all agree with what a person like Lieberman says and we might like a lot of what Sharpton says (but maybe not all of it) but we know there isn't a chance in hell that they'll win the 2004 elections. They have absolutely zlich electability. Nada. None. El Zero. It ain't gonna happen. A major change in the social and poltical views of America will not happen overnight. The first step is someone not quite as liberal as Lieberman or Sharpton. The first step is someone like Kerry or Edwards. The social masses are infinitely more likely to accept one of them for president than they are the other candidates. If we truly want a political change in the upcoming election then we must vote for the first step in our grand plan. We must vote the only person with electability. Doing anything else is a waste of your vote. Sure it's your right to vote for who you please but lets face facts people. If you don't vote for one of the candidates that can actually get elected (or a party that needs a certain percentage to be in the election next time) then you're wasting your vote. Of course voting out of the norm for your state is wasting your vote thanks to this damned electoral college, but that's another matter. You can't make a sweeping change overnight. Small steps people. Walk before you run a marathon.
I see this as a solution to the spammers that are flooding one of my boxes with 500+ spam-filled SMTP connections at the moment. Oh how I wish I had one. :-)
Thanks. I learned the hard way: trial and error, lots of them. c'est la vie!
Not necessarily. Lets say an employer represented the job as a 9 to 5, 40 hour a week job and after hiring the employee then required them to work numerous weeks over the advertised number of hours. A reasonable person could say that this is excessive and the employer misrepresented the job. Think of it like false advertising. It basically fraud. It would be comparable to the employer advertising health insurance with a dental plan and then not allowing the employee access to the dental part of the plan.
Agreed. If I wasn't being paid enough I'd first look into the opportunities elsewhere (best to get a headstart on this in case management decides to oust you just for asking for a raise). Then, after looking at the outside market, I'd present my concerns to management. I'd show them how much work I've been doing lately: the responsibilities of those that left and weren't replaced or the new projects I've taken on since starting there. I'd ask them if there was a plan for pay increases. If they don't make any effort to pay you more money then start the interview process elsewhere. It's not a big deal. Don't go back to work talking about your interviews elsewhere. Do it and get it over. If you get an interview and subsequently an offer (make sure it's a garunteed offer that they won't retract) approach your current employer with the fact that you've been offered better pay and better advancement opportunity elsewhere. If they counter with an offer consider it. Don't tell them who your offer is from though. They don't have any business knowing. They could call that company and try to nix your offer. If they don't offer accept the other position and give your 2-week notice.
I really like my brother in law's approach to new job contracts. His last 3 jobs were salaried. He makes sure the contract outlines a method to receive compensation for his extra work hours. The last contract he showed me was his best. If he works over 50 hours in a week he gets paid standard overtime (time and a half) like a hourly person. His hourly rate is computed from his yearly salary divided by the number of business days in that same year. This doesn't account for other benefits like health insurance or retirement but it's better than nothing. If he works over 180 hours in a four week period, every hour over 180 is overtime. This keeps them from making him work 50 hours a week every week but not more (to avoid normal overtime). 180 hours is 1 x 50hr week and 3 x 40hr weeks. Weekend time is considered doubletime. Holiday time is considered tripletime. He also negotiated double time for weeks with hours over 60. So basically...
> 50 in a week = overtime
> 60 in a week = doubletime
> 180 in 4 weeks = automatic overtime for excess
> 200 in 4 weeks = automatic doubletime for excess
weekends = doubletime
holidays = tripletime
Much of this was negotiated for in return for him not charging for being on call. If they wanted him to be on call and not be more than 1 hour from the office, he wanted 1/2 time pay for all the hours he was on call. If he's on call from close of business to open the next day (5PM to 8AM) that would mean 15 hours of 1/2 time pay. They preferred his other requirements over 1/2-time pay. The rest of 4 week clauses were something he wouldn't budge on much. He didn't want the employer to require him to excessively be at work after hours every week for multiple weeks back to back. He wanted 2 week periods and 100 hours and 120 hours
Very well put! It looks like you and I think alike. No job is worth taking grief over. It's not healthy for you and the quality of your work will not be something you can say you're proud of. Move on a find a better job. Don't settle for something that will give you ulcers.
Youth has its advantages. The energy, eagerness, and willingness to learn are a few of youth's best traits. It's a threat to all those that don't posess youth or at the least nurture their inner youth. Those without youth (youthless?) are proned to resist change. They are much less open to new ideas. They are less willing to learn new things. All of these things that the youthless lack build what is perceived as a threat. In many cases the youthful out-think and out-work the youthless. The youthful don't try to create conflict but they are frustrated by the youthless that put a stop to all change. A few months ago I contemplated writing a book geared towards youth in the IT sector, based on my own experiences. Age was a major stumbling block at that employer. My youth was hard to accept for a few people, one in particular. That person had their better moments for sure. Unfortunately that person only seemed to take my advice when they needed something from me. It was a difficult time I most assuredly admit. It was a learning experience that I'm glad I received. It is also an situation that I will never fall prey to again.
My advice to the article submitter is simple. Do not under any circumstances take any age-related crap off of anybody. You're an adult in a professional position doing a professional's job. They should respect you and you should respect they. Mutual respect between management and staff is something most institutions lack in this day and age. I feel this lack of respect is the reason employee loyalty and morale is at an all-time low. I made the mistake of avoiding conflict in the early months of that job. I didn't stand up for myself when an age-discriminatory comment was made about me, my knowledge, and my abilities. I put myself in the position of taking grief from one person in particular for over a year until I finally stood up for myself. Bullies in the workplace are just like bullies in junior high. They harrass those that they feel won't fight back. They do this to elevate their own perceived political status. Office bullies, like bullies from Junior High, also back down when their victim bites back. They will inevitably be a long-term enemy but you won't have to accept their daily dose of grief anymore.
Remain civil at all times. You will inevitably be presented with one or more occasions where you are right and they are wrong. Meetings are a great place for this conflict to arise. You'll find that your age will be used as an excuse for why you're viewpoint is wrong. Keep a civil, level-headed tongue. Don't ever be combative. If you remain civil and never let yourself become flustered, you will drive them to their wits end. Play your cards right and they will lose control. You will however be the calm, cool, and collected individual that operates well under pressure. Acting combative, swearing, and otherwise losing your temper makes you look childish. Let other fill that role. Don't sink to their level. If you can't ignore the conflict and you feel that the upper management will side with you if you're right, document your concerns or objections in writing and submit it to management. There are numerous books that relate very well to this topic. Search around for books on conflict management, conflict resolution, negotiations, etc. You'll find plenty of good reading.
Lo
I'd probably like Fedora as much as I do RH9. I'd really like Fedora if their distro acted anything like RH 7.3. That was a very useable OS IMHO.
I've said it before. It's coming....
I'm preparing to give Gentoo a whirl. I've heard good things about it. I need a replacement for RH on all my servers and I'm hoping Gentoo can live up to my needs.
I had to upgrade to RH9 to get support for the SATA controller in my SuperMicro 6013P-T server. Otherwise I would have used 7.3 (the last decent RH release). I'm now running 2.6 on my server and it works flawlessly (the kernel that is. RH9 sucks ass). You don't need Fedora or Rawhide to run 2.6 though. It's quite easy to get it running on RH9 and older. Just follow the instructions over at KernelTrap. I'm preparing to give Gentoo a whirl. I'm hoping I can scrap RH for Gentoo in the near future. Whoot!
LOL. Now that is funny. I've had some similar moderations. Now I wish I'd kept track of them. The best one I ever had was a post I made that went from 2 (karma bonus) up to 5, down to 1, back up to 5, and back down to -1 Funny. I never did figure out how the hell that happened but it was quite humorous just the same. I hate it when trolls get moderator points.
Paragraph #1
OLD: "...reviews of other professors that student's..."
NEW: "...reviews of other professors then that student's..."
Paragraph #2
OLD: "...10 other reviews..."
NEW: "...10 other reviewers..."
OLD: "inflamitory" NEW: "inflammatory"
OLD: "automaticly"
NEW: "automatically" (whoops!)
Paragraph #3
OLD: "imflamitory"
NEW: "inflammatory"
ADDITION: "Confirming negative-scoring moderation attempts could permanently end the damage done when trolls receive moderator points."
Sorry about that. Sometimes my fingers run off and leave my mind behind. That should make it a little easier to read.
Along these same lines they could implement a peer review process for review submissions. A new user's review could be kept in limbo until, say, 10 other reviews (perhaps once they reach a certain level of "trust") have given the ok to it. Effectively these Trusted Reviewers would act like moderators and weed out the intentionally inflamitory reviews, spam, or poorly written reviews from the well-written and on-topic reviews. The anti-spam project Razor uses something similar to this called the Truth Evaluation System or TeS. It's all done automaticly, using spam reports and revokes to ascertain what a registered user's confidence level should be.
Why can't something like this be implemented to solve their problem? It still doesn't prevent a person from commiting libel but it does help weed out the intentionally imflamitory reviews and blatent personal attacks on educators. I've often commented on how I think such a review system should be used on Slashdot for the moderation system. I think all negative-scoring reviews should be confirmed by a second moderator before the post is scored. This would be best accomplished by not penalizing the moderator for participating in the confirmation process by losing a moderator point.
I can't imagine MS being happy about the loss of revenue from Sitefinder. It would surprise me in the least if they didn't create a solution within IE itself to block Sitefinder or at least intercept its pages and redirect back to MSN.