Yup. Though I think college is a bit diff. While there still are "cliques" usually they only exist in the "popular" students who usually flush out by 2nd or 3rd year anyways. I still keep in touch with a couple of college buddies but mostly because we ended up with the same tastes in games/movies/beer.
Of course it doesn't help that the media hypes up the existence of the school life. "So then like brittany totally dated john, but john was like totally into jane, but..." WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Admittedly, what little of american schools I've seen they're different from us cannuck schools. More emphasis on being the "captain of the sports team" and all that jazz. While we have sports here, and amongst the sports fans there are popular folk and all that shit, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. We don't have packed stadiums to watch 14 year olds toss a football around, etc.
No, the theme is choice. You have a right to let other people decide for you. That's not immoral, just stupid. I will contend that I'm smarter than the average person paying the MSFT tax because I made a choice that better enables me for my role as a developer, as well as let me use my devices, and not cost me a dime.
I was similarly an outsider in school. While I generally "got along" with people in the sense we were polite, I was often the target of jokes, and other shit. Mostly because I didn't subscribe to pop culture to the same degree, I didn't wear expensive nike shoes, or really dig GnR (any 8 year old who claims to get it is lying anyways), etc...
Of course I was also fairly well occupied outside of school. I was in Air Cadets, went out with the few friends I had, played music, and was a general all around PC hacker.
I think the trick to surviving school is to think, as I did, that school is a small part of your life and 1 second after you grad from high school it's all over anyways. It's been 7 years since I left school and I have yet to meet any of them again, even though I still live in the same town.
It's the kids who put too much stock into their station in school life that get wicked depressed when they're not part of the cool clique.
In my GL class in college we had people writing GL [and GLU/GLUT] applications in Windows that routinely worked in Linux as well [as well as diff distros].
Sure, some of the GL extensions change per platform, but the core of GL is fairly stable, otherwise it'd be totally useless. As for Allegro, last I used it [early 2000's] it worked fine in DJGPP world and Linux. Wrote quite a few 2d top down games and other weird demos with it.
If DX is such a wonderful API where are the ports to other OSes?
Agreed, but there is a level of sensitivity you use in such situations. Of course when I was in school and on the one occasion I wrote something mildly depressing I was told to basically "walk it off." At that point I don't even remember why I was depressed but it was a short lived spell.
Of course how many of these "depressed kids" [myself included in that instant] are just bored and looking for attention, I wonder.
in this case would it have been so hard to pull the kid aside with the parents and ask what's up? Instead of going all omgbbq!!!!111oneCRAZIES over it?
It's the OS they use at work because their boss says so and it's what Dell ships. Not for a technical reason.
Their friends use it for the same reason.
There is way more useful software I find for OSS systems, but I guess it depends on what you do.
I play modern video games.
What the hell is a "mainstream OS?" And what does that have to do with buying decisions [or lack of]
There is more to an OSS OS than the basics. My point though was if you're not running DX games or whatever, chances are a decent linux distro will do you just fine. As for hard to install... um ever try Fedora or Ubuntu? It's literally just put the CD in and click on install. If that's too hard then chances are you don't need a computer, you need a rubber mallet so you can crush your skull and remove yourself from the gene pool [cuz honestly all you'd do is run a virus bot infested windows box and make the world a worse place for the rest of us].
I like how you turned what I said around with offering a shred of evidence though. Good quality trolling.
Well, first off, there are cross-platform game libraries. Allegro springs to mind. It works in a half-dozen OSes (including Windows), and takes care of sound, timers, input (keyboard/mouse/joystick), etc.
Second, I don't see how writing for DX can be easier than GL. DX like all MSFT software has a long list of complicated functions that are well documented in the MSDN but only useful for that platform. Learning GL means you can write apps for many more OSes.
And yes, I agree the market is larger in Windows, but proper software development techniques virtually demand sensible coding practices anyways. you can, believe it or not, write properly and still target Windows. It's lazyness and indifference that causes people to just use DX and other msft proprietary shit apis.
No the problem with fast food is that they mass produce it, beyond the needs of society. That it's unhealthy is another problem altogether. Slashing and burning forests so you can graze cattle isn't exactly the best use of territory.
People choose it though because of it's abundance. It's just everywhere and frankly it's an easy choice. I could make myself a healthy meal or grab something at one of the millions of fast food joints around.
Most people, not all, but most, use Windows just because it's what was installed on their machine. The average user does trivial tasks like browsing the web, reading emails, watching videos and listening to music. Things you have been able to do in Linux for a long time.
The reason you don't see Microsoft going away as much as "it should" is that it's unfairly bundled with machines, often as the only choice. I'm sure if Dell offered laptops with Ubuntu, sans the MSFT tax, that people would buy them [provided Dell marketed it properly and didn't just offer it as a non-descript choice].
15 years ago it would have been less of an issue to offer alternatives, and they did, e.g. DR-DOS vs. MS-DOS. But in the end, mutually assured destruction kicked in. Now people compete on shady terms simply because their competitors do as well, and if they didn't they be eaten alive.
That doesn't mean that's a good thing though. Which is why I usually go for custom boxes that never see a drop of MSFT software. Not funding that economic terrorism is the least I can do to help society.
It's only really hard to cross-platform develop if you use PLATFORM SPECIFIC APIs. An OpenGL app should be relatively portable, and if you're not using DX or Win32 porting shouldn't be a huge problem.
Also most of the issues of sound, input, etc are things you can WRITE ONCE and re-use in future games/productions. If you write a pluggable API you can easily have library that targets multiple platforms (admitedly sound is a weak spot in the OSS world).
If you look at the games that were ported they use this technique of an abstraction layer. And again, you can re-use the code so it's not a recurring cost.
If your only goal in life is to make money. All the power to you.
To me working is a split of "what does this day have to offer" and "it pays the bills." Don't get me wrong, I love my job and my station in life, but if I had the choice of being well off (e.g. financially set) or working I'd rather be well off. Gives me more time for my actual interesting pursuits like music, and a high score in Wii tennis:-)
I also write software, albeit usually in the form of software libraries and not end user applications. Most of our customers are embedded folk who really don't care about Windows in the slightest. I guess when you're in a rational market your customers aren't demanding the lowest of you. E.g. if you don't sell drugs, your customers won't ask you for drugs.
I'm not trying to pretend that I'm somehow morally superior because I use OSS over closed source msft shite. Just that I'm aware that I have a choice and I choose not to use, develop, or support anything to do with windows. I'm not an enabler:-)
I don't spend hours either, I play the few linux compat games (ET, Doom3, quake4, ut), and for the rest I use my xbox, DS, or GBA. The consoles I have plug directly into my tv tuner card, which works in Linux, allowing me to play console games without buying a TV [yeah you can do that in windows too, just saying it works fine in Linux].
You can *choose* not to continue to buy games from publishers who don't respect your right to choose an OS (and frankly, I think development in Linux or BSD would be cheaper as the OSes favour software development a lot more than Windows anyways).
And in the grand scheme of things it's just a video game. Most of the time I'd rather hang out with my friends, jam on my piano, or just chillax then sit there holding a controller or at the keyboard hunting fps baddies. I think I can do without the windows games if it means I don't have to run/buy/install/deal/think about/etc windows.
I choose not to use Windows because as a developer it's not a useful OS in the slightest. That it costs more than Gentoo, is less standard compliant, and the target of more bugs [regardless of the quality of OSS that is] doesn't help either.
A lot of people use Windows not by choice but by the virtue of it's what came with their computer and they don't care to investigate alternatives [even if it's to their benefit].
It's the same reason people eat at fast food joints. It's convenient, around every corner, and seeking out alternatives means they have to do some thinking on their own, which is really scary.
You'll get modded down because your post is bunk. Of course they'll sell goodies, they're trying to keep the thing running [as another poster pointed out].
Until they *deny* access to the non-paying public they're not really violating their stated goals. It's when articles become "members only" that you can start biting your thumb at them.
with the socket5/6/7 boards you could use any compatible processor. I routinely had MI and MII cores in my Socket [Super] 7 motherboards. I switched to K6-2 by the end before I got my first Athlon.
Hypertransport is an open protocol. People would rather design hardware for HT then the Intel FSB from what I can tell (given there is already one FPGA accelerator for 939-pin sockets).
But that raises the same point. The open socket could be used for something other than a processor. Like another FPGA accelerator.
Ok, I can see now you're disagreeing to be disagreeable. Fine, whatever. Well, by your logic, stopping murders is hard, why bother. Traffic offenses are hard to catch. So is drug smuggling, etc. Let's just say and do anything we want because the alternative is just so hard. In a world where people are responsible for their actions, the "man" has won! DOWN WITH THE MAN!
I *am* the victim of joe-jobs (it doesn't really ever end), and as a result I think forums shouldn't allow libelous postings to linger even after being reported. I think hosts are responsible for their content, they're the ones who *chose* to host it and make it available for others to read. You think it should all just be a free-for-all. That's because you're immature and think that a world with limits is automatically 1984. Have you even read 1984?
Here's a thought, newspapers are moderated, yet they're usually looked at as the opposite of 1984 [at least in north america]. Papers routinely criticize public figures [including our leaders], yet they don't publish every random thought that comes their way, and I'm *certain* most papers get libelous "letters to the editors" asking to be published.
There is a mile of difference between libel and criticism. Learn the difference. Not everything that is negative is automatically libel.
And btw, for the most part discussions here are civilized. Trolls get modded to oblivion and with my setup I don't see their posts.
... mentioning how it's hard to moderate a forum...
Nothing worthwhile is simple. You shouldn't boast that you run a forum like slashdot if you can't moderate the content to keep the discussion civilized [or at least legal]. And for the record, something the size of Slashdot likely would have more than one moderator. In the case of slashdot, the moderation scheme [as done by the users] seems to work fairly well overall to weed out bad posts.
And as for it being so black/white as you allude, I already mentioned I'd also be happy with the admins being responsive to remove content when it's brought to their attention. Look at Amazon for example. I already sent several emails about the discussion of my books. The libelous discussions are still there. Short of suing them [which I'd likely lose anyways] what else could I do?
For the most part it's *trivial* to tell when content is libelous or at least inflammatory and uncivilized. For the rest, you can rely on user feedback to give guidance.
My point is, it's not black and white like you suggest. You can both have a free discussion while respecting others. I can disagree with you without doctoring up kiddie porn with a picture of you in it [for instance]. I can disapprove of your message without reposting it 1000s of times in the sole hope of griefing you out of the forum, etc, etc, etc.
I strongly suggest you get some perspective. And referring to 1984 is fairly low given that I'm an advocate of open source cryptography, open source software, open academia (manuals, books, research projects), and generally against governmental intrusion into civilized life.
Perhaps try and make your points with less hyperbole and cliche, and more cogent thoughts and openness?
I think you need to actually read the sections of the code. Being critical of someone isn't libel.
Like I can say "I didn't like the way she sung tonight at the concert." That's an opinion, which does not bring contempt or ridicule down upon anyone. No reasonable person would take that to the libelous extreme and use it to blackball the artist (for example). I mean by your definitions reviews would not be possible since they'd have to always be positive.
An example of something that would be libelous would be saying that someone is a "ripoff artist," who "hasn't sung a note in years." That would make reasonable people hold the target in contempt (as a fraud). Now if it's true, you could argue it's in the publics best interest as a defense to a libel charge.
There is ground between a negative opinion and libel or slander.
I'm not for "shutting down open forums," I'm for them becoming responsible. Why would it be so hard to moderate posts before they go public? It'd take all of 10 seconds to read the average posting and scan it for libelous content. For the occasional slip up, knowing that a moderator is accessible and will respond is nice.
I'm not saying that we should immediately harp on all admins. I'm saying that they should actively seek out and remove libelous content from the message forums they run. If that means pro-actively removing stuff before it goes public, all the better.
Why is that such a bad thing anyways?
If you want to have a free for all with your friends, PASSWORD PROTECT the damn site, that way google can't crawl it and put things like "$PERSON LIKES KIDDIE PORN" as a top hit for $PERSON.
Who said you can't have free conversations? All I'm saying is if you're going to broadcast something to thousands of people that you make sure it's legal first. I'm sorry, but just because you can install phpbb or equiv, doesn't mean you should let people say anything they want and you should continue hosting it.
You're free to say whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe on my right to live in safety (and good standing). That means you have to be accountable for what you say, and in this case, publish.
Like I said a dozen times before, wait until you're the victim of a joe-job before you go on about how people should have the right to say anything they want.
The post office can't read your messages and the standards of privacy demand they don't open them.
However, a private email is not really as dangerous as a broadcasted message. So unless you anonymously mail millions of people it's not quite the same.
Phone calls are [and/or should not] be anonymous anyways. I think phone companies should be able to track down harassing callers, or at the very least block them. But again, neither are broadcasting so it's not the same.
I put a comment on a popular site [say slashdot] and by the end of the day thousands if not tens of thousands could have seen it.
I get where you're going with the common carrier argument, but you have to remember you choose to be a forum/group/usenet/list/whatever operator. You're not forced into it. With that choice comes responsibilities.
Just like I choose to drive, therefore I have to drive safely. If you choose to publish peoples postings you should be filtering them to remove the libelous comments.
I'd be happy if forums, usenet hosts, etc, would moderate only the blatantly offensive or damaging posts. The problem is the Internet enabled people to do things they weren't prepared to be responsible for.
Imagine if drinking and driving wasn't illegal. And everyone drove with a slight buzz. All of a sudden someone steps up and says, "hey wait, maybe we shouldn't be doing that?" Do you say "that's the way things are" or do you fix the problem?
Slashdot has long since needed moderators who would delete highly offensive comments. At the very least the moderation [point system] does a nice job filling in. But what about other forums, review sites, usenet, etc.
I'm all for informed discussion, rants, anonymous postings, etc. I'm against allowing people to do and say anything because, *throws hands in air* it's the innertubes and that's the way it is.
Maybe I should print full page ads in the next saturday paper claiming that you molest small boys. After all, c'est la vie, shit happens right?
I'm calling you a troll because you're posting inflammatory material anonymously. That makes you an anti-social person who needs a hug.
Given that I don't answer to you, if you want to know what I was doing at AMD why not check out my C.V.
I take by your "impressed that someone worked at AMD" line of thinking that you either never worked there or really lack perspective. Sure there are exciting and academic jobs there (e.g. performance labs, CPU designers, fabs tech), and while mine was a mix of technical and logistical, it wasn't one of them (hence why I left). Frankly, I'm happier where I am now.
Anyone who just blindly assumes that a large corporation is a "dream job" has likely never worked for one. Sure there are ups to it, like higher pay, usually a bit more security, etc. But you lose that in the personal touch, career development, etc. Where I work now I'm one of 3 software developers, in a company with 10 engineers. Things I do there actually matter to others, it's technical and academic, the pay is decent (not as high as AMD but high enough to live nicely on).
Granted when I was going through the hiring process I was genuinely awestruck. That faded quickly once I got into the daily grind.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. Though I think college is a bit diff. While there still are "cliques" usually they only exist in the "popular" students who usually flush out by 2nd or 3rd year anyways. I still keep in touch with a couple of college buddies but mostly because we ended up with the same tastes in games/movies/beer.
..." WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Of course it doesn't help that the media hypes up the existence of the school life. "So then like brittany totally dated john, but john was like totally into jane, but
Admittedly, what little of american schools I've seen they're different from us cannuck schools. More emphasis on being the "captain of the sports team" and all that jazz. While we have sports here, and amongst the sports fans there are popular folk and all that shit, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. We don't have packed stadiums to watch 14 year olds toss a football around, etc.
Tom
No, the theme is choice. You have a right to let other people decide for you. That's not immoral, just stupid. I will contend that I'm smarter than the average person paying the MSFT tax because I made a choice that better enables me for my role as a developer, as well as let me use my devices, and not cost me a dime.
Tom
I was similarly an outsider in school. While I generally "got along" with people in the sense we were polite, I was often the target of jokes, and other shit. Mostly because I didn't subscribe to pop culture to the same degree, I didn't wear expensive nike shoes, or really dig GnR (any 8 year old who claims to get it is lying anyways), etc...
Of course I was also fairly well occupied outside of school. I was in Air Cadets, went out with the few friends I had, played music, and was a general all around PC hacker.
I think the trick to surviving school is to think, as I did, that school is a small part of your life and 1 second after you grad from high school it's all over anyways. It's been 7 years since I left school and I have yet to meet any of them again, even though I still live in the same town.
It's the kids who put too much stock into their station in school life that get wicked depressed when they're not part of the cool clique.
Tom
In my GL class in college we had people writing GL [and GLU/GLUT] applications in Windows that routinely worked in Linux as well [as well as diff distros].
Sure, some of the GL extensions change per platform, but the core of GL is fairly stable, otherwise it'd be totally useless. As for Allegro, last I used it [early 2000's] it worked fine in DJGPP world and Linux. Wrote quite a few 2d top down games and other weird demos with it.
If DX is such a wonderful API where are the ports to other OSes?
Tom
Agreed, but there is a level of sensitivity you use in such situations. Of course when I was in school and on the one occasion I wrote something mildly depressing I was told to basically "walk it off." At that point I don't even remember why I was depressed but it was a short lived spell.
Of course how many of these "depressed kids" [myself included in that instant] are just bored and looking for attention, I wonder.
in this case would it have been so hard to pull the kid aside with the parents and ask what's up? Instead of going all omgbbq!!!!111oneCRAZIES over it?
Tom
You mean like having GL support, a set of cross platform game SDKs, and the like?
Newsflash, there are games for Linux distros. Just most studios aren't interested in writing proper code.
Tom
It's the OS they use at work because their boss says so and it's what Dell ships. Not for a technical reason.
... um ever try Fedora or Ubuntu? It's literally just put the CD in and click on install. If that's too hard then chances are you don't need a computer, you need a rubber mallet so you can crush your skull and remove yourself from the gene pool [cuz honestly all you'd do is run a virus bot infested windows box and make the world a worse place for the rest of us].
Their friends use it for the same reason.
There is way more useful software I find for OSS systems, but I guess it depends on what you do.
I play modern video games.
What the hell is a "mainstream OS?" And what does that have to do with buying decisions [or lack of]
There is more to an OSS OS than the basics. My point though was if you're not running DX games or whatever, chances are a decent linux distro will do you just fine. As for hard to install
I like how you turned what I said around with offering a shred of evidence though. Good quality trolling.
Tom
Well, first off, there are cross-platform game libraries. Allegro springs to mind. It works in a half-dozen OSes (including Windows), and takes care of sound, timers, input (keyboard/mouse/joystick), etc.
Second, I don't see how writing for DX can be easier than GL. DX like all MSFT software has a long list of complicated functions that are well documented in the MSDN but only useful for that platform. Learning GL means you can write apps for many more OSes.
And yes, I agree the market is larger in Windows, but proper software development techniques virtually demand sensible coding practices anyways. you can, believe it or not, write properly and still target Windows. It's lazyness and indifference that causes people to just use DX and other msft proprietary shit apis.
Tom
No the problem with fast food is that they mass produce it, beyond the needs of society. That it's unhealthy is another problem altogether. Slashing and burning forests so you can graze cattle isn't exactly the best use of territory.
People choose it though because of it's abundance. It's just everywhere and frankly it's an easy choice. I could make myself a healthy meal or grab something at one of the millions of fast food joints around.
Most people, not all, but most, use Windows just because it's what was installed on their machine. The average user does trivial tasks like browsing the web, reading emails, watching videos and listening to music. Things you have been able to do in Linux for a long time.
The reason you don't see Microsoft going away as much as "it should" is that it's unfairly bundled with machines, often as the only choice. I'm sure if Dell offered laptops with Ubuntu, sans the MSFT tax, that people would buy them [provided Dell marketed it properly and didn't just offer it as a non-descript choice].
15 years ago it would have been less of an issue to offer alternatives, and they did, e.g. DR-DOS vs. MS-DOS. But in the end, mutually assured destruction kicked in. Now people compete on shady terms simply because their competitors do as well, and if they didn't they be eaten alive.
That doesn't mean that's a good thing though. Which is why I usually go for custom boxes that never see a drop of MSFT software. Not funding that economic terrorism is the least I can do to help society.
Tom
It's only really hard to cross-platform develop if you use PLATFORM SPECIFIC APIs. An OpenGL app should be relatively portable, and if you're not using DX or Win32 porting shouldn't be a huge problem.
Also most of the issues of sound, input, etc are things you can WRITE ONCE and re-use in future games/productions. If you write a pluggable API you can easily have library that targets multiple platforms (admitedly sound is a weak spot in the OSS world).
If you look at the games that were ported they use this technique of an abstraction layer. And again, you can re-use the code so it's not a recurring cost.
Tom
If your only goal in life is to make money. All the power to you.
:-)
:-)
To me working is a split of "what does this day have to offer" and "it pays the bills." Don't get me wrong, I love my job and my station in life, but if I had the choice of being well off (e.g. financially set) or working I'd rather be well off. Gives me more time for my actual interesting pursuits like music, and a high score in Wii tennis
I also write software, albeit usually in the form of software libraries and not end user applications. Most of our customers are embedded folk who really don't care about Windows in the slightest. I guess when you're in a rational market your customers aren't demanding the lowest of you. E.g. if you don't sell drugs, your customers won't ask you for drugs.
I'm not trying to pretend that I'm somehow morally superior because I use OSS over closed source msft shite. Just that I'm aware that I have a choice and I choose not to use, develop, or support anything to do with windows. I'm not an enabler
Tom
I don't spend hours either, I play the few linux compat games (ET, Doom3, quake4, ut), and for the rest I use my xbox, DS, or GBA. The consoles I have plug directly into my tv tuner card, which works in Linux, allowing me to play console games without buying a TV [yeah you can do that in windows too, just saying it works fine in Linux].
You can *choose* not to continue to buy games from publishers who don't respect your right to choose an OS (and frankly, I think development in Linux or BSD would be cheaper as the OSes favour software development a lot more than Windows anyways).
And in the grand scheme of things it's just a video game. Most of the time I'd rather hang out with my friends, jam on my piano, or just chillax then sit there holding a controller or at the keyboard hunting fps baddies. I think I can do without the windows games if it means I don't have to run/buy/install/deal/think about/etc windows.
Tom
I choose not to use Windows because as a developer it's not a useful OS in the slightest. That it costs more than Gentoo, is less standard compliant, and the target of more bugs [regardless of the quality of OSS that is] doesn't help either.
A lot of people use Windows not by choice but by the virtue of it's what came with their computer and they don't care to investigate alternatives [even if it's to their benefit].
It's the same reason people eat at fast food joints. It's convenient, around every corner, and seeking out alternatives means they have to do some thinking on their own, which is really scary.
Tom
As I understand it, this is over one link. OC-192 is actually a series of OC-48 links bonded together.
Heck you can get yourself a nice 10gbit/sec line with 10 1gbit lines, ooh la lah
Tom
You'll get modded down because your post is bunk. Of course they'll sell goodies, they're trying to keep the thing running [as another poster pointed out].
Until they *deny* access to the non-paying public they're not really violating their stated goals. It's when articles become "members only" that you can start biting your thumb at them.
Tom
with the socket5/6/7 boards you could use any compatible processor. I routinely had MI and MII cores in my Socket [Super] 7 motherboards. I switched to K6-2 by the end before I got my first Athlon.
Tom
Hypertransport is an open protocol. People would rather design hardware for HT then the Intel FSB from what I can tell (given there is already one FPGA accelerator for 939-pin sockets).
But that raises the same point. The open socket could be used for something other than a processor. Like another FPGA accelerator.
Tom
Ok, I can see now you're disagreeing to be disagreeable. Fine, whatever. Well, by your logic, stopping murders is hard, why bother. Traffic offenses are hard to catch. So is drug smuggling, etc. Let's just say and do anything we want because the alternative is just so hard. In a world where people are responsible for their actions, the "man" has won! DOWN WITH THE MAN!
I *am* the victim of joe-jobs (it doesn't really ever end), and as a result I think forums shouldn't allow libelous postings to linger even after being reported. I think hosts are responsible for their content, they're the ones who *chose* to host it and make it available for others to read. You think it should all just be a free-for-all. That's because you're immature and think that a world with limits is automatically 1984. Have you even read 1984?
Here's a thought, newspapers are moderated, yet they're usually looked at as the opposite of 1984 [at least in north america]. Papers routinely criticize public figures [including our leaders], yet they don't publish every random thought that comes their way, and I'm *certain* most papers get libelous "letters to the editors" asking to be published.
There is a mile of difference between libel and criticism. Learn the difference. Not everything that is negative is automatically libel.
And btw, for the most part discussions here are civilized. Trolls get modded to oblivion and with my setup I don't see their posts.
Tom
... mentioning how it's hard to moderate a forum ...
Nothing worthwhile is simple. You shouldn't boast that you run a forum like slashdot if you can't moderate the content to keep the discussion civilized [or at least legal]. And for the record, something the size of Slashdot likely would have more than one moderator. In the case of slashdot, the moderation scheme [as done by the users] seems to work fairly well overall to weed out bad posts.
And as for it being so black/white as you allude, I already mentioned I'd also be happy with the admins being responsive to remove content when it's brought to their attention. Look at Amazon for example. I already sent several emails about the discussion of my books. The libelous discussions are still there. Short of suing them [which I'd likely lose anyways] what else could I do?
For the most part it's *trivial* to tell when content is libelous or at least inflammatory and uncivilized. For the rest, you can rely on user feedback to give guidance.
My point is, it's not black and white like you suggest. You can both have a free discussion while respecting others. I can disagree with you without doctoring up kiddie porn with a picture of you in it [for instance]. I can disapprove of your message without reposting it 1000s of times in the sole hope of griefing you out of the forum, etc, etc, etc.
I strongly suggest you get some perspective. And referring to 1984 is fairly low given that I'm an advocate of open source cryptography, open source software, open academia (manuals, books, research projects), and generally against governmental intrusion into civilized life.
Perhaps try and make your points with less hyperbole and cliche, and more cogent thoughts and openness?
Tom
I think you need to actually read the sections of the code. Being critical of someone isn't libel.
Like I can say "I didn't like the way she sung tonight at the concert." That's an opinion, which does not bring contempt or ridicule down upon anyone. No reasonable person would take that to the libelous extreme and use it to blackball the artist (for example). I mean by your definitions reviews would not be possible since they'd have to always be positive.
An example of something that would be libelous would be saying that someone is a "ripoff artist," who "hasn't sung a note in years." That would make reasonable people hold the target in contempt (as a fraud). Now if it's true, you could argue it's in the publics best interest as a defense to a libel charge.
There is ground between a negative opinion and libel or slander.
I'm not for "shutting down open forums," I'm for them becoming responsible. Why would it be so hard to moderate posts before they go public? It'd take all of 10 seconds to read the average posting and scan it for libelous content. For the occasional slip up, knowing that a moderator is accessible and will respond is nice.
I'm not saying that we should immediately harp on all admins. I'm saying that they should actively seek out and remove libelous content from the message forums they run. If that means pro-actively removing stuff before it goes public, all the better.
Why is that such a bad thing anyways?
If you want to have a free for all with your friends, PASSWORD PROTECT the damn site, that way google can't crawl it and put things like "$PERSON LIKES KIDDIE PORN" as a top hit for $PERSON.
Tom
Who said you can't have free conversations? All I'm saying is if you're going to broadcast something to thousands of people that you make sure it's legal first. I'm sorry, but just because you can install phpbb or equiv, doesn't mean you should let people say anything they want and you should continue hosting it.
You're free to say whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe on my right to live in safety (and good standing). That means you have to be accountable for what you say, and in this case, publish.
Like I said a dozen times before, wait until you're the victim of a joe-job before you go on about how people should have the right to say anything they want.
The post office can't read your messages and the standards of privacy demand they don't open them.
However, a private email is not really as dangerous as a broadcasted message. So unless you anonymously mail millions of people it's not quite the same.
Phone calls are [and/or should not] be anonymous anyways. I think phone companies should be able to track down harassing callers, or at the very least block them. But again, neither are broadcasting so it's not the same.
I put a comment on a popular site [say slashdot] and by the end of the day thousands if not tens of thousands could have seen it.
I get where you're going with the common carrier argument, but you have to remember you choose to be a forum/group/usenet/list/whatever operator. You're not forced into it. With that choice comes responsibilities.
Just like I choose to drive, therefore I have to drive safely. If you choose to publish peoples postings you should be filtering them to remove the libelous comments.
Tom
I'd be happy if forums, usenet hosts, etc, would moderate only the blatantly offensive or damaging posts. The problem is the Internet enabled people to do things they weren't prepared to be responsible for.
Imagine if drinking and driving wasn't illegal. And everyone drove with a slight buzz. All of a sudden someone steps up and says, "hey wait, maybe we shouldn't be doing that?" Do you say "that's the way things are" or do you fix the problem?
Slashdot has long since needed moderators who would delete highly offensive comments. At the very least the moderation [point system] does a nice job filling in. But what about other forums, review sites, usenet, etc.
I'm all for informed discussion, rants, anonymous postings, etc. I'm against allowing people to do and say anything because, *throws hands in air* it's the innertubes and that's the way it is.
Maybe I should print full page ads in the next saturday paper claiming that you molest small boys. After all, c'est la vie, shit happens right?
Tom
I'm calling you a troll because you're posting inflammatory material anonymously. That makes you an anti-social person who needs a hug.
Given that I don't answer to you, if you want to know what I was doing at AMD why not check out my C.V.
I take by your "impressed that someone worked at AMD" line of thinking that you either never worked there or really lack perspective. Sure there are exciting and academic jobs there (e.g. performance labs, CPU designers, fabs tech), and while mine was a mix of technical and logistical, it wasn't one of them (hence why I left). Frankly, I'm happier where I am now.
Anyone who just blindly assumes that a large corporation is a "dream job" has likely never worked for one. Sure there are ups to it, like higher pay, usually a bit more security, etc. But you lose that in the personal touch, career development, etc. Where I work now I'm one of 3 software developers, in a company with 10 engineers. Things I do there actually matter to others, it's technical and academic, the pay is decent (not as high as AMD but high enough to live nicely on).
Granted when I was going through the hiring process I was genuinely awestruck. That faded quickly once I got into the daily grind.
Tom
Yeah, see that's not the case in Canada (or any other half-way civilized country).
But even in the USA, there isn't much pressure to moderate for even false statements, let alone libelous truths.
Tom