If there's a middle class anywhere in Middle Earth, it's the Hobbits. They have an elected Mayor, they have trades, they have commercial agriculture, they have capitalism.
Brin is pulling his usual self-promoting strategem of pushing his ideas by blathering endlessly about his supposedly "rational" analysis of someone else's ideas and characters. He doesn't present it as "this is my opinion", he presents it as "this is the way it *is*, your poor dumb troglodyte."
To me, the character of Sauron does not represent "technology" so much as the *corruption* of technology for nefarious purposes. He paints the Nazis as Romantics, but they were also technologists, as evidenced by the numerous missle programs, the death factories, and the use of blitzkrieg. In the same fashion, Sauron uses the tech of the rings in order to bring about total dominion. Brin always seems to argue that tech is neutral, if not "good", and that any use of it must therefore also be "good".
Ultimately, Brin presents a false choice: "choose technology in the way I want, or you are choosing romanticism." Bah. This is just as idiotic as thinking that there is "pure good" and "pure evil".
A couple of years ago, I worked for a website that gets a *lot* of traffic. They decided to start a forum one day to discuss their content. On the *first* day, the forum was filled with crap spam advertising anything and everything (mostly porn), and ridiculously few posts that were on-topic. If posts were not moderated (read "deleted"), finding relevant posts would be like looking for signs of extraterrestrial life by analyzing background radiation.
Remember where the term "moderation" came from in the electronic context. Moderators of mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups actively *deleted* posts. It worked like a dream, though occasionally there were disputes over posts that were "censored".
If I'm a web publisher, I'm providing space and bandwidth for comments, but I'm *not* going to advertise your site for free, especially if it's way off-topic. If the discussion is, say, Pete Townshend's recent projects, I think obvious spam about "FREE SEX FAST" should be deleted.
Perhaps the moderation scheme would work. How has slashdot handled this? It seems to me to that it's reasonable to put some restrictions in a user agreement. In my efforts, I'd like to moderate comments, but also have some editorial control (ok, deletion) for posts that are spam or way off-topic (think KKK recruiting posts in a music forum).
Now, newspapers and magazines seem to get away with printing opinions of subscribers that could be inflammatory or even potentially libelous by making some statement to the effect of "The views expressed by our readers do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper". As a publisher, I would want editorial control over my product, but as a free-speech advocate, I would want people to be able to post whatever opinions they have, *as long as they are on-topic*.
Before you flame, yes, I realize that there's always going to be a difference of opinion on what is and is not on-topic. Those should be moderated. But ads for "FREE NUDE TEEN KIDNEYS" don't really deserve free promotion in a forum discussing Princess Mononoke.
If/.-style moderation of such hell-beasts works, great.Does anybody have any insight on whether or not the spamsters get bored and go elsewhere? Any real-world statistics?
Slashdot Mirror
If there's a middle class anywhere in Middle Earth, it's the Hobbits. They have an elected Mayor, they have trades, they have commercial agriculture, they have capitalism.
Brin is pulling his usual self-promoting strategem of pushing his ideas by blathering endlessly about his supposedly "rational" analysis of someone else's ideas and characters. He doesn't present it as "this is my opinion", he presents it as "this is the way it *is*, your poor dumb troglodyte."
To me, the character of Sauron does not represent "technology" so much as the *corruption* of technology for nefarious purposes. He paints the Nazis as Romantics, but they were also technologists, as evidenced by the numerous missle programs, the death factories, and the use of blitzkrieg. In the same fashion, Sauron uses the tech of the rings in order to bring about total dominion. Brin always seems to argue that tech is neutral, if not "good", and that any use of it must therefore also be "good".
Ultimately, Brin presents a false choice: "choose technology in the way I want, or you are choosing romanticism." Bah. This is just as idiotic as thinking that there is "pure good" and "pure evil".
Lumpy writes:
> I am GLAD that I have serial and parallel ports.
Me, too. Highly useful for attaching home automation controllers.
Serial ports. They're not just for modems anymore.
In light of Microsoft's Daley-esque faking of support from the dead, I propose adding
the following term to the lexicon:
Carcasstroturfing: The practice of using dead people in fake grass-roots campaigns in order
to sway the opinions of the living.
A couple of years ago, I worked for a website
/.-style moderation of such hell-beasts works,
that gets a *lot* of traffic. They decided to
start a forum one day to discuss their content.
On the *first* day, the forum was filled with
crap spam advertising anything and everything
(mostly porn), and ridiculously few posts that
were on-topic. If posts were not moderated (read
"deleted"), finding relevant posts would
be like looking for signs of extraterrestrial
life by analyzing background radiation.
Remember where the term "moderation" came from
in the electronic context. Moderators of mailing
lists and Usenet newsgroups actively *deleted*
posts. It worked like a dream, though occasionally
there were disputes over posts that were
"censored".
If I'm a web publisher, I'm providing space and
bandwidth for comments, but I'm *not* going to
advertise your site for free, especially if
it's way off-topic. If the discussion is, say,
Pete Townshend's recent projects, I think
obvious spam about "FREE SEX FAST" should be
deleted.
Perhaps the moderation scheme would work. How
has slashdot handled this? It seems to me to
that it's reasonable to put some restrictions
in a user agreement. In my efforts, I'd like to
moderate comments, but also have some editorial
control (ok, deletion) for posts that are spam or
way off-topic (think KKK recruiting posts in a
music forum).
Now, newspapers and magazines seem to get away
with printing opinions of subscribers that could
be inflammatory or even potentially libelous by
making some statement to the effect of "The views
expressed by our readers do not necessarily
reflect the views of this newspaper". As a
publisher, I would want editorial control over
my product, but as a free-speech advocate, I
would want people to be able to post whatever
opinions they have, *as long as they are
on-topic*.
Before you flame, yes, I realize that there's
always going to be a difference of opinion on
what is and is not on-topic. Those should be
moderated. But ads for "FREE NUDE TEEN KIDNEYS"
don't really deserve free promotion in a forum
discussing Princess Mononoke.
If
great.Does anybody have any insight on whether
or not the spamsters get bored and go elsewhere?
Any real-world statistics?