Posted by Dinah on January 13, 2002, at 8:34:03
In reply to Let's take a poll if someone should be blocked!!!!, posted by JohnX2 on January 13, 2002, at 1:13:16
>
> Hi Big Brother,
>
> Over on the Silicon Investor Newsgroup,
> you should see the complete and utter disregard
> of courteousy shown towards others. Yet many of the
> groups are well monitored using a DEMOCRATIC process
> whereby the users of the group vote whether or not
> to ban someone fom posting from the newsgroup.
> Until this policy or some other non Orwellean
> process is adopted, I will no longer be posting
> to psycho-babble. Things have gotton out of hand.
>
> good day,
> john.I just got a terrible flashback to middle school and high school. Sometimes "democratic" doesn't mean fair. Why would a "democratic" poll be any better than Dr. Bob simply posting the rules and enforcing them? Most people who are blocked realize in advance that they will be blocked, whether for incivility or for violating the illegal drugs source policy. Fair warning is given. So you might say these people choose to block themselves in order to make a point. Fair enough. They have the right to do so, although the offending posts might be deleted and so the point might never be made.
Yes, you might say, but the majority will have decided on the rules and who gets blocked, so the majority will be better off. This brings me back to my school memories. The majority may be better off, but who will protect the minority? This site is also supposed to be supportive for those people who don't necessarily subscribe to the majority view. Currently it is. And I am one vulnerable and often minority view babbler who hopes that the site will always remain that way.
Just my humble opinion.
DinahIncidentally, this is really a PB Admin discussion, and I suppose I should have posted this there and provided a link, but I really don't know how to do that. Is there a tutorial?
poster:Dinah
thread:89921
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020110/msgs/89940.html