is granted by countries not for a vast information network that crosses the world.

As boards become more popular, they tend to become more about groupthink, and less about insight. The most familiar example for me is Slashdot which was originally anonymous and unmoderated. As the the popularity increased, so did the need for moderation and the site's tech changed to try to accommodate it. Of course, what happens is that the vast majority of people who post to boards are ...common... and so most of the value vis-a-vis posters is really contained in a minority of the posters which leads to masses of dross on most boards.

One of the advantages of the Agonist is really that the cast of regular posters is so small that they represent a reasonably diverse range of perspectives, and posters are individuals without fading into the crowd. Sadly, John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) is still an unresolved problem of the blog movement.

claims the Internet puts something there.

I prefer this formulation: violent angry person in camouflage + bottle of rye = violent angry person no longer able to camouflage and repress their internal anger.

...use Usenet, you bloggers are a bunch of PC sissies. There are no prisoners in a good vi vs emacs flame war! Or perl vs. python! And only true believers dare to venture into comp.lang.object!

Sigh. I'm only allowed 3 exclamation points in my life, and I wasted them all on this thread.

goes on oblivious to those tiny few who "lose it" in such a fashion.

and remember Alan Berg. Be careful, even if you think the threat isn't that credible. Can't always tell for sure how serious the nose-breather is....

-5.75,-4.05 "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
William Lloyd Garrison
US abolitionist & editor (1805 - 1879)

Ahh, now what was it that Ian Pears' character Marco da Cola (a 17th century Venetian visitor to Oxford in "An Instance Of The Fingerpost"), said again?

...The one thing that detained me was the newspaper, a journal printed in London and then distributed around the country, a most novel idea. It was surprisingly frank about affairs, containing reports not only of domestic matters but also detailed accounts of events in foreign places which interested me greatly.

I was later informed, however, that they were milk and water in comparison to a few years previously, when the passion of faction brought forth a whole host of such organs. For the King, against the King, for Parliament, for the army, for or against this or that.

Cromwell, and then the returned King Charles, did their best to restore some form of order, rightly surmising that such stuff merely lulls people into thinking that they understand matters of state. And a more foolish notion can hardly be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything.

Such liberties do nothing but convert the grubby hacksters who produce these tracts into men of influence, so that they strut around as though they were gentlemen of quality. Anyone who has ever met one of these English journalists (so called, I believe, because they are paid by the day, like any common ditch-digger) will know how ridiculous that is.

Ahh, plus ça change...

being proven wrong. :-)

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

"I can't define it but I know it when I see it" kind of terms.

I would say this would include people who are overly passionate, not well informed and easily swayed by opinion leaders without an critical thought on their behalf going into what they believe.

Howzat?

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

...on the ground in sports. Most sports define which edge of the boundary actually is the boundary. Hockey has a curious definition of the blue line (separating one team's zone from the neutral zone). The boundary is always the furthest edge from where the puck is. Bill O'Reilly clearly uses this definition. You're "offside" if you come within a mile of him, but he's not "offside" until he's stuck his fist down your throat.

No, that's not what was meant above. It's the trouble with "official" boundaries (ie, codes) - you need disinterested referees. If you don't have disinterested referees, you'll have to take the responsibility to be fair yourself. The people calling for codes are usually those who can't do that.

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

is when people join a blog and are given access to a board by the owner or the administrators of it, that there is notice of acceptance to the effect, "I agree to conduct myself in a civil manner." Concurrent with the acceptance is a notice framed similar to, "This blog reserves the right to reject members who do not comply with the generally accepted standards of civility." (KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid) triumphs over complicated. Discretion should rest with the owner of the blog.

Blogs are individuals and as such are like private clubs that make up their own rules that members have to accept. (Or they go elsewhere) There is no need to go into detailed explanations and put badges on their blogs. In fact by making too many rules they open themselves to controversy about their blog's ability to be impartial in their ability to interpret their rules--similiar somewhat to the US written Constitution that lawyers chipped away at for decades turning the United States into having strong federal government instead of supporting the rights of individual States (decentralized) which is what the founders intended. Power was intended to rest with the people (inverted pyramid structure...bottom to top governance, but it hasn't turned out that way.)

Lawyers and people subjected to rules find ambiguities in them. It's best to have the 'fewest' number of them as possible and take incidents that crop up on an individual basis. Take the example of W.C. Fields to heart, on his deathbed he was seen reading a bible and when asked why he was reading it, he stated, "I'm searching for loopholes!"

Of course. I'm not saying I'd join this civility org, but I am saying that moderation is required. It's not as simple as letting people say anything they want, if you do that, you'll have problems.

_{Give Texas Back to Mexico!}