From: Peter Hendrickson <pdh@best.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 23:41:16 -0800 (PST)
To: Declan McCullagh <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
Message-ID: <199702050741.XAA18598@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 6:22 PM 2/4/1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> What Vulis and the rest (whom I killfiled long ago) have done is polluted a
> common resource, making it unusable for the rest. It's the tragedy of the
> commons. When all can speak without limit in a public forum, the drunken
> boor can shout everyone else down.

I think this analogy is inappropriate for modern communications
forums.

Mailing lists have the wonderful property that the drunken boor
cannot shout everyone else down.  This is what is so great about
the Net.  It is trivial to filter the drunken boor.  This cannot
be done in a crowded auditorium.

Another neat property is the fact that people can't interrupt
each other and everybody can "talk" at once.

Peter Hendrickson
pdh@best.com