Censorship is the suppression of speech. For example: "You can't talk about Oranges, they are evil!"
Moderation is the regulation of speech: "You can talk about Oranges, just not here. Go over there to talk about Oranges."

A related problem is the "Free Speech Zones" outside political party rallies. They do not censor speech, but they do prevent you from speaking in some portion of the public square. To the extent that Facebook has become the public square, the cost to society of speech prohibition in that forum is the same. To the extent that "Free Speech Zones" are an infringement of free speech, and Facebook has become the public square, Facebook presents the same risks to society.

This is not merely a question of how you dice the legal technicalities, it is a question of the purpose and means of free speech. Free speech is more important to our society in the long run than any other right; it is the basis of having a strong GDP upon which Facebook can build its business. If Facebook becomes destructive of the system, it is our rationally self-interested duty as a society to stop it, even if the particular existing legal terms can be parsed in a way that says it is legal.

Getting on the road for Burning Man. Probably won't get another chance to check in. I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you if you want to continue the dialogue, but I probably won't be able to respond for two weeks.

Now go look at the down-modded ones as well. As I said - anything not toeing the line is at 1 or 2.

I did. I spent about half an hour looking at the downmodded ones, and trying to see something that I could easily point to, and I didn't find it. But let me remind you of your original reply and my original assertion:

>> 2. The majority of such comments get upmodded and misogyny is the dominant sentiment in this community.
>>
>> If you're saying 2, we should take action. But first, citation needed, because I think you are mistaken.
>
> http://apple.slashdot.org/stor...
>
> I await your action and apology. Very clear pattern of up-mods for misogynistic crap and down-mods for anything not toeing the line.

You claim you were confirming my item 2, which makes an assertion about upmods and and misogyny being the dominant sentiment. It seems you cannot show that using the +5 rated comments. Therefore, I believe that we have already shown that your contradiction of my post, and demand that I apologize, was unjustified.

Now you are backing off to the less stringent, and harder to quantify, claim that comments which don't "toe the party line" were more likely to be downmodded. I suspect that misogynistic comments are relatively easy to categorize. Posts which don't "toe the party line" is a fuzzier issue, since I am not sure I know what you are saying "the party line" is. I'm not sure if you mean misogynistic comments are the party line, or if you are saying that the party line is a lack of support for affirmative action programs to balance the unequal treatment of women in STEM. Which is to say I think that the "party line" issue will be harder to show empirically.

But if you want to classify all the posts into misogynist versus not misogynist, or party-line-toeing versus party-line-anti-toeing, and upmodded versus downmodded, and present the data, I'd love to see it. It just seems like it would take a lot of work to get an objective answer. You presented a single example in your post. Individual anecdotes are extremely susceptible to confirmation bias.

While we're on the subject of confirmation bias, and your accusation that I have fallen victim; I think you are off base.

First, my assertion was that this forum does not have a dominant theme of misogyny demonstrated by the majority of misogynistic comments being upmodded. I think that looking at the +5 comments and trying to find a significant number which are misogynistic is an eminently fair test for that hypothesis.

Second, it would be rather hard for me to be a victim of it, since I do not have a strongly held belief of what the outcome will be. I haven't seen a strong pattern of misogyny here, but I've said, earlier in this thread, that I may simply be missing it, and I want to understand if that is the case. That is why I have been asking these questions in an unbiased and respectful manner. (though admittedly, you are testing my patience with your shifting of the specific facts in question and your impugning of my integrity)

Finally, it would also be difficult for me to be a victim of confirmation bias on the affirmative action question, because I am in favor of affirmative action programs to balance the unequal representation of women in STEM. I think that, much like the addition of women to the industrial labor force in the wake of WWII, increasing equality of women in STEM would be good for our nation both at the pragmatic economic level and in terms of the substantial ethical issue that is at stake.

But I do not see the objectively quantified empirical evidence of a pattern of misogynistic rhetoric on this site. Worse yet, I think that spurious suspicion of misogyny, particularly of people like me who want to see these kinds of programs move forward, is harmful to their advancement.

If that is because I do not understand what misogyny is, I am hoping you can enlighten me. But if I am not seeing it because upmodded misogynistic comments are actually not very common, perhaps that is an equally significant observation.

>> 2. The majority of such comments get upmodded and misogyny is the dominant sentiment in this community.

> http://apple.slashdot.org/stor...
>
> I await your action and apology. Very clear pattern of up-mods for misogynistic crap and down-mods for anything not toeing the line.

I read through the top rated comments, and it was not as clear to me as you suggest it is. It is possible that I do not understand what constitutes misogyny. I read this entry in Wikipedia, and am still not sure I see the cases that match that definition. There are 21 comments modded +5. To show that the dominant sentiment is misogyny, could you please link the 10 that you feel are most misogynistic?

Pick any random story about equality and it will be full of people accusing the women involved of attacking them personally and of being whiney bitches.

Clarify this for me: Are you saying:
1. Such posts exist, and some get upmodded.
- or -
2. The majority of such comments get upmodded and misogyny is the dominant sentiment in this community.

If you're saying 2, we should take action. But first, citation needed, because I think you are mistaken. If you're saying 1, it is better to allow a few fools to express their opinion -- and better yet for us to discuss it without rancor and help them get a clue -- than to become a community that does not speak freely.

Back when the whole Mozilla controversy was going on there were endless posts about how "just not liking gays" was somehow a perfectly okay position to take, and blaming them for daring to demand equality and human rights.

Clarify this for me; are you saying:

1. That the dominant meme in the Mozilla conversation was that it is perfectly okay to not like gays?
- or -
2. That a dominant meme was that he has a right to be a bigot, even though bigotry is wrong.

The latter is what I saw in the Mozilla issue, and it is an important distinction.

I am a hard-core equal rights advocate. Nothing good comes from hate. I argued in that thread for him to be dismissed, and believe it was right for him to "choose to resign".

But here's the thing about "nothing good comes from hate" -- it cuts both ways. Nothing good comes from hate, even when the target of the hate is a bigot. While I may find a person's opinion repugnant, and I do not hesitate to tell such people their view is flawed, I will defend to the death their right to express it.

Therein lies the behavior modification. Good and bad aside, you damn sure learn not to place your stingables in harm's way of another scorpion.

Seems reasonable. What's the next step; how do you recommend we do it? In this case, the stingable is the market economy, and the scorpion is collusive trade. How do we move our economic system out of the way of Bezos' actions?

Bezos is dealing with the challenge of ushering the decaying giant into the new World, and in some fashion, that includes monetizing the operation. A button for Amazon purchases? Were you expecting a Rakuten link?

Identifying and understanding the reason that an inefficient trade agreement occurs does not make it efficient. I know why a scorpion stings me, but I do not consider it a good thing.

It seems to me no more intrusive than a banner ad, and I'm much more annoyed at large rectangular ads that break up article paragraphs. So what am I missing here?

IMO, the apparent conflict of interest. In an ideal free market, ad placements are competitive. Exclusive deals between entities which enjoy very large market-shares in their respective markets have a high probability of inhibiting GDP growth in the long run, according to both empirical and theoretical economics.

In my state all the calls are recorded anonymously for my safety as well as the safety of my country. Freedom isn't free after all.

Hmm, let's see...

In my state all the calls are recorded anonymously for my safety as well as the safety of my country. Freedom isn't freedom, after all.

There, FTFY. :(

Hackers Demand Automakers Get Serious About Security

I misread the subject line as being about automake systems, like Maven, PIP, and easy_install, and was very excited. All of those are vulnerable to DNS cache poisoning attacks, allowing injection of arbitrary code into software builds.

An enormous first step in improving security is the incorporation of PGP signature checks, but at least in Maven, many of the most popular libraries aren't signed.

Given how many of the people here use these tools on a daily basis, perhaps pointing fingers at the automakers is not warranted until the automakes are not glass houses.

>> Finger print scanners are fooled by gummy bears.

> Where I work, the scanners are quite high.

Aww, come on, now, no need to point fingers. If you had to sit there and check people's fingerprints all day you might spark up a bowl and get tempted by gummi bears once in a while too.

Don't you remember his implication in the recent TV program during elections in Russia?

I do remember the implication. I do not remember anything I would call substantiation. Implication without substance is propaganda.

The question that remains, of course, is did the Russians use this as leverage over him to get to more information or influence him?

Why is that a question? Has there been any indication that anything like that has happened? No? Well then why does that question come up for you? I believe it is because you know that if you said what you are implying outright, the unanimous response would be, "Citation Needed!"

Don't propagate bullshit suggestive questions that try to make a point you don't have the balls (or the evidence) to present in a forthright manner. Leave that kind of rhetorical crap to the downward spiral that is major media news. Here, you will be held to a higher standard.

The viewing supports the production. Or the production supports the viewing. I am not sure,

Well, let me clear it up for you, since it's a pretty simple one-way cause and effect: Production supports viewing. Viewing, in and of itself, does exactly nothing to support anything else.

Purchasing? That could support production. Page views on a site that runs ads? That could support production. Pulling from a site that keeps a record of the number of downloads, such that the uploader gets some kind of gratification watching the counter go up? That could support production.

But viewing, in itself, does not support production.

The last thing that we need as a society is to encourage others to consume the evidence of that abuse.

Encourage them? How are we as a society encouraging the viewers? I'm pretty sure it is common knowledge that we, the vast majority of society, find this behavior repugnant. I don't think they sit in their greasy basements thinking how proud their city council would be if they only knew.

You would have to basically create an endowment to fund ongoing documentation development.

Agreed that continued funding would be necessary to the extent that renewed documentation is needed. Whether an endowment or repeat crowdfunding is the best mechanism for doing so would probably vary from project to project. Perhaps you make the endowment approach a big stretch goal; like "$18,000 base funding for a one-time project, $250,000 or more creates an endowment with three annual $20,000 update projects until the endowment (invested in broad-based low risk equity funds, 50% domestic, 25% foreign first world, 25% foreign developing nations) is depleted" -- but I digress, you get the idea.

A) the interfaces are bad enough that documentation is even necessary in the first place

As you imply, I find that good documentation often exposes opportunities for improvement in the interface. That could become a channel for providing recommendations to the core development team, or could become the seed for a third-party development effort. Things which have value can get built, either because the developers and their sponsors want them, or through crowdfunding, or through some other motivating mechanism.

In short; you've raised an opportunity to create additional value, not a threat to succeeding in the base objective.

B) documentation is boring, unrewarding and time consuming to do well so nobody wants to bother.

That is a restatement of the original premise for which we are attempting to find potential solutions. I think I am missing your intent in raising it anew as a bullet point.