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Comment One more time...with FEELING! (Score 2) 515

ChrisMul said: ...any limiting of comments is a form of censorship, though not necessarily in a bad way... -- but this isn't strictly true.

While on the one hand I tend to abhor, for example, corporate/private restrictions on speech, and think it's a dangerous area that eneds watching, it's justn ot true that any and all forms of moderation or editorial input can be dumped into some wide-sweeping definition of "censorship".

It's important to retain the rhetorical impact of labelling something or someone a censor. It shouldn't be used lightly, and it's not like we can't discuss the pros and cons of moderation or editorialism without resorting to calling everyone a censor. In fact, it's kind of argumentatively lazy to just throw that word around.

Oddly, it seems to be in the air. The owner of one mailing list I'm on recently and temporarily gagged two posters, and ppl wigged out, as if jackbooted government thugs had just barged into their homes and stolen their secret printing presses in the basement.

At the same time, a new policy of account-suspension was just launched on a chat server I hang out on, and ppl wigged out over there too. Interestingly, that particular case echoed some of Jon Katz's sentiments about how constant bullying of new people in effect silences those new people becos it's just not worth it.

All in all, it's rather astonishing how well Slashdot manages to perform this experiment in using software combined with people to try to speak both to individual freedom and choice as well as to some sense of common good or social contract. Few other places online seem to strive so hardcore towards trying to fulfill both needs at once.

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