Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 15:12:45 -0800
From: Bill Bogard (remote) <bogard@WPOFFICE.WHITMAN.EDU>
To: psn@csf.colorado.edu
Subject:  limits
i hope psn subscribers can appreciate the irony of devising a quantitative,
 technical solution to the problem of having serious discussions on the
list.  and it *is* a question of the seriousness or quality of posts, not
just the amount of clutter or noise on the list.  technical fixes like
limit software obscure the power relations and value systems involved in
controlling information (e.g. the system operator on our campus can
effectively bar access to certain "offensive" newsgroups by appealing to
hardware limits, without having to claim he's censoring anything).  i think
limit software is a particularly impersonal and in the end quite arbitrary
method of regulating speech, and it works in ways totally disconnected from
judgments about the value or the seriousness (or the playfulness!) of
speech.  it's true, even with limit software, anyone can still post
anything to psn-cafe.  but it's a bad precedent for psn, and it suggests
that the control of quantity can somehow fix shortcomings in quality.  bill
bogard