Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:10:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Don Roper To: psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: Limiting Excessive Postings Dear PSNers, Should we vote on limits? Sounds like a fine idea if the issue is clear but I think that critics of the idea (with the exception of Bill Bogard, see below) are often arguing, at least implicitly, against any restrictions. I will argue that the underlying issue is often about moderation itself, and that differences around moderation arise from the views of whether posting is a free good or a resource to be conserved and cared for, and that the debate over limits has become a surrogate for these other issues. The critics, by and large, are not the most frequent posters so limits would likely not affect them. So we/I must do them the service of not imputing narrow motives in their campaign against limits. This message is not to impugn their motives in any way, but to look at the logic of the criticism. I'm the founder and general manager (and bill payer) of CSF, and on list after list (of our 30 public lists) cries of freedom of speech emerge when moderation and/or limits are employed. Central to these ubiquitous cries is peoples' beliefs that we are denying them access to a free good. It's supposedly like sunshine -- my enjoying the sun doesn't infringe on your enjoyment of the sun so any denial of access to sunshine is socially wrong. I will to argue that it is not a free good and I will use the criticism of limits to support my argument. Why isn't the presence of Psn-Cafe sufficient to overcome the criticism of limits? All messages make it through to the Cafe and the instructions for subscribing to Psn-cafe (and unsubbing Psn) have been repeated sufficiently often that one can't explain the fact that Psn is 16 times as large as psn-cafe as resulting from a shortage of information. (In the last few days of this heated discussion, only 3 or 4 people have migrated.) So why hasn't unlimited access to psn-cafe been sufficient to alleviate the demand for less restricted access to psn? The answer seems pretty obvious, viz., postings appearing on psn reach 16 times as many people. Unlimited access to psn-cafe isn't nearly as valuable of right-a-way access to psn. But why is psn 16 times as large as psn-cafe? Because 1. people have chosen to not migrate to psn-cafe. One might explain the behavior of a couple of hundred psn subscribers to inertia, but one can't explain the bulk of the subscription difference to inertia or to the lack of information -- one must acknowledge that most psn subscribers are deliberately selecting psn over psn-cafe. 2. psn has grown considerably since moderation began because unsubs fell from over 10%/month to less than 10% per month, and that fall, over 15 mos, accounts for a net increase of several hundred. The basic point is that the presence of psn-cafe doesn't satisfy the demands for more open access because psn is so much larger and the reason that it is so much larger is because access has been restricted. The advocates of more open access can't have it both ways -- that people must be free to post on psn since it's a free good while admitting that it's so much more valuable than posting on psn-cafe. Frequent postings cannot be regarded as "excessive" unless there is a social cost and I'd like to look more closely at the cost. Throughout CSF we are taking the complaints of unsubscribers seriously. On lists with unsubs that run at the modest rate of 5%/month, we hear lots of different reasons for unsubs. But for lists with unsub rates closer to 10%/mo, the reasons are dominated by 1. too much volume 2 too much mail from too few people According to this feedback, frequent posters keep the unsub rate up. And with high unsubs, psn becomes less valuable as a place to post. It's the standard commons problem of overgrazing or overfishing -- each individual who uses the resource excessively lowers the value of the resource for others. I interpret both of the complaints above to be, implicitly, about quality. With sufficient quality, no one would complain about volume -- they would start deleting other mail automatically, not PSN mail. More on the social cost of excessive posting: When printed journals require a submission fee, is that interfering with freedom of speech? Perhaps for those who can't afford the fee. But we presumably all know that part of the reason for a submission fee is to make sure that the author is making a serious and not a frivolous submission. Everyone understands that access to printed journals is not a free/public good since it takes real resources to print and deliver journals. The distribution of email is a lot less costly than printed journals, but it's still not a free good -- the scarce resource that needs to be preserved is the right to stuff subscribers' mailboxes, and if we abuse that right, they remove it. So, if high frequency postings often undercut this valuable resource, why haven't the moderators taken care of the problem and denied excessive access? As Bill Bogard put it: it [software limits] suggests that the control of quantity can somehow fix shortcomings in quality. The argument is that it takes time to read so many submissions -- now exceeding 300/month. When one gets pounded by so much mail, it becomes tempting to grease the squeaky wheel. I believe that heavy submitters get more posted partly because they wear down the moderators, not because they always have more interesting, thoughtful contributions. It's natural to be overcome by the relentless pounding of submissions all of which one doesn't have time to study that closely. With longer hours and more resolve to read all submissions critically PSN moderators can indeed raise the quality and distribute the postings more broadly until complaints (1) and (2) subside. But it's a lot of work. If, as I have argued, the underlying issue for most critics is the general issue of all restrictions to post on psn, then that issue is resolved, not by voting on anything, but by discussing the reasons why that access is so important given the presence of psn-cafe. If the most arguments against limits were articulated in a way that explicitly accept the need for serious restrictions on postings to psn, then the issue is, indeed, over whether software will genuinely help the moderators and moderation process. That's an empirical question and the sorts of information that one would examine are a. Do the high frequency posters that the moderators let through (and those posters change every few months) uniformly reflect some of the most sociologically interesting dialogue on psn? b. Would a poster, when approaching their limit and having to make a decision about how to spend the remainder, submit to PSN a better contribution than otherwise? I've seen little discussion of (a) or (b) by the critics of limits. It makes no sense for critics to vote against limits if their real issue is with moderation itself. And for those who don't want any restrictions on posts to PSN, ask yourself why Psn-cafe is such an inferior place to post. don roper