X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f9437,ff4ed0ea99b515e4 X-Google-Attributes: gidf9437,public X-Google-Thread: f996b,ff4ed0ea99b515e4 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-05-27 16:54:34 PST Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.ascii-art Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!hookup!torn!nott!emr1!nveilleu.cpcs.emr.ca!Nveilleu From: Nveilleu@emr1.emr.ca (Normand Veilleux) Subject: Re: VOTING: rec.arts.ascii ( MODERATED ) Message-ID: Lines: 76 Sender: news@emr1.emr.ca Nntp-Posting-Host: nveilleu.cpcs.emr.ca Organization: CPCS, Energy Mines & Resources, Canada References: <2s2tkd$bf2@deadmin.ucsd.edu> Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 20:55:30 GMT Xref: bga.com news.groups:15234 alt.ascii-art:8440 >From: gvelasco@ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) >Moderation is censorship. Is it really ? Let's assume that you and I are in the newspaper business. We receive hundreds and thousands of news pieces every week, but since we have a limited budget and since we cannot print everything anyway, we define a set of rules that help us reduce that huge amount of information down to a more manageable size. By reducing the amount of information, we are choosing what we think is representative of what our clients like to read. Of course, the clients' input is welcomed. Is that moderation or censorship ? To me that's moderation. Now, let's assume that before we are allowed to distribute this information to the public we are forced, by law for example, to have it approved by an organization of some sort. Non compliance could mean that we would be put out of business, so we reluctantly submit the information we selected for approval. This organization also has a set of rules that it uses to reduce the amount of information. In this case though, the organization is purposefully eliminating information that we think our clients would be interested in seeing. Furthermore, the clients' input is totally irrelevent to them. Now, is that moderation or censorship ? This, IMO qualifies as censorship. I don't have a clear cut definition of what moderation is or what censorship is, but I agree that they both eliminate something. IMO though, they do not eliminate the same things and they do not eliminate them for the same reasons. Hence, moderation is not the same as censorship. BTW, what do you call it when a site cuts access or refuses to grant access to a particular Usenet group ? Moderation or censorship ? Why is it that some people allow _entire_ newsgroups to be unaccessible without complaining, yet _vehemently_ protest when someone proposes to eliminate even a _small_ portion of the information that circulates in a newsgroup ? Are those people just overreacting or what ? Don't they realize that moderation is all around us _today_ in our free society ? Every newspaper, radio station, magazine, TV news program, etc, serve their clients by "filtering" information with their own set of rules before distributing it. This enables them to guarantee their clients a high level of cohesiveness among the various pieces of information contained in their "products". We then choose the products or "packages" of information that we feel will meet our current needs. Notice that this process of information distribution automatically takes care of labelling the information and ensuring that it gets distributed only by channels that have clients that are interested in seeing that particular type of information. Some of you might be saying, "well, that's exactly what the Usenet does too." Not so! In the case of the Usenet, anybody can post anything in any newsgroup they want, at anytime, whether the "information" belongs there or not (with the exception of moderated groups of course). _Quite_ a difference! In the case of the "regular media", there is a high level of order because of inherent controls, while in the case of the Usenet there is a continuous motion between order and disorder due to the free-for-all approach. Moderation is a tool by which order can be ensured in a newsgroup, irrelevant of whether the attitudes and behaviours of the set of users present were conducive to order or disorder prior to moderation being applied. Many people fear moderation in cyberspace, yet they don't appear to mind it at all in real life. Why ? -- Normand Veilleux As a "long term" contributing artist to nveilleu@emr1.emr.ca alt.ascii-art, I hereby declare that ---------------------------- rec.arts.ascii (MODERATED) has my support.