hanekomu wrote:...
Having authority watch you is like being - in the best case - guests in someone's house and under constant threat of being thrown out if you say something the authority doesn't like. The alternative - and one that I'd prefer - is that we can feel like we're meeting in a public, open space, a park perhaps, where we can talk about anything we want, slightly controversial or not.
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Your analogy of "someone's house" is very accurate. All websites belong to someone. They are all private property.
Every time that you visit private property, be it a house, a store, a restaurant, or whatever, you are "...under constant threat of being thrown out...". If I am a guest in your home, you can throw me out for saying something you don't like. You can throw me out for having brown eyes if you wish.
Most reasonable property owners don't abuse this authority. If they did, their guests would not come back. When you visit your favorite restaurant, they can throw you out if they wish. But do you feel uncomfortable there because of it? Your local movie theater can throw you out, but do you feel uncomfortable there?
It is often the 'public spaces' where we feel most uncomfortable. Do you like the feeling in your local post office or your local courthouse or your local DMV? Would you let your kids play unsupervised in the local public park? Would you bother to read rec.games.go?
The problem with the public area where anybody can say/do anything is that somebody eventually does. And that ruins it for everybody.
Ultimately, what most of us want is a contradiction. We want the feeling of freedom that comes with knowing that we can say or do as we please. And we want the feeling of security that comes with knowing that other people will not seriously abuse that freedom.
Most restaurants/theaters/bars/stores provide this very unobtrusively. Some have a doorman/clerk who will not let someone in who is cleary drunk or raving or otherwise unpleasant. If someone does get in and then is disruptive, they will quietly ask that person to calm down or leave. They have the ability to deal with disruptions in a way that is both private and immediate.
A forum like L19 tries to mimic this scheme. The one difference is that there is so little privacy. We can't take someone aside in real time and quietly ask them not to do something. We can do something privately - like send them a PM, but it has little effect until they log in again. We can do/say something immediately - like editing or deleteing a post, but then it is public.
We don't have the ability to step in in a way that is both immediate and private. We can let the disruption remain while we act privately, or we can act publicly. But unlike your local store or restaurant, we can't do both.
