[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Decency Standards for Open Source

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> > Please be sure to click the "Dig it " link at digg.com for my article
> > so I can get the article promoted to the front page. I think I'll 
> > need around 50 or so digs to get it up there.
> I registered and "dug it" earlier today.
> > Thank you for your feedback and I have to say that in everything you 
> > said I agree with you. Yet I am still convinced that in the case of 
> > OCAL, at least, an open submission policy would sink the ship.
> Sure, there has to be some standards for things like OCAL, otherwise a
> minority would post whatever it could to purposely sink the project.
> There always seems to be that minority on the Internet who thinks their
> sole purpose is to cause as much trouble for as many people as possible.

One useful clause for such a standard would be "historical
significance".  This would protect things like the Nazi (or PLO or IRA,
etc...) insignias and flags while keeping out things designed to simply
be offensive.  It think you can draw some fairly quantitative lines if
you look at the origins of why some material is considered offensive
verses others.

> I have no problems with moral and decency standards, as long as those
> standards are governed by the majority.  I take issue with this "please
> everyone" attitude where the extreme minority get their way by screaming
> some politically correct nonsense.

And you could make the system fairly democratic.  You could just let
registered users vote on the offensiveness of material,  much like the
moderation system in web forums.  Perhaps even allowing people to tag
items as offensive for "political", "religious", or "sexual nature"
reasons.  Obviously you'd need a robust anti-ballot-stuffing system,
but registered users could also opt o disable the filters.  The
oligarchs would simply be delegated the task of determining what
material should actually be *removed* for whatever reasons, and possibly
adjusting the moderation system if they think it has gone astray

> > But as I suggested in the article, 
> > there is a way to deal with fanatics, which is to ignore them -- a 
> > solution you have (IMO, rightfully) employed with Devil Linux up to now 
> Yes, we learned through experience that reasoning with these types
> doesn't do any good.

Yep.

> > The "blanding" of our culture is a serious problem. It bugs me too, and 
> Makes me wonder if we're not heading toward what some of the futuristic
> movies represent, with a bunch of people all dressed alike going about
> their daily tasks with no expressions on their faces ...

Yes, but those clothes will be covered by many colorful corporate
logos! :)

> > I have an even better example for you. Schools. Tests and textbooks, 
> The little I know about present day school systems, it sounds like it's
> changed a lot since I was in school.  But since I have no children, and
> I have no present day dealings with present days school, I'll defer
> comment on this to others.  (too bad Adam is on vacation :)

I'm back!

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