You choose your level of involvement.
(Tyler Durden)
In the beginning (or pretty close to it) was the killfile.
In the early days of the commercial internet, prior to the HTML
takeover, if you could not maintain proper manners in your postings
or abused system resources you would find yourself killfiled or
unsubscribed in order to keep a forum usable, and that would be
that.
Glorious in its simplicity, the killfile filtered out users,
forums, etc. that you didn't want to be exposed to. When you
*plonked* someone they could carry on with whatever foolishness
they were on about and you could go on reading the same newsfroups
without a care in the world. You didn't have to run away, and
neither did they - it was efficient. And significantly, it was fair
to everyone involved.
But there was another idea in there that American society at the
least seems to have lost its grip on, an /important/ idea I think.
If you don't want to experience something, you are responsible for
not going to where that is found. Avoid the alt.sex.{whatever}
hierarchy if you're offended by it. Avoid political groups or
killfile the posters whose views deeply offend you if you can't
maintain a civil discussion with them. Don't visit headshops or the
porn store with the movie booths in the back, you won't see
water bongs, dildos, or hear someone spanking it like they just
discovered masturbation in the booth next to yours. You won't
encounter Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
But if you do go, you don't get to blame someone else for your
being offended by what you find there.
You have the right to circumscribe the range of what you will
experience but you don't thereby have the right to circumscribe
anyone else's experiences or discussions. If you can't hack the
discussion that's underway or you can't control your reactions and
responses, you are responsible for taking yourself out of the loop
so others can carry on. If you are abusive to individuals or
systems' resources you might find yourself banned entirely from
moderated groups.
The ideologically decriminalized space.
Now, carry that idea one step further to the group level. If you
have a variety of pubnixes (pubnices? nah.) with various levels of
ideological decriminalization, they can then decide to what degree
they want to connect with other pubnixes. They can connect more
with the pubnixes that are close enough in 'limits' and connect
less with those that are 'woah, Nelly' for them in terms of
politics, or racy content, or grammar enforcement.
(I've got your Oxford Comma for you right /here/ buddy!)
The beauty of the killfile carried out to a logical extension, if
not conclusion.
