This is a hypothetical poll generated from the Dunamis banning/debacle.
ILP has rules. You join up and promise to follow these rules. If you break them you get several warnings then you are banned.
a) Should everyone be treated equally under ILP’s rule of law or
b) Should those who add more value to the site, like a Dunamis, be allowed to keep breaking the rules while lesser value members get turfed out after a few warnings.
Note: If you ban someone like Dunamis, there’s an uproar – like we have seen here recently – and if you leave a Dunamis-like character to continue breaking the rules, others complain of unfairness, bias, dictatorship. In other words: NO MATTER WHAT YOU DECIDE, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE PEOPLE COMPLAINING THAT IT’S NOT RIGHT.
So, since a site can only operate on one policy, would your ideal philosophy site operate by: Rule of Law or Dictatorship?
A website is owned like a house. If you do not own the house but, you are in the house, you are a guest. As a guest, you agree to abide by the owner’s rules inside the house. It is the owner who decides who stays and who goes, not the guests. If the owner loses control over their guests or does not have enough guests to back him/her up then the house should be sealed. The owner has every right at this point to bring out the shotgun filled with rocksalt and start blasting away at unruly guests, until control is back in the hands of the rightful owner.
But, its only rocksalt applied judiciously to the posterier ends of malcontents. I would be proactively protecting the proper guests and providing entertainment at the same time.
If you have a party and 100 people show up.
You have your rules and if people don’t obey
the rules they get sent away (banned).
Now some get unruly around the beverage area and
you have to send a few away, and you are down to 95 guests.
A few more get fighting over who is right in regards to
which wine to drink, silly fight so you toss out a few more and
we are down to 85 guests. Still plenty enough guest to have a
great party and the guest are more pliable and courteous to
each other. And as always, you have personality conflict with
some guest so they have to go (it is your house after all)
you toss some 30 or 40 (well friends are going to object after
all and we certainly can’t have that sooooo) We are down
to 40 guests and that is enough for a good party, but we have
toss some of the more interesting guests and it is getting
not as interesting of a party. You know, the same old people
giving us the same old stories that have been repeated time
after time ad nauseum, So a few people feeling that this party
has run its course leave and you have 10 people left and
you can certainly have a party with ten people, but its the
same ten people telling the same ten stories we have heard
quite often, ( think thanksgiving) So a couple of people leave and
we have 5 people left, and a party with 5 people never really last
a really long time and soon we have one, the owner of the house.
I hope they enjoyed their party, but if you send everyone away,
soon no one will be left to hold a party. And that is a shame,
because I like parties. But if I was told if I don’t like the party
to go elsewhere, I will and the party that was so much fun
at one house, will happen at another house, because people
like to party and if they are sent away, they will find a new home and
as for the home owner, it is his house and a empty quiet house it is.
Well yea, but, lets say you only invite a hundred. I don’t know what kind of parties you have been to but a good host knows that if only a hundred are invited slightly over 200 will show up. Now add to that word of mouth throughout the nightand before hand. Sure some will leave or get booted out but, more will show up. Especially if the host has got a killer place.
My house my rules like or leave. It is called guest courtesy.
Not if you keep sending away the more interesting guest.
People get bored if they are not challenged by the guest and
they leave. Not me mind you, I am there for the free food and booze
but if you keep sending people away, eventually you
run out of guest and you get a quiet empty house. Try it sometimes.
keep kicking guest out and soon you will have the house all to yourself,
guaranteed.
It is all about balance and the balance of their contribution.
The greater the positive impact someone has, the greater leniancy they can expect from the system. If someone fosters goodwill and useful connections while contributing (ideally through contributing) in a positive manner than they should be allowed to have certain eccentricities.
If a doctor saves 5 lives a month and runs someone over which punishmnet results in more lives being saved? Putting the good doctor away in jail for a few years, or merely giving him a slap on the wrist some community service and a fine?
Now, what if a readily-replaceable unskilled worker runs someone over? Their absence won’t be missed.
Now, if in a given month the good doctor kills several people, then the moral math gets a little trickier and ought be left to the judge’s discression, but it is all about context context context.
It is amazing what a ‘regular’ customer thinks they can get away with at a bar. Sometimes, even though they are a loyal customer, their behaviour becomes a negative that overwhelms the positive and they have to go.
Well I look at it this way, if we’re having a party at my house.
I don’t care how interesting you are, or what stories you have to tell, but if you decide to get up, walk over and take a leak on my sofa (perhaps to illustrate a point?), I’m throwing your ass out. And sending you the cleaning bill.
Sorry for putting it so crudely, but this irks me ^^
In any sort of community where people gather, whether you are talking about an after school club, or a metropolitain city - there have to be rules. If there aren’t rules, then there is chaos. And for a while, complete freedom and anarchy are okay, but eventually, someone’s going to get hurt. Moving it into the context of this particular forum, as I am new here I am not sure which rules are the ones rampantly being broken, but if for example we have people who continuously spam/flood all the threads, then they need to be removed. If we have people posting disgusting/inappropriate pictures for the simple sake of causing shock and horror, they need to be removed. Every community (again, be it an after school club or a metropolitain city ) has a purpose, a reason why the people who come together in that place do so. If something disrupts that purpose, it needs to go elsewhere.
I’ve got to say rule of law, although I don’t see how “dictatorship” is the other option in the poll. Dictatorship implies that as soon as anyone breaks any rule not only are they banned but they’re thrown in a secret prison and tortured to death. Dictatorship carries connotations.
It might seem odd that I keep posting in the Dunamis thread and then say Rule of Law so let me explain… I didn’t know Dunamis that well other than that he was a big contributor to the site, like Pax Vitae in a way. I didn’t know Pax either but I was here when he was…that’s about it. All the stuff I’m saying in the Dunamis thread is more to joke around anyway.
Well, the term “dictatorship†was creatively used but I think most people understood that secret prisons and torture were out
Historically, the term ‘dictator’ has changed meaning over time – particularly during WW2. Initially it was a temporary position a leader took (or handed out) in times of crisis. The dictator would be the sole person responsible for all decisions during the crisis and override all other positions of power. He would dictate what everyone was to do. It was a role, more than a position.
Peter ILP will never run out of guests. To make the party or house analogy accurate, we have to imagine a party in a Pub or Inn which constantly gets new guests (to the tune of about 1000 per day) who have no idea of the history and personal clashes of the guests who have been coming to the party regularly. I.e. in Peter’s example, if we got rid of everyone who is here right now, by Friday the site would be active again with a whole bunch of different guests. This is thanks to the internet ranking this website has. So it’s not a valid point to suggest that ILP in any way needs the current membership. We’re glad to have them, but it will carry on with or without the current guest list. Infact, we already know that of the 1000 people who visit this site every day, over 50% are people who have never visited this site before. We also know what percentage of these sign up as members, and what percentage of those become regular members. We know that if we moderated more strictly, we would encourage those percentages to increase as we know many people are put off by the freedom members have to speak their minds bluntly at ILP and the lack of moderation. It is this blunt expression that you might value, but you dont realise what it costs Ben to maintain it for you. He could make alot more money by moderating strictly and swelling the membership.
So you need to rethink your argument based on this new evidence I have shared with you.
Ya not gunna be gettn any ILP’ers come visit ya now, you know Miss Kris?
But, its only rocksalt applied judiciously to the posterier ends of malcontents. I would be proactively protecting the proper guests and providing entertainment at the same time.