RFC: Proposed comment policy change

Posted Nov 23, 2004 12:53 UTC (Tue) by fdesloges (guest, #291)
In reply to: RFC: Proposed comment policy change by sdalley
Parent article: RFC: Proposed comment policy change

Subscriber here.
Mostly agree with parent.

Let's face it: the whole reason for this is that some subscriber believe
that because they _pay_ for the quality of this site, they get absolute
right to avoid noise. Well, there is a lot of examples in out-of-web real
life where you pay big money and get much less than 6-sigma experience.
However some people ask for perfect quality for their few dollars. Is it
really worth for you to offer this extra service ?

Does this extra value that you suggest to add compensate for the value
you might lose by the filtering ? Or by the time spent crafting a complex
filtering system rather than producing content?

Considering that the average linux site quality on the Web is << 2-sigma,
that the actual LWN quality is around 3 sigma (few dozens / 33000), is it
really worth denying 2/3 of the world population access to post
potentially brilliant comment ?

Remember, readers come here mainly for your editorial talent. Because
they trust your judgment on what is quality. Shouldn't it be extended to
filtering the trolls out ? Especially since we all know how much you
value freedom of speech and the confrontation of (even inpopular) ideas.

The S/N ratio is so low, that it should not be much time-consuming (that
might change, but let's use some kernel design principle from Linus here
and not overdesign the solution for a problem that doesn't exist yet).
Especially with a little help from your friends.

Something very simple like "Please kill Troll" link on every message.
It could be available only to subscribers.
Final editorial judgment is yours.
That's what we pay you those few bucks for.