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.






Come sweet Death One last caress NO CARRIER