In the Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio, the courtroom judges were to rule on whether or not obscenities were protected by the 1st Amendment. The resulting decision was that all speech should be protected in the public square except for hardcore pornography. Justice Potter Stewart, in writing the concurring opinion, when writing about what exactly constitutes hardcore pornography, stated this:
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
And thus, “I know it when I see it” became a legal standard.
I’ve noticed this when I started moderating a subreddit on Reddit.com. You can create a set of rules to follow, but it’s entirely possible to follow those rules while creating a hostile atmosphere that goes against the culture that you’re trying to cultivate. As an example, running a community that’s dedicated to pointing out the flaws of a particular philosophy (for instance, feminism) will attract a lot of people who are belligerent towards that philosophy. You may expect the userbase to post intelligent and/or funny article relevant to critiquing feminism, but no specific set of concrete rules will prevent people from posting something that expresses belligerent hatred. Ultimately, good moderation requires judgment calls, and trust from your moderators.
I think that the same thing is at play here. There is no precise measurement for how intelligent a particular comment is (well, maybe there is, but it would be virtually impossible to implement practically), and so the standard for appropriateness ultimately requires moderator judgment. For a good community to thrive, there is no way around the “I’ll know it when I see it” standard.
With that being said, I’m willing to guess that the reason for the rule against “violence” and “illegal activities” is that I’ve seen forums blow up with drama over certain topics: rape, sexual assault, violence, etc are all good ingredients to create forum-based drama. Ultimately, this boils down to “I’ll know it when I see it”, but I think that the heart of the law is to avoid sensitive topics that will destroy this forum’s intellectual paradise.
In the Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio, the courtroom judges were to rule on whether or not obscenities were protected by the 1st Amendment. The resulting decision was that all speech should be protected in the public square except for hardcore pornography. Justice Potter Stewart, in writing the concurring opinion, when writing about what exactly constitutes hardcore pornography, stated this:
And thus, “I know it when I see it” became a legal standard.
I’ve noticed this when I started moderating a subreddit on Reddit.com. You can create a set of rules to follow, but it’s entirely possible to follow those rules while creating a hostile atmosphere that goes against the culture that you’re trying to cultivate. As an example, running a community that’s dedicated to pointing out the flaws of a particular philosophy (for instance, feminism) will attract a lot of people who are belligerent towards that philosophy. You may expect the userbase to post intelligent and/or funny article relevant to critiquing feminism, but no specific set of concrete rules will prevent people from posting something that expresses belligerent hatred. Ultimately, good moderation requires judgment calls, and trust from your moderators.
I think that the same thing is at play here. There is no precise measurement for how intelligent a particular comment is (well, maybe there is, but it would be virtually impossible to implement practically), and so the standard for appropriateness ultimately requires moderator judgment. For a good community to thrive, there is no way around the “I’ll know it when I see it” standard.
With that being said, I’m willing to guess that the reason for the rule against “violence” and “illegal activities” is that I’ve seen forums blow up with drama over certain topics: rape, sexual assault, violence, etc are all good ingredients to create forum-based drama. Ultimately, this boils down to “I’ll know it when I see it”, but I think that the heart of the law is to avoid sensitive topics that will destroy this forum’s intellectual paradise.
With that being said, I’ll await your solutions.