5/11    Utopia motd: When everyone is kind on motd
        Communist motd: When you need politburo's approval to write on motd
        \_ Where everyone contributes one word or letter to every post, but
           where a geriatric hald blind hunt and peck secretary types them in.
        \_ You are confusing communism with totalitarianism.
           \_ Well, I guess the theoretical communist motd would just be
              the utopian motd.  (Which is just the libertarian motd where
              everyone is nice.)
              \_ Nobody would be allowed to post more than his allotted quota.
                 Except Party officials might give themselves extra benefits
                 for their essential services to the People. And of course
                 all activity would have to be closely monitored in order to
                 ensure this fairness and eliminate destabilizing radicals.
                 Gee, this is looking more like totalitarianism already! Well,
                 our people would have dignity instead of being capitalist
                 running dogs.
        Capitalist motd: When you need to pay to write something new on motd,
                and charge others for replying to your stuff
        \_ More like: posts are given position on the motd based on popularity.
           \_ Posts are given permission based on how much you paid.
           \_ Posts are given position based on how much you paid.
        Fascist motd: When all of your actions are reviewed by the big bro
        \_ Fascist motd: When you are handed a statement to post and sign.
        Socialist motd: When politburo controls how many times you can use
                and abuse motd
                \_ Provided you don't use e's on wednesdays or s's on
                   Fidays, and every other word is given back to politburo.
        Seniority motd: Posting position is based on how long you've been
                in the CSUA.
        \_ It's just like the capitalist motd, except the Politburo owns the
           motd and collects the fees, and if you're too poor to pay then they
           grant you a certain minimum amount of posting. The capitalist motd
           would be auctioned off to the highest bidder(s) in chunks and they
           would run the thing themselves, taxed and policed by Politburo.
        Libertarian motd: When anyone can do whatever he/she pleases to motd
        \_ Libertarian motd is where we are today.
           \_ great, an object lesson in why libertarianism is ridiculous. -tom
              \_ It's been libertarian for years, and yet you continue to
                 obsessively read and post.  Would anyone bother to read or post
                 to any of the other above choices(I'm ignoring the utopian
                 one)?
                 \_ probably, everyone except cowardly, abrasive
                    right-wingers would be just fine with it.  -tom
              \_ What is wrong w/ the motd as it exists? Yes there is
                 a bunch of crap on it, but that can be easily ignored.
                 Yes sometimes people overwrite each other, but that
                 isn't a huge problem b/c most people are basically
                 considerate and try to avoid this.  All in all it
                 works and has worked for years.
                 Personally I think kchang's attempt at detecting
                 who is making a post is a good one.  It has made
                 the discussion more civil and the topics more
                 interesting/technical (as it was years ago).
                 \_ The motd has been held hostage by people who feel that
                    the motd didn't agree with them and that they should have
                    the power to do whatever they want to it.  Liberatarian
                    values emphasize personal responsibility.  An anonymous
                    motd seems to encourage irresponsible and petty behavior
                    instead of civilized discussion.  -rollee
                 \_ I strongly disagree. If the motd is more civil, it's
                    because a couple of people like aaron and ilyas have
                    stopped posting, which is unrelated to anything kchang
                    has done. If people want to post semi-anonymously,
                    there's still plenty of ways to do it, as discussed in
                    other threads. Personally, I've stopped using motdedit
                    just because I don't like the idea of being tracked by
                    kchang. If postings to the motd are going to be tracked,
                    it should be done officially with some kind of version
                    control system, not by some buggy script maintained by
                    a stalking dweeb.
                    \_ The irony is razor sharp. -- ilyas
                    \_ The problem, as I see it, is that while it is
                       desirable to have a anonymous forum for the free
                       and open discussion of all sorts of topics, it
                       is necessary to inject a note of civility into
                       the forum so that newcomers are not turned off.
                       The vitality of this (or any forum) depends on
                       new blood - w/o new perspectives we will end
                       up w/ a bunch of rehashes of the same arguments.
                       The optimal solution would be for everyone to
                       voluntarily behave in a civilized manner, which
                       would encourage newcomers to adopt the same
                       attitude. The history of the motd indicates that
                       this may not be possible.
                       I believe that an official tracking system would
                       create a disincentive to a free and open debate.
                       I see the kchang hack is a compromise.  There is
                       still some level of plausible deniability, but
                       you can still get called on the particularly bad
                       comments. This possibility should help to elevate
                       the discussion.
                       \_ "The kchang hack" is annoying and intrusive and
                          pointless.  That said, it's based on freely
                          available information; furthermore, nobody's forcing
                          anyone to use motdedit (or even post.)  And I don't
                          see it violating any CSUA policies.  Best way to
                          deal with it if you don't like it?  "Yeah I wrote
                          xyz, so fucking what?"  -John
        \_ amckee's motd: When everyone is kind on motd, or else.
        \_ amckee's motd: When everyone is kind on motd (to amckee), or else.
        \_ The Communist, Fascist and Socialist motd's are pretty similar.
        \_ I find it funny that most of the criticisms are posted
           anonymously, which really diminish the weight of the post  -kchang
           \_ Really? It seems that most criticism comes from those who are
              not anon (tom, emarkp, ilyas, john, to name a few). I'd say
              more than half the ppl who sign their posts have been critical
              of your script.
              \_ I for one really like the idea of kchang's script, outside
                 of having logged motd entries.
                 It would reduce the amount of blatently offensive trolls.
                 Maybe we can have a separate motd.not.logged file that people
                 can chose to read or not.  -rollee
                 \_ Right...until someone gets offended and starts to agitate
                    for some sort of moderation, and then a new scripter
                    creates a tracking script for it, and then the people that
                    left to hang out in their anonymous utopia start to get
                    pissed off, then it all gets mean and angry(ier), and then
                    some new clever fellow pipes up "hey, let's separate
                    motd.not.logged into motd.not.logged and
                    motd.really.really.not.logged" which of course will fail
                    since no one can stop another random dude from exercising
                    his freedom and scripting or logging THAT one....
              \_ That's because I don't give a rat's ass about who thinks what
                 about what I post.  I still think your script is dumb, but
                 I certainly won't argue about whether or not you should be
                 allowed to run it.  -John