Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: What's the deal with Third Voice?

Author:michael j lawley
Posted:9/28/1999; 5:48:57 AM
Topic:Windows apps on Linux: the real reason
Msg #:11516 (In response to 11480)
Prev/Next:11515 / 11517

BTW, I had a public debate with the CEO of Third Voice last week. The point you make is the one he made repeatedly. Fine, I'm in favor of free speech. But I'm also in favor of private property. I'm not a communist. I think we found out what that system leads to. Paralysis, corruption, police states, uniformity in thinking, lowest common denominator stuff.

You can say whatever you want about anything in public spaces (there are even limits on that, in a free society), but if you come into someone's home or place of business, you have to follow their rules. This is an important social construct. Free speech isn't absolute. Check with the US court system. They would agree with that.

Hmm, I kind of suspected you might say something like this, but didn't want to assume anything. I'll attempt to paraphrase to make sure we're on the same page:

Because you own the domain userland.com, you effectively own (or should effectively own) the right to determine what one sees/gets when one views a page identified by an URL in this domain. Additionally, the overlay arguments don't hold since there is a social contract (defacto standard) as to the way HTML pages are rendered.

It seems to me that this is a not unreasonable view if tempered by some copyright-like extensions that provide for a form of 'fair-use' annotation (e.g., personal annotation, small group annotation).

On the other hand, given the amount of drivel that appears in the public TV comments, I'm inclined to the opinion that it will either collapse under its own weight (the scenario of an TV-enabled IE leading to ruined websites will pretty quickly lead to it being delivered turned off by default, or people will just avoid it altogether) or it will quickly evolve to a much more usable system incorporating decent reputation management.

Imagine if you could filter out all comments that weren't signed by a public key that was certified by one of the 'trusted' companies.

I guess the bottom line is I feel the problems we're seeing with TV stem more from a primitive interface (filtering mechanisms), rather than that there is something inherently wrong with public annotation.

michael

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