--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@...> wrote: > > Xeno, I still don't understand why people want to limit the number of posts. > If a person doesn't like a lot of posts, can't they simply not read some? > Maybe it's different for Message View in that one is forced to read them all? > What is it? Otherwise limiting the number of posts seems like suppression to > me.
It moderates a debate or discussion by not allowing certain participants to hog all the time or space. There are bandwidth limitations that Yahoo seems to impose. In Congress, that pack of criminals*, there are rules limiting speaking time on any issue unless there is a filibuster. This forces you to be more precise and compact in your expression. I recall you did not care for my idea to make posts a certain length. I was not entirely serious about that, but the idea was to make a post require a certain complexity so that short frivolous posts and half-ass comments could not be tossed off. You could still be mean as hell, but it could have more impact. Yes, it amounts to suppression but in the interests of better quality and depth. Not suppression of ideas, which is what Buck would prefer. As with tax laws that have any degree of complexity, there is still the possibility of taking advantage of a situation for one's own glorification. In 1657 Blaise Pascal, in referring to his letter writing to a friend wrote 'I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.' [ 'Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.' ] That is, he preferred quality and conciseness over quantity. So, who wants to hog the microphone now? *This is a reference to Mark Twain's comment that Congress is the only native class of criminals in America.
