Posted by Eugene Volokh:
More from Xoxohth:
(Say, wasn't that a character I used to run when I was a Dungeons &
Dragons player in high school?)
Prof. Volokh,
We were just informed about your blog post today about
anti-semitism and racism on the site (your blog entry is being
discussed at
[1]http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=147012&forum_id=2).
We think your assessment was accurate: those threads are a very
small fraction of the site, and even in those threads the
overwhelming majority of posters are responding to the racists
harshly. However, there are some additional points we'd like to
make:
1) The site is clearly divided into on-topic and off-topic filters.
We are very strong believers in the freedom of expression and the
marketplace of ideas. This is why we allow off-topic discussion and
almost never censor content, no matter how abhorrent it may be.
However, we understand that not everyone wants to be exposed to
such discussions. Some might simply want to browse the site for
threads directly relating to law school, employment, etc. Go
figure. Hence the on-topic/off-topic filters � the default option
is on-topic mode, and in order to see the offensive material in
question, one has to pro-actively enter off-topic ("expert") mode.
If an individual does not want to be exposed to discussion of
politics, sports, or racism, all that individual has to do to avoid
99+% of that content is stay in school-related mode.
2) That said, some posts do slip through the cracks. We trust our
users to classify threads as school-related or off-topic, and
although the overwhelming majority classifies their threads
appropriately, on a daily basis you can expect at least one or two
threads to slip through the cracks. This is usually not a big deal,
but over a period of months it can add up, as you can see by the
number of threads that appear in school-related mode when you
search for racist terms. However, keep in mind that typical users
are not going to see a flood of those threads when they go to the
site. The only time you'll see twenty or so racist threads on the
site is if you proactively search for them, which is what your
colleague took upon himself to do when he used the search box to
search the entire site specifically for those various racist terms
he came up with.
3) The very reason our student-run community has been so much more
phenomenally successful than all of its competitors, in its single
year of existence, is that it respects the merits of the free,
uninhibited exchange of ideas. In fact, one finds overall a much
deeper and much more mature level of insight in a community where
the ugliest depths of human opinion are confronted, rather than
ignored. And the majority of the school-related content on the site
speaks to that fact. That is our community; take it or leave it.
4) This community, which for the above reasons has been the object
of ongoing controversy, has given birth to some truly noteworthy
academic studies. Just today, one of the administrators, Anthony
Ciolli, released a working paper on the determinants of law school
national employment placement at elite firms (available at
[2]http://www.autoadmit.com/studies/ciolli). Another respected
member of the community, Aaron Chalfin, this past November
published a study on how law schools are ranked by current and
prospective law students, which received much attention across the
law school admissions community (available at
[3]http://www.autoadmit.com/studies/chalfin). There is no other
admissions discussion board on the Internet whose members possess
such a collective body of knowledge and wisdom, and we attribute
that to the hands-off moderating philosophy we have discussed in
this letter.
Anthony Ciolli, Jarret Cohen Administrators
Naturally, I can't speak to the merits of the site (though Xoxohth was
quite a guy, 18/00 dexterity, 16 intelligence, . . . -- or am I
confusing him with Fafhrd), but I thought I'd post the operators'
response.
References
1. http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=147012&forum_id=2
2. http://www.autoadmit.com/studies/ciolli
3. http://www.autoadmit.com/studies/chalfin
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