The Internet - drowning in its own waste?

[Moldran]

So, the question is not "freedom or constraint?" It just isn't that black and white. The question is what is the best balance between freedom and constraint

Agreed. At present, I do think that the internet works *really great* with the little amount of constraint we have, and I am, at present, not willing to give up any of my freedom (and, in that case probably more important: the freedom of others) in that regard.
What I argue against are measures that considerably restraint the freedom of all in order to fight the abuse of a few, especially when there are possibilities around to deal with the abuse without restricting the freedom of those who act in a responsible manner.

While I find some of the measures proposed by kandrathe a bit (or more) draconian, I think the "freedom without responsibility" approach you champion to be unworkable and naive. Actions, even simple actions like posting to a forum, must have consequences. Removing those consequences is not "freedom", it is "license" (in its 'bad" meaning). We see that in the flame wars that dominate unmonitored fora. We see that in the dreck that gets sent to your e-mailbox (try turning off your spam filter). We see that in the griefing that dominates so much online play.

I do not champion such an approach. Nor did I say anywhere that actions, on the net or elsewhere, should not have consequences. I do think that certain actions should not have some special consequences, though. E.g. you should not go to prison for expressing certain opinions on a website.
What I do argue against is a certain way of trying to force responsibility upon people. Let's take moderated and unmoderated fora as a metaphor for a moment: I am not against moderated fora, in general, nor am I against unmoderated ones. What I do *not* want to see is some authority trying to force everyone to make all fora moderated, by juristic or technical means. I want the freedom to decide for myself which fora I want to read and which ones I don't want to read, be they moderated or not.
And yes, I do want others to enjoy the freedom to put up content that I, or my government, or some "internet enforcement agency", or whoever, considers crap.

I must admit I'm both befuddled and intrigued by this statement. Now, "amateur" has developed a bad connotation in the past century or so. The original meaning was one who devoted his time to a topic for the love of that topic. And amateurs of that type are often much more productive and informed than many "professionals" (which, after all, only means that they get paid for their work  )

I am not 100% aware of the exact connotations the two terms have in English (which becomes especially problematic when there are terms in my native language that seem to be very equivalent at first glance). I looked up the terms in 3 different dictionaries and was going to discuss them here, but in stead, I will try to make clear what I meant to say, rather than what I may have said ;)
The intent of my statement was to strongly reject the idea that anything that 'amateurs' (= people who do not earn their living by doing XY) do is necessarily inferior to what 'professionals' (the opposite of amateurs) do. I read that idea out of Kandrathe's post. If he meant 'amateur' in the sense 'someone who does something, but is not good at it', and 'professional' in the sense 'someone who is really good at something', then my reply does not make any sense, of course.
What I meant to say is that motivations other than earning money often produce superior results. My reply was over-generalized, yes. I think it was over-generalized because Kandrathe's statement appeared to be even more over-generalized to me. I was a little offended by it, so I replied kind of harsh.

I'm not sure just what professionals have put up crap, or in what sense they have done so.

http://www.microsoft.com ;)