But cowing critique is not censorship when it channels speech to a more thoughtful form and a less destructive forum. The opportunity cost of speaking in a classroom is that everyone in the room—including the speaker—can't listen to someone else. A teacher with scarce time ought to judge which of 50 students' ideas are less helpful than others', and discourage those until we improve them, for our own good and for everyone else's. It conditions us to respect the intellectual forum.

For everything else, there's the TWiki. The TWiki removes the externality of speaking on listening. Ideas interact here more like J.S. Mill expected them to, more like particles in an ideal gas (i.e. here, when we don't listen, we don't WANT to).

Last week, in ClassNotes17Jan08, I compared class to TWiki this way:
The professor believes in open information, and … this class is, after all, about challenging authority. I grant that Eben presents a difficult classroom environment for that. But I theorize that he asserts his opinions so strongly in class to force us to absorb them ("listen"), so that we can only critique them later—i.e., after thinking—i.e., intelligently. He reserved the TWiki as our forum for that critique.

TWiki stands for town-hall democracy. We must protect our democracy. It's the best forum for us to hear each other, the safest forum for us to learn from each other, and the LAST asylum for free speech. I should thank AdamCarlis, then, for suggesting that we write a Bill of Rights.

However, [*I need to figure out a middle section that has something to do with peer pressure. It's a work in progress, but that shouldn't stop you from commenting.*] Therefore, [ ...]

If we can advance free speech by suppressing a little free speech, then we should sacrifice a piece for the sake of the whole. We all should critique the TWiki. But we should also shape those critiques to encourage responses, even if those responses can't survive anywhere—except the TWiki.

What do you guys think—was the TWiki designed for free speech? If so, is its design successful, both internally and accounting for exogenous forces? If you won't risk your own hides to answer these questions here, that's fine too: Say nothing until class next week, and we will learn the answer experimentally.
-- AndrewGradman - 24 Jan 2008

I don't know if I can assert that I see the TWiki as being designed for free speech. I don't remember Prof. Eben presenting it as being ofr that. If anything, I remember him discussing it as a manner to evaluate contributions/participation to a degree. Because of this element, I can see some people being very concerned about what they say, how they say it, how many times they contribute etc as opposed to a townsquare. I think the Bill of Rights is an interesting idea. I might just say I think the operating norms is more useful because a Bill of Rights implies there is an enforcement mechanism. However the problem with operating norms is that unless enough of us see them and agree to them, they may not work towards a useful purpose. Sadly as I write this I wouldn't want others not to speak freely, I just feel I'm being honest about how people interact.

-- MichaelBrown - 25 Jan 2008