As always, a work in progress.
I love how nothing we say in the classroom is immune to critique. Some people feel that critique suppresses free speech, scares it away. Yes, our class needs free speech: It improves our ideas, promotes democracy, dignifies the marginalized.

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 most helpful. He sets an intellectual standard for the forum.

Ideas that fall below his standard should not be censored, but spoken in a less costly forum. Clearly the TWiki is that forum. It's possible Eben intended it as that forum. If it was not so intended, 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.

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). 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. TWiki has the potential to be our town-hall democracy.

What should we do with that potential? MichaelBrown reminds me that Eben gave us a guiding principle—that TWiki helps him "evaluate contributions/participation to a degree." I suppose we might infer from that a second principle, that this is supposed to be some kind of learning tool. That's all we've got. The default is anarchy. It's only a democracy if we all agree to it. We're reenacting Dr. Zimbardo's experiment, and now we get to decide what sort of prisoners we'll be.

I say the prisoners should take over this prison. For a few reasons. First of all, because we all believe in free speech. __. Second, for those of you who are concerned about grades, I've thought really hard about the rules of the game, and I think that's what we're supposed to do to win.

AdamCarlis got us started on a Bill of Rights.

democracy by default, I believe we must protect our democracy.

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? Either answer on TWiki and get Eben's response next Wednesday, or don't because you're afraid of the consequences: either way, we 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