Rich Kulawiec wrote:
In other words: we do not need any new mechanisms. We do not need
reputation services, or vouching services, or any of the other interesting
ideas that have been put forth. We need to use the mechanisms we already
have, and have had for some time.
I agree that mechanisms cannot do any good if they are not used.
However, to forbid any new mechanism until existing ones won't have
taken root may be exceedingly harsh.
The days when we could expect network
and system administrators to care about the abuse emanating from their
operations because it was clearly their highest responsibility and ethical
obligation have been gone for a long time. (Some still do, of course --
and good for them.) The priority now is profit, profit, profit, and
thus it is necessary to speak to them in a language they understand.
If we were able to highlight differences so as to improve competition,
that would be understandable in those terms. But that requires a user
base that is sensible to those arguments. IMHO, it is not much the gap
between profit and ethics --different scale of planning horizon-- as
the average user's ability to appreciate the quality of mail services,
that has degraded them.
Perhaps, we should think of ways to make mechanisms visible to end users?
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