Community Studies - MANAGING ONLINE MESSAGE BOARD BRAWLS - Technology Is Helping Some Publishers Referee Melees: More an advertisement for said technology then an article with any real clues on how to handle the problem. It does mention that several newspapers have handled the problem by shutting down all message boards... I think it's valuable to study precedents, but I don't think I'd want to emulate these!

(Thanks to HTP.)

This is not a real marketplace. The marketplace incentives are towards increased control!

... we have given total control over key resources to [network connectivity] providers with a fundamental conflict of interest. They see their business as delivery content and fund it by selling access to the eyeballs (viewers) they control. Increasing connectivity gives viewers alternatives -- their "eyeballs" to escape. Encouraging innovation [on the part of those users] gives them very strong reasons to escape. Increasing Internet capacity is seen as coming at the price of the portion of the capacity that can be used for dedicated, high value, services.

More inline with the thrust of the essay:

I've told this to some people in just the last few months who can't believe that's true.

"Imagine in the 1970's trying to explain that video games were going to be much more important to advancing technology than the multibillion dollar military marketplace!"

Content vs. Connectivity: A wide ranging essay examining the history of the Internet and showing just how vital it is to keep the open environment of the 'net past intact. And as you might guess from the essay's name, the method the author would propose for maintaining that openness is keeping the content producers and the connectivity providers completely seperate.

What's your TTZ? If you don't know, shouldn't you find out?

I'm glad I have someone to point to validate myself on this point. Those who do not experience "the zone" consider it half-mystical. (Although many of those who do experience "the zone" consider it fully mystical.) My TTZ (Time To Zone) runs between 10 minutes to half-an-hour, which appears average.