Should Newbies Need To Read The Rules?
from the such-is-life dept
This idea seems to occur to everyone once they get frustrated enough with something stupid happening online. Here's yet another column suggesting that newbie internet users be required to read and understand a set of rules (such as "do not reply to spammers") before they can get online. Could anyone actually come up with a set of rules that everyone would actually agree with?
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A Simple test instead
I propose a simple test instead. Actually, this could be used for all sorts of qualifications. It's just one question:
Are you smart enough to understand that you aren't?
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Re: A Simple test instead
Good one.
I'd also want to add...are you mature enough to understand that being semi-anonymous does not give you license to act like an asshole to piss people off on purpose? (For all the trolls and griefers out there)
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Re: A Simple test instead
See, the irony is it basically does.
What are you going to do about it? I can reply to spam too if I want and you can't do a thing about it.
Having 'rules' for the internet seems silly to me. If you can't enforce it, what's the point?
Education, better FAQs, learning curves, those do something. Rules just give kids something to rebel against IMO.
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Re: A Simple test instead
I agree to this as soon as stupid people are required to get a license to pop out babies and suck up welfare ...
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No Subject Given
Short answer to your question; No. People (read more than one) will seldom agree on one thing much less a list of things.
It would be nice if users were some how required to be educated before they jumped on line as it might save some of the more gullable and/or less techno oriented a lot of troubles.
Some of the very basics (virus identification, ID theft, scams, credit card security, etc).
It might also dispell some of the myths that many users live under (my credit card info will be stolen !!!!)
But agreeing on what ... good luck. Hmmmm... would probably give state lawyers something to do. They could each come up with their own rules and treat them like drivers licenses (gotta get it before you surf). They could also charge for the test like the drivers license and alleviate some of their tax woes and renew it every 4 years to do a technology catch up ... and collect more taxes !!!!
What a great idea !!!
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Re: Internet Rules
While the suggestion may have been to implement this legally, it might be useful to just have a largely agreed upon set of unofficial rules that everyone could link to and point out to newbies. It would have to be acceptable to most people to reach that amount of popularity and have much of an effect.
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No Subject Given
Wouldn't we be better off with viral attachments that just knock these people offline once and for all? >;)
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Re: No Subject Given
John Dvorak proposed this several years ago except he was talking about PC ownership. He told a story about a friend who freaked when Dvorak pulled the RAM out of his computer thinking that "everything would be lost." Regarding internet/email use, I'd like to add that before you forward an email story that you have to research it to prove that it is not an urban legend.
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