The importance of being honest

I've been inspired to try to learn to code after coming across Ruby on Rails. The first thing that stuck out was the creators description "it lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration." sounds great.

I found the documentation is concise and well written and produced by an engaged community, which can be typical in developer communities generally.

Interesting thought, of transparency and its affect on engagement. People really need to know what they're signing up to.

I recently read an article that Senator Conroy suggested ISPs may join the mandatory filter voluntarily. “One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it.” he was quoted as saying. I'm not really sure if this is a media sound bite being over amplified or if it's a sign of a full back-down (or somewhere in between).

The optimistic cynic in me wonders if the government is being actively pragmatic? Thinking back to the Rails community, they're able to govern themselves and set norms because everyone is already engaged. They are able to make this choice because the documentation provided by the Rails creators is transparent and consistent.

I tend to think the cleanfeed should have similar components - allowing individual users to make the choice and providing a clear and concise articulation of what they are in for.

This way those who have a stake are motivated to be engaged for the end results. Importantly conventions are set within the group and there is a reduction of ambiguity of meaning created by media politics.

Perhaps pragmatism is is too high hopes, more likely the Government is going back to their election position "fact-sheet" Of course, it would be best if there was no expansion of the current scheme. I'd even say it'd be nice to get rid of that, since as I understand it some of the mandatory blocked content isn't even illegal in a non-Internet context... oops!