Don’t fence me in
August 21st, 2006 5:09:30 pm pst by 
Sterling Camden
At the risk of appearing to need to have the last word — or even worse, of perpetuating this argument, I do have one more observation about the gatekeeper debate.
Freedom and equality are not the same thing.
All bloggers are free to post anything they like. Their readership will not, however, be equal.
Rather than a feudal fiefdom, the blogosphere more closely resembles the American Old West. Have RSS, will travel. There are plenty of wide open spaces in which you can claim a homestead for yourself. Of course, you might also find yourself alone in the middle of the desert. And anyone who sees you languishing by the side of the trail might just keep moving on. That’s why it pays to have friends. The territory is just too big for anyone to keep an eye out for everyone else.
But it’s also too big for anyone to keep their thumb on anyone else.
Would you want it to be otherwise? Would a Ministry of Equal Linkage (human and/or automated) benefit anyone? Enforced equality means an end to freedom.
The mechanism of the present system uses reputation as its currency. Reputation is built through both links and submissions to reputation engines like digg, reddit, del.icio.us and others. True, sometimes people don’t get the recognition they deserve.
That’s where good marketing comes in.
Posted in Get Real | 
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“Freedom and equality are not the same thing.”
Best summary of this discussion.
Thanks very much for that comment, Assaf. I found your posts on this topic very thoughtful as well.
[...] Don’t fence me in — Chip’s Quips “Freedom and equality are not the same thing.” Best summary of this discussion. [...]
[...] Now, someone shortsighted and self-centered who is trying to get away with something rather than merely participating in a mutually beneficial economic relationship might look for a way to encourage incoming links without using trackbacks and pingbacks. Such a person might think of this as some kind of competition where people only “win” by making other people “lose”, and want to ensure that he is always at least breaking even with the other “winners”. Such a person might thus wish to deny links to others, preventing them from getting reciprocal traffic, and look for ways to “trap” readers at his own weblog. Such a person would in fact be doing himself a great disservice by exempting himself from the mutually beneficial sharing of link love made possible by trackbacks and pingbacks. Disallowing trackbacks and pingbacks only hurts you, because people are less likely to link to you when you are stingy about reciprocation. Self-centered market dominance tactics wherein one attempts to “win” by making others “lose” are more visible and obviously unpleasant than you might realize. [...]