>How can communal protocols and trust metrics
>address the incursions of such interlopers
>in a way that is consistent with a
>community's egalitarian ethics?

Various Indymedia sites are in debate over
open publishing - some have moved open
publishing off the front page in order to
highlight stories they agree with and
actually believe on their front pages. They
have policies for "hiding" disagreeable,
garbage, racist, etc posts, even deeper in
the site, but leaving them in existence for
others to see and judge for themselves. The
wacky babble over there is very refreshing
compared with more moderated sites, and some
decision by well-meaning moderators to
absolutely eliminate such posts would water
down the beauty of IMC.

I like John Boorman's "Zardoz" as an
examination of this question (A very 70's B-
movie anthropological approach). In a
bountiful, all-providing paradise, people get
punished for "negativity" by being aged
(everyone is immortal). A group of
dissenters, trapped by the ironclad rules
against criticism, become "apathetics:" they
wander dazed, go limp when approached.
Completely passive resistance.