On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 11:05 AM, Adam Back wrote:
The problems with closed lists relying on a single human for forwarding and filtering...
Couldn't he just let people post in his absence? It kind of detracts from a list if it disappears for weeks at a time on a regular basis.
Also there are delays, and then there's Perry decisions that a discussion is no longer worth persuing when contributors are still interested to discuss.
Adam
I enjoyed interacting with Perry about 10-11 years ago, mostly on the Extropians list. Perry was a major political ranter (even if it is not true that he coined the phrase "Utopia is not an option"). (Extropians was a privately-owned list, and what eventually drove me away was the silliness involving "trials" for those accused of insulting others, or violating some rules, or disrespecting the Official Beliefs. I attribute this silliness not to malice by the Extropian Maximum Leaders, but by the very nature of private lists and the almost unavoidable tendency to try to "perfect" lists by tweaking what people can and can't say.) I despise people's private fiefdoms, whether Dave Farber's "Interesting People" list or Lewis McCarthy's "Coderpunks" list or any of Bob Hettinga's various "BearerBunks" and "Phisodex" lists. And Perrypunks, with its quixotic policy about politics (politics banned, except when Perry wanted to rant), was just another private fiefdom. I don't dispute their property right to do with their machines as they wish, absent contracts, but being in their fiefdoms chafes very quickly. The distributed CP list may end up being the last list left standing, at least in this niche. Part of the reason Usenet continues to thrive, despite its flaws. --Tim May "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams