At 03:52 PM 11/2/96 -0800, Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com> wrote:
On Sat, 2 Nov 1996, Rich Burroughs wrote:
Are people on this list not sophisticated enough to be capable of filtering his posts if they don't like to read them?
The short answer is, No. More specifically, we constantly have a stream of new readers sampling Cypherpunks. Some are technically sophisticated; some are not.
I am guessing that people who come to read cpunks are probably more likely to have a grasp of filtering technologies than the average Net newbie. I may be mistaken.
In either case, new readers do not have the historical perspective not to fall for Dimitri's big lies.
Is telling the truth a requirement for participating on the list? ;) How about posting a mini-FAQ about Dimitri or something? Responding to speech you dislike with more speech?
Nor do they have any way of know what an abberation his sort of behavior is on this list.
I think you underestimate people's ability to evaluate the situation. You mean well, but this type of paternal, well-meaning censorship is censorship nonetheless. (I know this isn't censorship in the strictest definition of the term, as in government restriction of speech, but I'd like to see us err on the side of keeping the forum as open as possible. YMMV.)
"So this is what Cypherpunks are like," would be a sad, but understandable misinterpretation of what we're all about.
Judging any Usenet newsgroup or mailing list based on it's kookiest member could produce the same result. I'm relying on people to be able to pick a kook out of a crowd. Would you prefer that the representation that people get of Cypherpunks be of a group that kicks people off the list who disturb them? Are Cypherpunks that thin-skinned? I have never been forced to read one of the KOTM's messages -- it has always been my choice to. After the last Bernstein hearing, Tim and I ended up at the same table for lunch, along with two other people. The four of us began discussing Scientology, and partway through the conversation I realized that the Tim I was talking with was Tim May, and that we had already covered some of the same ground on this list. Tim was very persuasive in his view that the Scientologists should be given the widest latitude to spread their views, and that their right to speak be guaranteed. While I consider myself a free speech advocate, I am not an absolutist, and I loathe the CoS leadership. I was much more equivocal about their rights. As the conversation went on, I found my self more and more drawn in by Tim's arguments, as they were very much in line with my feelings on other speech-related issues. I found his points very persuasive, and they have had a lasting impact on my view of the situation, and my posts to alt.religion.scientology. I find it ironic to see someone kicked off a list for bad-mouthing Tim, who I found to be a very eloquent defender of free speech.
What John did was appropriate.
I still think it's a big mistake. How can you really keep him off the list? Limit posting to subscribers? Ban remailers and nym accounts? Don't you think he'll try to make himself a martyr; a victim? Will that make Cypherpunks look better? Rich