Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 15:07-EST From: Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU What these solutions have in common is that we ask people to protect themselves, rather than requiring everyone else to adhere to their notions of good behavior. Hmm..... how is this alike, and how is this different, from a hardliner NRA saying, "We should ask people to protect themselves by wearing bulletproof vests, instead of trying to ban guns"? Which brings to mind the potential problem that 99% of everybody may choose to participate exclusively in "real person only" groups. Any hints at a solution to that one? How about if we try to convince people to participate in "pay as you go" groups using digital postage? That would solve many of the problems, in a way that is less offensive to the freedom-loving among us. Carrying the above metaphor further, is it really a problem if 99% of everybody chooses to live in firefight-free zones, so that they don't have to wear bullet-proof vests? And is saying that, "O.K, we'll make people pay for bullets" really going to help? It just restricts the people who can fire bullets (or write large amounts of anonymous postings) to those who have lots o' cash. As long as we are really being freedom-loving, there's nothing we can do (or should _want_ to do) to get people to attend groups that allow anonymous posters, if they only want to travel in "real person only" circles. If they've made a choice not to want to read anonymous postings (perhaps by installing a filter which deletes all anonymous postings unread), how is this a "problem"? - Ted