Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks maiing list

17 Dec 2003

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In <199701241411.GAA25271@toad.com>, on 01/24/97 at 09:09 AM,
   Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca> said:
...
I would like to point out, however, that anyone who has had their
posts 'sorted' into the 'flames list' is now a 'known flamer', as
evidenced by the fact that their post has been designated a 'flame'
on a list run by a champion of free speech on the electronic
frontier.
Intresting....

Does a single flame make a flamer??

I have in the past been involved in heated arguments on just about every
list/newsgroup I have been involved in. :)

I think this goes back to the topic of reputation capital. IMHO the occational message
that get's droped into the 'flames list' would have little effect on ones reputation.
While a complete ban all of ones posting or even a majority of ones posts making it to the
'flames list' could/would have a detrimtal
effect.

Hmmmm... Actually there could be an intresting side affect of a moderated list to a
posters reputation. Lets take the following example:

John Doe likes posting rants & flames 90% of the time. The other 10% of the
time he posts intelegent messages. Now on an un-moderated list a majority of
subscribers would get tierd of his rants, write him off as a kook and kill-file him. His
10% of intelegent posts would be lost in the 90% of noise and his
reputation would be adversly effected within the group.

Now on a moderated list the 90% of rants & flames would never be seen by the
list only the other 10%. His would wind up having a much higher reputation
among the group compaired to if all his posts were seen. 

I am not quite sure how to judge this effect. Should one take into account
the kooky behavior of a poster when veiwing his 'non kooky' posts? Does
moderation have a detrimental effect to establishing a reputation based system for a group
(how would Don Woods reputation faired if his rant's on OTP's
& ISP had been filtered out?)
...
It is obvious that some of the more intuitively intelligent list
members are aware of this, as is indicated by the nervous fear with
which they 'explain why' their post is crypto-relevant.
IMHO this is sheepish though I have noticed it before moderation started.

If I have somthing to post to the list I see no reason to justify why I am
posting it. This post I am making now has zero crypto-relevance and I make
no appoligies for it. Do I think it is relevant to the list? Yes otherwise
I would not have posted it. Either way no explination for the post is needed.

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