Fellow Cypherpunks, I know that some of you have lives, jobs and studies and you probably, like me, are ofttimes overwhelmed by the sheer voluime of mail on this list. I have a simple proposal to solve th is problem: break the current list into topic areas. These would include: anon/pseudo_cpunks Anoymity/Pseudonymity remailers_cpunks Remailer Technology dining_cpunks DC Nets random-cpunks Random Generators digimoney_cpunks Digital Banking pgp_cpunks PGP App/Current Info <- new vers info/var. plat's ziplips_cpunks Crypto-Censorship fweee_cpunks Whistleblowers (The "Keith Peterson Area"?) physmtgs_cpunks Physical Meetings/Conferences <- CFP, events... and several more that I've forgotten, I'm sure... We should clearly state the general thread of each topic. People could subscribe to as many as they want to and thus dramatically reduce the amount of mail they get on topics about which they have little or no interest. I'm learning a lot from the list, but the sheer volume of the postings is becoming pretty unmanageable. We seem to have a range of subspecies developing, so it make sense to cater to them seperately. I hope we can remedy this situation before many more people have to unsubscribe. Most newcomers from Mondo articles, etc. should probably be subscribed to the <announce> list first, then maybe we could periodically post synopses of what's available on the other topics and let them wander in more deliberately. I hope everyone appreciates that my approach is geared toward bringing in more quality participation and not a flurry of curiousity-cats who dash in and out and post UNSUBSCRIBE mail to the whole list (thus gumming things up even further). What do you Punks think? I hope to see a comment or two about this from people, I think it's an issue whose time has come. "An ounce of prevention os worth a pound of cure" as they say. dave "verbum sat spaienti est" del torto
Dave, I suspect others will tell you what I'm telling you: we considered breaking up the list a while back, and concluded we should not. Some reasons: - much more work for list maintainers. What _you_ save by not having to hit the delete key as often will be more than made up for by Eric Hughes having to do a lot more work (and he refuses) - having as many sublists as you suggest would be way too much...we even decided that a simple split into "technical" and "political" was not warranted, at least not back then. (Perhaps this can be reconsidered, thought the extra list maintenance work is still an issue.) - many will post their messages to more than one group, to make sure it gets to the appropriate people - topics bounce around, anyway, so some groups would have no traffic (and folks would send messages like: "Hey, how come it's so quiet on cypherpunks.music?") - people would miss key debates and key developments because they didn't think some group was important. (And if and when they decided something was important, they'd probably then ask others to forward them relevant material.) - the solution is for people to quickly delete message topics they don't want to see. Off-line newsreaders like Eudora (for the Mac) are quite useful. -Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
participants (2)
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deltorto@aol.com
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tcmay@netcom.com