"alt.cypherpunks" Newsgroup vs. Mailing List?

[David Mandl]

At 1:33 PM 9/16/95, hallam at w3.org wrote:
>>Should there be an "alt.cypherpunks" type of newsgroup instead of this
>>mailing list?
>
>Bad idea, it would simply mean that every kook on USEnet would add
>alt.cypherpunks onto the crossposting line. We would have black
>helicopters, gun
>loons, Waco Wako's, Loonytarians and turkish government propaganda spamming
>forever.

A lot of people on the list seem to see it as a corporation that has to
show X% growth for its shareholders every year.

The list is a healthy size, and there are a lot of very bright people on it
with very good ideas (a lot of the best people and best ideas in the field,
in fact).  Traffic is pretty high, too.  I don't see any reason to try to
increase our market share just for the sake of it.

Even worse, it seems to me that what some people are suggesting (and this
comes up at least once a year) will lead to increased entropy, with us, the
EFF, EPIC, etc., etc., blending into one amorphous lobbying blob.  This is
a unique list of people doing VERY IMPORTANT work that no one else is
doing.  To tell you the truth, I think that to date cypherpunks have left a
much greater mark on the world than the EFF and all of the others.  No
question about it.

Again (as others have said over and over), if people are concerned about
better lobbying, this isn't the place for it--and the good news for you is
that there are plenty of other groups with the resources, staff, and
mission to do it.  So what's the problem?

If you're embarrassed mentioning our name to your straight friends, c'est
la vie.  I wish I could show my boss my brilliant article in the new issue
of ANARCHY, but I can't.

   --Dave.

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl at panix.com
http://wfmu.org/~davem