Slashdot | Roasting Sacred Cows

[Trei, Peter]

Not too long ago (less than a year, I think) Jim not only gave the URL,
he included as a MIME attachment the entire page - often 10s of Kb.
He got thoroughly and deservedly flamed for this, and ceased to do
so.

The current situation is far preferable to the old one.

I completely agree that Jim would acheive his goal of communication
far better if he gave a sentence or two explaining why the link is
worth following. However, convincing Jim to do *anything* for the 
convenience of others - even to promote his own goals - is very
difficult.

Peter Trei

> ----------
> From: 	John Young[SMTP:jya at pipeline.com]
> Sent: 	Saturday, August 04, 2001 6:26 PM
> To: 	cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: 	Re: Slashdot | Roasting Sacred Cows
> 
> Jim, I appreciate your resistance. Still, our experience on Cryptome with
> offering only URLs indicates that they are little used unless there's a
> taste
> of what is worth going to see. No doubt that it would be easiest to 
> give only URLs and let the lazy bastards graze readers-digest crap 
> elsewhere. But it's not the deadheads we'd like to swap info with,
> for they never give back enough to make it worthwhile -- usually the
> shits just send more URLs without explanation as if we can read
> their profound thoughts.
> 
> What we've found is that if you treat your readers with respect they'll
> give it to you, even send you stuff you'd never see otherwise. That is,
> they'll inform you and educate you in ways you can't do alone, though
> that shared experience isn't for everyone, I'll grant you, in particular
> when you want only to talk and preach and not listen and learn.
> 
> So we've found that the better we make our samples the more likely
> readers will figure we're offering something worth reading, and if they
> like it they'll eventually return the favor, and if we're lucky we get
> better than we offer -- indeed, that is always the case:  the best
> stuff comes in from folks who figure they'd like to take part in a
> mutually rewarding situation, as we see on cypherpunks.
> 
> URLs alone send a message of laziness, contempt, cluelessness about
> the benefits of communication as against dancing castaway on an island.
> For that solo shit you don't need CDR, the Net, the world, or think you
> don't until the radio farts coming from your ass are only cancer static.