Retribution Time

[Eric Murray]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 09:15:37AM -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
> Hear, hear.
> 
> This sort of crap is the inevitable outcome of an unmoderated list.  All the
> loons come out to play because there are no real negative consequences for
> being a loon.  And filtering does not do anything besides bury one's head in
> the sand.

Then filter them out and send them a forged bounce message at the same time.
That way you let them know that you think that they're an idiot
yet you don't have to read their mail to do so.

I used to do that before I decided that it was ruder than
I wanted to be.  Procmail will do it.


> I have an solution... (no, it's not AP).  :'D
> 
> I promise, when I get my new business going and have the time/money to
> devote to it, I will offer Cypherpunks a real solution.  (Anybody who has
> time/money and wants to discuss it now, please contact me offline.)

A real solution allows each person to decide for themselves
what information they wish to consume.  That doesn't mean
that the collective list membership determines what is "interesting", or
that an individual or group of individuals determines it for
the group.  Only individuals can determine that for themselves.

For example, some subscribers may be doing a study on net.loons
(or might simply find them interesting) and be using the list to
collect their, uh, works.  If all other list members find net.loons
to be  waste of time and wish that their posts were dropped, does
that make our net.loon fan's preferences invalid?

What's needed is tools to make it easier for individuals to find
the information they want and skip the rest.



> We now return you to the freak show, already in progress.

I don't see all that much of a freak show.
Oh yea, I'm just burying my head in the sand by filtering them out..



Eric