Re: The death of the list as we know it (tm)

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Patrick O'Callaghan writes:

> I strongly support this idea, so I'll mention a further advantage:
> kill files! No more wading through boring message about anonymous
> remailers, digital cash an so on (or RSA weaknesses, or
> crypto-legality or whatever your personal bug happens to be).

Well, my mailer program (Eudora) has better "kill file" capabilities
than my newsreader program (tin), so converting the mailing list into a
newsgroup would be a lose for me. Not that what's convenient for me is
what we have to use, just that _your_ particular situation is not
universal. 

My point is this: there are many sound reasons to keep a group such as
ours a mailing list and not open it to every freshman in college who
can grep for "punk" and stumble across us, or for every
Sternlight-type bozo who delights in creating noise and rancor in
groups.

As others have mentioned, tools exist to locally feed mailing list
traffic into pseuodo-newsgroups, which can then be treated as the
newsgroup format some folks desire.

We debate this issue every couple of months. Give it up. Or start your
own newsgroup. Or use one of the existing newsgroups.

--Tim May


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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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