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Safe and fun environment?
>Still, it might make sense for someone from this list to give them some
>help on the crypto aspects. This could be a safe and fun environment
>in which people could be introduced to crypto, and it could even expand
Unless this list undergoes some VERY radical changes, it will never be
a "safe and fun environment" to introduce new people to anything. At the
moment, in order to get anything out of it, one has to devote large quantities
of queue space and time to the subscription, and sift through the flames and
other noise to locate the rare bit of truly valuable info. There are very few
people on this list who routinely post things worth reading, and many who
_never_ post things worth reading, and seem to be only around for the flame
wars.
And god forbid that a newcomer should ask a QUESTION! Dear lord no.
That newcomer will be flamed so totally that no burn unit around will be able
to save them.
Most of those that are persistent or resiliant enough to survive what
this list can often put people through may or may not decide to stay. I would
imagine that such negative experiences would turn a lot of people off to the
whole idea of crypto-privacy. If I hadn't already been committed to privacy
when I joined the list, I would have immediately unsubscribed, called Fort
Meade, and asked what I could do to help.
The vast majority of people who post on this list and respond to other
people's posts are obnoxious idiots who are willing to flame at the slightest
provocation, and will do so until the person they attack backs down or simply
gives up.
No one on this list is entirely to blame, nor is anyone entirely
blameless for this. Several of the top figures on the list (TC May and Eric
Hughes to name two) have recently adopted an inappropriately elitist attitude
toward the direction of the list, and the movement. No one can stop Eric from
running the _list_ however he wants, but the _movement_ belongs to all of us,
thank you. Even though I respect the crypto-political opinions that they
express a great deal, I think that they and their supporters have taken this
too far. And worse, they have not taken a firm stand against the kind of flame
war that is continually erupting over individual posts on the list. For the
leaders to sit back and watch this go on is simply not the appropriate way to
handle things.
Until we fix the serious problems in this list, it will never be an
appropriate environment for newcomers to learn about crypto-privacy, just a
training ground for flame-throwers.
Dare I suggest (why not? I'm already burning to a crisp, how much worse
could it get?) that we create a moderated newsgroup that would gateway the
substantive traffic from this list into a more accessible forum (but NOT the
other way around). In that manner, we could provide a place for newcomers to
learn about cryptography and the movement, without forcing them to sift through
mountains of flame wars. Questions could be referred to qualified personnel,
instead of going to the list where they act like little flame magnets.
This newsgroup would not replace the list, nor would it be more than
marginally connected (because of the selected cross-postings), but it would
provide the kind of environment that the list does not or cannot provide.
Go ahead and dump flames in my mailbox. I've long since gotten used to
it. I'm not going to back down until someone convinces me that a hospitable
environment with informative traffic and a high s/n ratio is a bad idea. Or,
you can save bandwidth and send the flames to /dev/null, because that's where
anything that doesn't make sense will go. Rational comments are welcome,
though.
Oh, and for those of you that are tired of seeing me post, you can rest
assured that you will never see it again. Contributing to this list has brought
nothing but trouble to my life, and I have better things to do with my time
than wade through piles of flamage in my personal mail box.
--
Matthew B. Landry
[email protected]
(Finally!) [email protected]