A Plea for Meaningful Message Titles

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

I don't often make requests for netiquette changes here on this list,
but I will now. I have no power to enforce anything, so these are only
suggestions.

1. Could we people make an effort to pick reasonably meaningful thread
titles? A lot of "Re: your mail" and "(None)" titles are cluttering up
the list.

Not to mention the overly broad titles like "PGP" and "Question." In
sorting through my list archives recently I found several hundred
messages that contained variations on the simple phrase "PGP," most
discussing points only loosely related to PGP.

2. People should feel free to edit the subject line to better reflect
the topic of their post. This may "destroy the continuity of the
thread," a concern raised by some, but that's a small price to pay for
having new threads more accurately labelled.

3. Forwards are really getting out of hand. It seems that the "Four
Letter Acronyms" of CPSR, EPIC, ACLU, and EFF (an honorary FLA)
routinely copy us on everything they put out, even though their stuff
is widely distributed in other forums available to us all, and none of
them seems to be reading Cypherpunks and actually participating in
followup discussions. (If Banisar, Godwin, Kapor, McLandish, et. al.
are actually reading this, I invite them to prove me wrong.)

4. While I'm at it, could newcomers to the world of crypto please take
the time to read up on some of the basic crypto isues? The lateness of
my FAQ is not the issue, as the needed knowledge is contained in any
of the basic FAQs that are already out there, such as the
oft-republished sci.crypt FAQ and the RSA FAQ. And basic articles and
books are readily available. 

This list is not a place to ask 500-600 people "What's so bad about
Clipper?" or "Can't the NSA break any cipher with enough effort?"

Thank you for your time.

--Tim May



-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."