Re: A vote of confidence for Sandy

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

C Matthew Curtin wrote:
> >>>>> "Dale" == Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net> writes:
> Dale> I'll tell you something else. If I have an opportunity to
> Dale> contribute to a project that can fight censorship of this kind,
> Dale> I will do so eagerly.

> OK, Dale, you oppose censorship.
> If you don't like the moderated version of the list, subscribe to the
> unmoderated version. As long as an unmoderated version is available,
> what, exactly, is the problem?

This is cool.  I get to respond to a literate question.  How unusual.

1. Sandfort is the person who would never drop an argument, no matter
   how long, until he had the last word.  I know since I went rounds
   with him a time or two.  As far as I can tell (not being a profess-
   ional psychologist), Sandy has some emotional limitations that would
   make him a poor choice to moderate such an intense list as this.
   Certainly the moderated list would still be quite intense, since
   the intent is to be a political/social forum. Sandfort unfortunately
   appears to be a special friend of Gilmore's, and I don't think John
   has taken the time to consider the outcome.

2. The only possible scheme that could work long-term would be a moderated
   list plus a deleted (excised?) list of posts which didn't make the
   moderator's cut. Having a moderated list and a full unmoderated list
   is certain to fail, and I'm not too sure that they don't have this in
   mind already.

3. Not making the unmoderated list first-up (i.e., cutting posts first,
   then making the "full" list available later) is suspicious, or at
   least a bad idea.

4. Moving everyone to the moderated list and then having people who want
   the full list unsubscribe and resubscribe is more evidence of bad
   faith.  If what Sandy says is true (I don't believe it), the vast
   majority of posts (excluding obvious spam, probably 75 or more a day)
   will be in the moderated list, therefore I think anyone can see that
   merely cutting the spam and bad flames is not the ultimate intent.
   To do that, all they would have had to do is announce a bucket where
   they're dropping the excisions, and let whoever wants them to pick
   them up from there. Maybe they thought that would make them look bad,
   but before this is over (if they continue on their present course),
   they're going to look much worse.

I just can't believe Gilmore wants to have Sandfort do this.  There's
gotta be someone he can trust who has a viable reputation.  Then again,
who with a decent reputation would want to moderate cypherpunks?

BTW, thanks for the literate reply.