Re: Moderation=YES

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>]

On Mon, 6 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote:

> cypherpunks@count04.mry.scruznet.com wrote:
> > Please as soon as possible... make this into a moderated list...
> > then I can kiss this noise goodbye...
> 
> Could you please (!) state for the record:
> 
> 1. Why you can't use filters?

Filters aren't intelligent enough.  How do you propose to filter out the 
anonymous dialy warnings about Tim May?

while they originally came with a fixed subject which one could filter, 
they are now popping up anonymously with random crypto related subjects.  
If you filter all anonymous mail, you lose the good anon mail you might 
want to read.  Yeah, you can look for "Timmy, Mayo, Maya" and other 
clues, but these will prevent you from reading other posts which contain 
those words.  Least you expect us to use A.I. filtering which require 
trainng and don't really exist.  Feel free to write one if you are so 
inclined.

Even our friend Vulis has sane posts when he takes his medication (though 
I suspect he does so rarely.)  Filtering out everything he posts doesn't 
make sense, as reading the sane stuff will have some value.  I don't want 
to miss what he says when it is worth my time to read it.

 
> 2. Why you want your news censored?  Do you think when (if) you pick
>    up your favourite big-city newspaper, that having a "Times Staff
>    Writer" edit (rewrite) all the stories is better than getting them
>    straight off the wire, i.e., AP, UPI, etc.?  I'll bet you do, you
>    budding little fascist.


For the same reason that you don't watch all 150+ cable channels on your 
TV (assuming you have a TV and cable) at the same time.  It is a waste of 
your time to attempt it, you have no interest in 99% of it.  You want to 
read what is relevant to your interests, if you have subscribed to 
cypherpunks, it is because some of the material posted here is of 
interest to you.  This material has to do with crypto, crypto-anarchy, 
some politics as it relates to crypto, and crypto related news.  IF you 
want to find out about the mating calls of seaguls, you subscribe to 
whatever mailing lists share that interest; not everyone who subscribes 
to cypherpunks wants to read about seaguls.  Or mad rants about the 
sexual prefs of folks on this list, especially when posted with malice.

Or for that matter tons of posts advertising various crap sent to 
"Fuck_You_Punks" and other such users.  These were clearly requested to 
us by folks who claim their names to be "Fuck_You_Punks"; advertising 
doesn't belong here either.  If you want to advertise on the list, fine, 
pay the list owner for air time.

As for me, I do not read newspapers or watch the news on TV since to me 
they are depressing, boring and useless.

The proposed scheme should not affect anyone in any way.  Those who want 
the filtered list will get it, those who want the spams and flames and 
ads and turds will get them, those who want it all will also get them.

Why are you so opposed to giving people a choice to pick between the 
moderated and unmoderated lists personally?  Just as there is freedom of 
speech, there is the freedom to ignore, to chose to filter or tune out 
flames and turds.  The proposed scheme of having three mailing lists 
empowers the readers of this list to chose for themselves.

Are you so afraid that no one cares about what you have to say, that they 
won't have to listen to you?  Or are you just paranoid and see flashes of 
censorship before your eyes?

Think about it this way: if a device existed that allowed TV viewers to 
not see commercials, would they purchase it?  Why shouldn't you allow 
them to chose to ignore commercials?  Maybe because you're an advertiser 
and are paying for the commercials?  Maybe, but I think most TV watchers 
would love to have such a device; some won't want it, or would want to 
watch the commercials.  But they would have a choice.

How is this any different?


=====================================Kaos=Keraunos=Kybernetos==============
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