My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

A couple of people have sent me pinging messages, asking about my status on
the Cypherpunks list....apparently it has taken several weeks for folks to
notice my absence! :-}  This may speak volumes about why I have left the
list, and what the list has become.....

I chose not to write a "departing flame" (or message, but some might call
it a flame) when I unsubscribed several weeks ago--within an hour of
reading that John and Sandy had decided to make "their" list a moderated
list, by the way--as I saw little benefit. I was also fed up with things,
and saw no point in wasting even more of my time arguing against the New
Cypherpunks World Order, as the NCWO was clearly presented as a fait
accompli, not something ablut which opinions of list members (or even list
_founders_, at least not me) were being sought. It's my nature to just say
"Fuck it" and leave when I feel I have overstayed my time, or things are no
longer fun, or I am made to feel unwelcome.

But since several people have pinged me, asking about my status, I'll take
some time to say a few things. I've had access to the hks.net archive site,
and/or the Singapore site, to occasionally see what was being said on the
list (old habits die slowly, so I sometimes drop in to see what you people
are flaming each other about...not surprisingly--in fact utterly
predictably--I see vast amounts of bandwidth consumed by arguments about
moderation, about the putative biases of the Moderator and Director of the
New Cypherpunks World Order, about alternative moderation strategies (which
is stupid, as John and Sandy announced what they were going to do, not just
some of their preliminary thoughts), and so on. I've also noticed fewer
substantive essays. With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose
substantive essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day.
(Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list
to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!"
ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name
Nurdane Oksas, and the occasional bit of crypto news. Ho hum. I'm glad I'm
not reading the list in e-mail, and thus can easily avoid replying to these
inanities...which would probably not be approved for reading by Sandy, so
why bother anyway?)


Rather than compose a traditional essay, I'll take the  easy way out and
list some bulleted points.

* First, I don't argue that John Gilmore is unfree to do as he wishes with
his machine, toad, which has been the major machine host for the
Cypherpunks list. John can tell us we have to write in Pig Latin if he
wishes. Much of the debate I saw in the archives was debate that missed the
point about what John could and couldn't do. No one can seriously question
the right of the owner of a machine, or the owner of a restaurant, etc., to
set the policies he wishes. The owner of a restaurant is perfectly free--or
used to be, and still is to anyone with even slightly libertarian or
freedom tendencies--to set the rules of his "house." He may insist that
shirts and shoes be worn, or that smoking is not allowed (or even is
required, in theory), etc. He may say "All those eating in my restaurant
must wear funny hats and have their costumes approved by Sandy Sandfort."
This is unexceptionable.

* However, anyone who disputes these rules (disputes in the sense of
disliking or disagreeing with them, not legally challenging them) is free
to leave. Those who don't like crowded, noisy, smoke-filled sports bars are
encourgaged to leave. And so on. Again, unexceptionable.

(The more complicated case of contracts, verbal or written, and "changing
the rules," does not apply here. No one had a contract with John, or Sandy,
or Hugh, etc., so this is not germane.)

* But the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the
Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? If the list
was hosted by, say, UC Berkeley or PGP Incorporated, would we consider
these hosts to be the "owners" of the Cypherpunks group? Would we think
that a corporate host, say, would have the authority to direct what we
could say on the list? (Again, not disputing their corporate property
rights...as a libertarian, I cannot. Other issues are what I'm getting at.)

* If a Boy Scout troop meets at a local church, and has for several years,
continuously, would we consider the church to be the owner of the troop?
Could the church insist on avoidance of certain "cuss words" and demand
that prayers be said before each gathering? Certainly the church could tell
the troop what policies were to be followed if the the facilities were to
be used, etc., and the troop could leave if it didn't like the terms (or,
in parallel with my situation, any troop member could choose to leave....).
This is what we mean by "property rights": the legal right of a property
owner to do with his property as he wishes, modulo prior contractual
relationships, criminal laws, etc.

* How did the mailing list for the group, now called Cypherpunks, get
started, and how did it end up being run off of John's hardare? Hugh Daniel
got the actual mailing list rolling, based on a discussion Eric Hughes,
Hugh, and I had the day after the first physical meeting, in September
1992. We thought the group we had just spent the day with ought to be able
to stay in touch, and that a mailing list was the right way to go. There
was talk of siting it on the UC Berkeley computers (actually, the
Undergraduate Association computers, a la the Cypherpunks archive site at
"csua"), but Hugh thought he might be able to use "toad," and this is what
happened. (I have not heard from Hugh on his views of this New and
Moderated Non-Anarchic List.)

* I think we should all be very grateful to John for agreeing to let it run
on his hardware, but not let our gratitude turn into some sort of
subservience and blather about how John "owns" the Cypherpunks group.

* Again, is the "Cyherpunks community" the same as the mailing list? And is
the mailing list, hosted at toad, the "property" of John Gilmore?

* In my view, neither John nor Sandy in any sense "own" our group. It is a
virtual community which sometimes has physical meetings at various places
(including corporations, restaurants, and bookstores, none of which are
even partial "owners" of the group) and which has had several
instantiations on the Net, including sub-lists not connected to toad.com in
any way. While John is of course free at any time to suspend his hosting of
the list, I think it a serious misapprehension of the basic nature of
virtual communities to accept the claim that John should decide on what is
appropriate to bear the "Cypherpunks" list imprimatur and what is to be
consigned to the flame list.

* The mechanics of the announcement troubled me greatly. To be blunt, I was
seething with anger. I was mightily annoyed to read that John had made a
decision to appoint Sandy as his Moderator, with no discussion on the list.
I don't know if Eric Hughes and Hugh Daniel were asked their opinions, but
I certainly know I was not. I feel that as one of the two or three
founders, depending on how one is counting, and as a frequent contributor
to the list since its inception, and so on, I (and others) should at least
have been told of this plan. Better yet, have the plans discussed on the
list, as some good ideas may have been generated.

I'll have more to say about my problems with how things were handled.
Frankly, it smacked of the same kind of fait accompli decision John made
with the unsubscribing of Vulis. While John had (and has) every legal right
to do with his property as he wished, the effect was very negative. First,
Vulis found other ways to post (duh). Second, the list was consumed with
flames about this, many from Vulis, and many from others. Third,
journalists (who love sizzle over substance any day of the week) lept into
the fray with articles which gave Vulis the publicity he craved. Fourth, it
sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the Cypherpunks have found
it necessary to abandon their anarchic ways."

(I'm well aware of the issues with pests like Vulis, who seek to destroy
virtual communities like ours. But the solution John used did not work, and
generated more crap. As you all should know, it was John himself who coined
the wonderful saying, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes
around it." A delicious irony.)

* In the archives, I did see a bunch of "I support Sandy" and "John is our
leader" comments from reasonable people. The obvious noise of Vulis and his
cohorts like Aga made a "Do something!" attitude somewhat understandable. I
don't think the decision made was a wise one, and I strongly doubt it will
work to make the list a better one.

* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship.
Censorship just makes opponents of "speech anarchy" happy--it affirms their
basic belief that censors are needed.

* "Censorship" is another overloaded term. I don't think the "Definition 1"
of dictionary definitions, about _governmental_ restrictions, is the only
meaningful definition. Everybody knows what it meant when we say that
"Lockheed is censoring the views of employees," even though we know
Lockheed is not using government power. A censor is one who censors. And
even my "American Heritage Dictionary" gives this as its "definition 1":

"censor n. 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other
material and to remove or suppress morally, politically, or otherwise
objectionable."

(Other dictionaries of course give similar definitions. The notion that
censors are confined to being government employees is a misconception.)

* OK, even given that John had decided to censor "his" list, what about his
choice of Sandy Sandfort as the censor? I've known Sandy for several years
(I was the one who invited him to the second Cypherpunks meeting), but he's
a poor choice as a censor, moderator, whatever. First, because he has so
often gotten involved in protracted flame wars, such as with Vulis
(remember the dozens of messages about the "bet" to bring Vulis out? I
stayed out of the charade completely.), with Hallam-Baker, and with others.
Second, because he has not been actively composing essays for a while,
perhaps because of his job with Community Connexion. Other reasons, too.

(I count Sandy as a friend, but I'm just being honest here. Sandy is just
not a "Peter Neumann" (moderator of the "RISKS" list).

* Nor do the announced criteria make any sense. While the inane one-line
scatological insults have been filtered out, many "flames" make it through,
based on what I've seen in perusing the hks archive site. And some
reasonable comments get dumped in the flame bucket.

* As expected, those who only want to talk about cryptography (but who
rarely do, themselves, also as expected) waste bandwidth saying the
"anarchist" and "libertarian" stuff ought to go in to the "rejected" list.
More bandwidth wasted, as each group lobbies to have its ideological
opponents censored by Sandy.

* I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating a new
list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of Good Stuff.
After all, both Eric Blossom and Ray Arachelian already offer just such
lists, and more would not hurt.

But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things
considerably.

* (Frankly, one of my considerations in leaving was the feeling that I
would never know if an essay I'd spent hours composing would be rejected by
Sandy for whatever reasons....maybe he might think my essay was off-topic,
or used one of the Seven Deadly Words, or was "too flamish." Whatever. I
realized that life is too short to have Sandy Sandfort deciding whether my
essays should go out to the main list (which is really just a list like
Eric Blossom's best-of list, except it is be edict now the main list) or be
dumped into the flames list, to be read by a handful of people.)

* Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe from
the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the "Cypherpunks-Unedited) (or
whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger with the issues
raised above. The imperiousness of the decision, the notion of favoring
Sandy's tastes in a more "first class" way than, say, the tastes of Eric
Blossom, Ray Arachelian, or, for that matter, me.  "Some censors are more
equal than others."

* The decision to "moderate" (censor) the Cypherpunks list is powerful
ammunition to give to our opponents, and Vulis is certainly gleeful that
his fondest wishes have been realized. And it won't work. People are
consuming even more bandwidth arguing the merits of John's decision, the
traffic is presumably being slowed down by the need for Sandy to wade
through the traffic and stamp "Approved" or "Rejected" on what he glances
at, and people are "testing the limits" of what they can say and what they
can't say.

* It also sends a message that people are incapable of filtering out bad
speech, that they need a censor to do it for them. (Again, I have no
problem with competing "screeners," a la having Ray, Eric, or David
Sternlight filtering what they think is OK and what is not. Let a thousand
filtering services bloom.) But the clear message by having Sandy censor the
main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the list we
all know about, etc.) is that Cypherpunks need Big Brother to shelter them
from Bad Thoughts, from Naughty Words, from Evil Flames, and from Impure
Desires. Foo on that.

* Psychologists might point to random reinforcement, even to the effects of
terror. How many of us are likely to write controversial posts knowing that
Sandy might wake up having a "bad hair day" and thus reject our posts? How
many will begin to skew their opinions to match those of Sandy? (I would
venture a guess that a Duncan Frissell would almost certainly get a
libertarian rant past Sandy while a Phill Hallam-Baker might easily fail to
get a leftist rant past him.)

* Those who want "less noise" should subcontract with the filter services
of their own choosing. This is the "Cypherpunk Way." Having Sandy as the
censor is the easy way out.

* By the way, the moderated list "RISKS"  works pretty well. But it is not
a _discussion_ group. It is, rather, a digest of news items related to
computer and technology risks, with some discussion by various
contributors, and with a long turnaround time of a few issues per week,
tops. Peter Neumann also devotes a lot of time to making it run smoothly
and bases part of his professional career on running it. I surmise that
Sandy is not prepared to do the same. Nor would this be a good idea, as
this would kill the spirit of the debate.

* Had there been a debate about the policy, I can think of several
approaches I'd like better. But inasmuch as John made it clear that there
would be no debate (and, perhaps as part of the "problem," John has not
really been a active member of the mailing list, in terms of participating
in the debates), this is all moot.

In any case, my several years with the list have taken a huge amount of my
time. Given the way this whole thing was handled, and the way the list is
degenerating even further, it looks like it's good that I'm moving on to
other things.


* To summarize:

- the decision to censor the list was made without any discussion on the
list, without any discussion with at least some of the longterm core
contributors, and was presented as a "fait accompli."

- while John has every right to do with his hardware as he wishes, he does
not "own" the Cypherpunks group (though whether he owns the "list" is a
semantically debatable point)

- whatever our group once was, or still is, is not dependent on having a
particular mailing list running on someone's home machine...and it cannot
be claimed that any person "owns" the Cypherpunks group.

- there is some talk of creating another Cypherpunks list, on other
machines; I don't know whether or not this will fly, or if I'll devote any
time to such lists.

- the effect of censorship, such as I have seen it so far, is not producing
a better list. In fact, as I would have expected, it is producing a more
boring and sheltered list.


And so there you have it.

I had no plans to set down my views, feeling it was a waste of my time and
your time. Rather than foam and rant the way some did (and Vulis must have
posted 100 messages on the subject), I chose to simply make my exit,
quickly.

But as I have recently seen several mentions of my absence (including a
particularly complimentary comment from Asgaard--thanks), I do feel I owe
it to you all to explain my views.

Which I have done. Have a nice year, and a nice millenium in a couple of years.


--Tim May




Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."