Re: Mailing List Quality (Was: Certainty, Experiments & Facts)

From: E. Shaun Russell (e_shaun@uniserve.com)
Date: Mon Sep 30 1996 - 18:12:41 MDT


On 30\9\96, Ira Brodsky correctly wrote:

>It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to be on a second-class version of this
>list.

        Sorry about responding to this thread so late...just catching up
from a weekend away (intentional useless information). In all seriousness,
I had to read this thread's responses a couple times to make sure I was
reading correctly. If we were to have two extropian lists (open and
closed), that would make the whole concept of extropy seem elitist. I find
that the term 'junk' is totally subjective...you should know the saying:
"One man's junk is another man's treasure" and I believe that is true to
conversation as well. There have been no recent posts (IMO) that have not
pertained to extropy in some way or another. Sure, I disagree with personal
flames and insults, but I think that if someone doesn't want to read an
article by *insert name here*, I think that person can simply delete it
before it is even read.

        As for having an open\closed list etiquette, I strongly disagree.
Who's to say what is signal and what is noise? I think list members can
filter the good from the bad on their own. If there was to be a closed list
as well as an open one, the people from the open list will all want to be
'appointed' to the closed, and the people from the closed will pass judgment
on the open-listers. Isn't extropy based around libertarianism? If we were
to split the lists, it would be more like a two level hierarchy: the greater
and the lesser. That would just not be good. My solution? Leave it as it
is and let the members 'excommunicate' their own responses.

>I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said "I'm sorry I wrote such a long
>letter. Had I had more time, I would have written a shorter one."

        I'm not sure about Benjamin Franklin, but I know that Pascal wrote:
"The reason this letter is so long is because I didn't have time to make it
shorter." More useless information from one of the open-listers! :-)

                                        Ingredi Externus!

                                                -E. Shaun Russell

_____________________________________________________________________________
E. Shaun Russell Extropian poet\musician
e_shaun@uniserve.com
_____________________________________________________________________________



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