From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Mar 01 1999 - 09:55:26 MST
Well put, Shaun. This is exactly the same reason I stay; the few great
postings (and posters) outweigh the others.
I originally joined the list back in the Old Days, 1992 I think (my
first mailing list actually). And I waguely remember fierce debates
about guns, libertarian principles and how to increase the signal to
noise ratio. Some things never change :-) But I can also definitely
say that being on this list has educated me more than most university
courses and introduced me to issues and areas I would never have
thought I would one day become interested in. Keep up the great
tradition!
I think we should all try to enhance the list. The simplest way is
non-action: don't write a posting that doesn't contribute anything,
that doesn't increase extropy or just will start needless flames. The
second simplest way is to mark the subjects correctly (hmm, harder
than simple, actually). Then comes writing well, civility, rational
thinking, forming sub-lists, killfiles and whatnot. I think
collaborative filtering and similar ideas have merit, but such
projects need to be unobtrusive and efficient before people use them
well. In the end the only ones that influence the list quality are
ourselves.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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