Re: Can we please dekookify the list?

Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Mon, 1 Mar 1999 08:06:04 -0600

I understand that KPJ and J. Reeves engaged in the following dialogue:

>It appears as if Jonathan Reeves <JonathanR@mail.iclshelpdesks.com> wrote:
>|
>|I may be new to this list, but I was under the impression that
>|extropians valued free thinking, free speech, learning about all areas
>|of life and science, accepting the importance (and usefulness) of
>|hearing points of view which differ to your own own.
>
>They do.
>
>|Now, it seems like some kind of clique are trying to claim the list as
>|their own personal chat room, by either setting up democratic
>|censorship or just simply buying the thing outright.
>
>Text cathegorization lets the reader decide.
>It breaks the author's broadcast monopoly on the list.
>It works like a SPAM filter: the reader decides, not the author.
>
>|Apologies if I have miunderstood anyones intent, but the tone of the
>|postings has seemed to me very suspect. I don't care if someone's
>|grammar or spelling aren't too clever - they still have a right to
>|express their point of view - do you want people to pass an entrance
>|test before being allowed to post to the list?
>
>Anybody can write. But everybody need not read it.
>
>You appear to confuse the reader's free choice with censorship.
>
>|In principle the prefixes are a good idea, although so many of the
>|discussions are linked in ways which cross over the boundaries that I
>|think it might be a little hard (and misleading) to enforce.
>
>Prefixing saves time. Some have very little of this precious resource.

For my $.02 worth, I've always found it simple enough to identify the gist of a thread and whether I was interested in reading or deleting it. Subject lines are not always good indicators of the quality/relevance of the content so I typically read the first couple of posts unless I clearly recognize the topic as uninteresting to me. I would pay even less attention to a prefix tag. The subject line very quickly becomes equivalent to a prefix tag for my purposes. I am, therefore, generally sympathetic to Mr. Reeves position.

Scott B.