From: Michelle Jones (shelly66@ibm.net)
Date: Mon Aug 10 1998 - 23:34:09 MDT
> >>>Don't worry about those few Extropian females dude, they're mostly...
owwww.... {8-[ anyone can make comments like these just to bait the group and
watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth. the fact is, *we dont know who we
are.*
we have no statistics on those who read the extropian newsgroup. many, if not
most
of the email addresses are nongendered, such as spike66 for instance.
i see that extropians tend to love privacy. althoprivacy is not important to me
personally, i have gotten religion on the necessity of others to protect theirs.
so, question: how can we find out how many women and how many men, how
many straight and how many gay, or just plain how many people are out there in
extropians
*without any single person having to reaveal any traceable information* about
themselves?
if we set up a website where anyone could anonymously log on and set down
gender and preference, then any one person could corrupt the entire database by
logging
on an indefinite number of times and in putting false information. the person
who started the lesbian extropian meme might intentionally do this, for
instance.
on the other hand, if we had every respondant register in order to prevent
multiple
entries, then each response could be traced to an individual. the most private
extropians (understandably) would not log on, which would also corrupt the
database.
so, i set forth this challange to all extropians: come up with a means of
polling
the group in such a way that prevents any individual from logging on repeatedly,
without revealing the source of any single entry to protect the privacy of those
who answer the poll. it must be done online, no writing on dead trees or
postage
stamps. to the person who discovers such a means, i offer the grand prize of...
my undying admiration and deepest gratitude. {8^) spike
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