My only real sticking point as I keep repeating is I think it would be nice to somehow make the list more "appealing" to newbies. Of course the people who've been around a while can setup their software to filter out messages/people if they want, but newbies should not have to be subjected to a "raw feed". You can argue that we could put the info regarding how to setup your email client to filter onto the subscribe info page at extropy.org, but a lot of people hear about the list second-hand and wouldn't know that coming in.
Timothy Bates wrote:
>
> A Davidson just got added to my glorify list by implementing Brian Atkins
> suggestion to
> >> combine collective and collaborative filtering
>
> He suggests a sig. at the bottom of each post as follows:
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 1) Kookify [http://some.url.com/mail.cgi?kookify=memberId]
> > 2) Glorify [http://some.url.com/mail.cgi?glorify=memberId]
> > 3) Kill Thread [http://some.url.com/mail.cgi?killThread=threadSubject]
> > 4) Kill Topic [http://some.url.com/mail.cgi?killTopic=topicType
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think this is wonderful, with one modification. No global filtering. All
> mail clients are smart enough and bandwidth is cheap enough that noone wants
> to have the ultimate choice about reading a mail taken out of their hands.
> However, neighbourhood gosip is great and a trail of glory attached to your
> posts woudl be a powerful incentive to make posts good, clever and great.
>
> I suggest therefore, that the definitions be as follows (A Davidson inplain
> text, my mods in [ ... ].
>
> 1) Clicking Kookify will vote to have the poster of the message labelled a
> kook[by you].
> [The user can then filter messages posted by kooks using an
> x-kook-by-me tag].
> [the] percentage of the list members kookify[ing] the person [will
> also be transmitted allowing filtering on this parameter].
>
> 2) Glorifying a poster will have the effect of casting
> a [glorifying vote which can be used for filtering].
>
> The last two are not needed anymore.
> 3) Kill Thread does the obvious. You will no longer recieve that thread.
> (and possibly not receive dereived threads either?)
>
> 4) Kill Topic. If subjects are prefixed correctly (ie. ADV, META,
> SCI/TECH...) you can elect to have certain specific topics filtered.
>
> I would gladly write the software to do this if I can be compensated for my
> time.
>
> me too. it might even be compensation in itself ;-)
>
> Other cunning ideas begin to enter ones mind. I would like to be able to
> highlight all threads in which Mike Lorrey participates. Maybe I could just
> read his emails on a thread, deprecating the mails which his emails quote
> extensively so I don;t have to read the original silly posters comments
> myself ;-)
>
> Essentially, we are devising an extensive meta-tag language (such as is
> being proposed by the W3 committee and others. These tags could embody
> extensive logical processing at the server end, allowing the client to use
> some relatively simple rules to localize the (proposed but undesirable)
> global filter role.
>
> Maybe people could reply to the list using this subject if they have
> proposals for a meta language for community discussions. This could be the
> basis for scientific correspondence of a wide rage of subject matters, so be
> as general and abstract as you can. Think different.
>
> if you click on the below (in a nice mail client like Outlook Express for
> Macintosh 4.5) it will build a boiler plate email for you to get on board.
>
>
<mailto:extropians@extropy.com?subject=metaTagDictionary?body=TagName%20%3D%
> 20informative%20name%0DTagDescription%20%3D%20what%20the%20tag%20would%20do%
> 0DTag%20Purpose%20%3D%20why%20should%20we%20burden%20the%20net%20with%20this
> %20tag%3F">