Re: Improving the Extropians list

Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 08:43:13 -0700

At 09:18 AM 6/19/99 -0400, you wrote:

>It might be interesting to see a system that allowed a maximum number of
>posts per day to newcomers. People could vote on each post, if they want to
>see more or less of that author, topic, whatever. Then people's posting
>quota could be adjusted accordingly. If there were no size limits, people
>could still squeeze all their stuff into one post per day. It would just be
>easier to skip. If they were popular and widely received, they would have
>more posts per day. As flame wars erupted, people could squash the flamer's
>posting rights by popular consensus.

Those posting for the first few times could be anyone -- someone who has never discussed extropian idea before *or* a well versed extropian who hasn't been on this list before.

Voting on whose posts are more popular than someone else's squelches creativity. Judging writings puts a lot of pressure on the posters and it would seem to me that common sense might be a better quality to encourage in posters than being a brilliant and well-liked. Not everyone agrees on meaningful substance and the idea here is to encourage discussions on varied extropian subjects.

I agree that the those who trample on our sensibilities with self-motivated berating tactics are annoying, as well as those whose posts flurry in all day long.

The best way to handle problems is to set an example (and this requires those posting to think before hitting the send key); and to be *firm* about what we will and will not accept on the extropian list by privately asking someone to cease and desist from a particular behavior or to not bottleneck our brains wastefully. I like Max and Greg's direction now, and I think that if we ask for quality, we will get it.

Natasha