Perry wrote:
>What I find really disturbing about this discussion is that we are
>having it at all. Half the people posting here are, quite frankly,
>about as critical in their thinking as trepanned chihuahuas. This is
>not the Extropians list of yore, where polymaths gathered to swap
>INFORMED discussion.
Perry, I think you're looking back through rose-colored glasses here. I
haven't read Extropians in almost 5 years, and I distinctly remember you
complaining back then about how bad the list had gotten. "I didn't start
this list to have to argue basic science and basic libertarianism!", or
something along those lines. So, the list might still have quite a bit of
drivel, but I don't think it has gotten worse and I don't think it's fair
to tell all the young'uns how great it was in the golden age.
The problem of s/n in virtual communities is a hard one, and we haven't
solved it yet (though not for want of trying). Any day now I'm going to
follow up on Robin's reference to the Low Golden Willow filter, and see if
that works. There was also some talk about an internal Extropy idea for
rated posts, and Robin has a token payment mechanism that would be fun to
try. The filtering system that we had back in '92 didn't satisfy me in the
end, I think because it seemed to break a sense of shared community. And
maybe the approach of yelling at people who post stupid things will work,
though you have more energy and flair for it than I do.
Later,
Drea
P.S. Does Extropy limit list membership to dues-paying members? I would
expect that to limit the people here just to troll.