Re: Mailing List Quality

Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Sun, 29 Sep 96 20:14:34 PDT


Crosby_M writes:
>I'm not sure what is included in your definition of quality. You imply
>that posting 'junk' will spoil a mailing list. But, as you point out,
>the 'junk' can be ignored if it's not on your personal list of
>priorities. Far more fragile is the quality of civil discourse, which

I agree that uncivil posts hurt more, but poor quality posts also
cost. It takes time for each of us to delete bad stuff. And the fact
that many posters are not reading many other posts on the same topics
can make the conversation confusing.

As Peter Voss says:
>I have just unsubscribed from transhuman list and am about to
>unsubscribe from the extropy list because even just scanning the often
>40 or more messages a day is, to me, not worth the benefit - too many
>insults, too much irrationality and too much shooting from the hip.

Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/