Re: Improving the list (was: Can we please dekookify the list?)

Jason Spencer (spencer@ualberta.ca)
Sat, 27 Feb 1999 21:05:53 -0700

Timothy Bates and Aaron Davidson write:
> 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.

I doubt I would use such software.

To give an example, I may (depending on my mood) not be very interested in much of Ian Goddard's conspiracy theories (at least after the original posting), but I'd still want to hear his input on philosophical topics. This leaves only the thread-killing feature. I personally find it quite easy to delete threads if the subject matches the content.

Derived threads often vary wildly. I'd suggest not kiling these with their parent.

People coming across the list and deciding to sign up just to check it out for a while may not do so if the logistics are too complex. Tags at the end of messages don't sound too bad to me, but it's something to consider.

--
Jason Spencer
spencer@ualberta.ca