Re: META: traffic-limited list idea

Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:27:32 -0700 (PDT)


Lee Daniel Crocker writes:
>The existing lists stay as they are. A new list, say "exi-paid" or
>something like that, is created.

Yes. New ideas have a lousy track record, so only volunteers should
be subjected to them. If however that many members of that list are
already experimenting with one or more other auxilliary lists, members
may not feel much like trying yet another concurrent experiment. This
is a good reason for trying to coordinate with ExI plans regarding
other trial extropians lists, or for trying on another list.

>A robot running daily or as a cron job on lucifer walks through the
>subscriber list, and at each name tosses the dice to decide whether
>to send that person a token (the probability is adjusted at will to
>control traffic).

The random element probably isn't needed, and would complicate
auditing. Probably better to just randomly sort the list once and
then go down it in order each time.

> If you want this token to be reissued randomly, reply to this
> message and change the subject line to the word "REISSUE".

Sounds like featuritis; keep it simple.

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