Re: META: 2 small technical list change suggestions

Joe E. Dees (joedees@bellsouth.net)
Wed, 2 Jun 1999 20:52:47 -0500

Date sent:      	Wed, 02 Jun 1999 21:00:54 -0400
From:           	Brian Atkins <brian@posthuman.com>
To:             	extropians@extropy.com
Subject:        	META: 2 small technical list change suggestions
Send reply to:  	extropians@extropy.com

> mark@unicorn.com wrote:
> >
> > Brian Atkins [brian@posthuman.com] wrote:
> > >Well there's a simple solution to that, add a few lines of
> > >Perl to the mailing list software so it rejects any message
> > >sent to the list without any subject keywords
> >
> > Problem: without a sophisticated AI, you're not going to be able to detect
> > messages which have *incorrect* keywords, so there's an easy way for anyone
> > to get around this kind of blocking.
>
> Well that's simple, if someone is going to be that much of an
> idiot, they are basically grouped into the category of spammers
> and removed from the list. i.e. if Joe and whoever he has
> enticed decide to use the keyword "META" in their gun debate
> posts instead of the obviously proper GUNS, they get banned.
>
For purposes of honesty and clarity, I enticed no one. I was personally attacked by dogmatic and quasireligious absolutist extremists for profferring a logical reasonable and rational mainstream sensible center solution to a problem of current interest to the US at large.

>
> You know I believe it is in the "charter" for this list that
> ExI agrees to arbitrate decisions like this. So we can leave
> any sticky decisions to them.
>
> I don't think this is an "authoritarian" response at all. We
> are doing two simple things: a) adding a required bit of
> syntax to message subject lines. This is the same as the list
> requiring your mail software to at least provide a To:, From:,
> etc. in the headers. A technical requirement. b) removing
> people from the list that use "tricks" to inundate the list
> members with messages they don't want to see (spammers). What
> is wrong with these two things that we can't all agree to
> implement them right now?
> --
> Join the ExI/>H SETI team today:
> http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_show&id=393
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> "It IS possible." - Vincent, _Gattaca_
>