If this is bothering you, please let me know.
I think there is only one possibility to guarantee long-term stability of
a mailing list: by using access rights (cryptographic authentisation),
and a nested hierarchy. This needs some code to implement, though. A
combination of Emacs/PGP should be both easy to implement and convenient
to use.
The lowest hierarchy is open both to reading and writing for anybody. All
upper levels are echoed to it. The next level can be read but not written
by anybody but for the inner group. The next (optional, inner circle)
level grants r/w only to the inner circle.
Each new poster begins at the lowest hierarchy. Rights are granted and
revoked by minimum consensus (voting). Sorting is automagical.
This is very ad hoc, so there are probably thousands of holes in this
scheme. Comments?
'gene