META: Re: Mailing List Quality

Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Tue, 1 Oct 96 12:36:41 PDT


Eugene Leitl writes:
>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.
>ach new poster begins at the lowest hierarchy. Rights are granted and
>revoked by minimum consensus (voting). Sorting is automagical.

This sounds like a multi-level generalization of my two-level
proposal, except for the "automagical" part (whatever that is).
I'd suggest starting out as simple as possible, with little code.

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