Re: IMDMP: SOURCE CODE RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT

At 7:26 AM 1/18/1997, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>                          SANDY SANDFORT
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
>C'punks,
>
>On Sat, 18 Jan 1997 paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
>> ...but I must say the list has gone downhill sharply since 
>> the start of the censorship.
>
>I guess this a classic case of seeing what you want to see.
>(Uh, Paul, the moderation experiment HASN'T STARTED YET.)

No, he's got it right.  The announcement of the moderation experiment
was followed by a decline in interesting threads.

"Why is the stock price falling?  We only announced nationalization.
IT HASN'T STARTED YET."

Anonymous wrote:
> 
> No, he's got it right.  The announcement of the moderation experiment
> was followed by a decline in interesting threads.

This is actually inevitable. When people feel controlled, they do 
not come up with as many interesting ideas.

This is a cost of moderation. Whether it does or does not outweigh
the benefits (like some people not being fired) is a good question.

Some other fora, such as alt.pagan, were so drowned in trolls that
they simply could not conduct any meaningful discussions. For them, 
the benefit of moderation was creation of a place to talk.

What is important for freedom of speech is not the presence of "closed"
places like moderated cypherpunks, but the presence of "open" places
like cypherpunks-unedited. 

I'd probably subscribe to it, as long as its level of noise is tolerable.

The interesting thing that moderators will soon discover is that
competition between the moderated and the unedited list would lead
to so substantial improvement of the unedited list, that lots of
people will not feel a need for any moderation and will unsubscribe from
the moderated list and subscribe to the unmoderated one. 

Sandy & Co should not view it as their failure, but rather as their
success. What they want, hopefully, is not to be control freaks, but
to make readers better off. (and no one gets any worse off against 
their will)

	- Igor.

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                          SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

On Sat, 18 Jan 1997 ichudov@algebra.com wrote:

> The interesting thing that moderators will soon discover is that
> competition between the moderated and the unedited list would lead
> to so substantial improvement of the unedited list, that lots of
> people will not feel a need for any moderation and will unsubscribe from
> the moderated list and subscribe to the unmoderated one. 
> 
> Sandy & Co should not view it as their failure, but rather as their
> success. What they want, hopefully, is not to be control freaks, but
> to make readers better off. (and no one gets any worse off against 
> their will)

Absofuckinglutely.  Thanks for shinning some light on the issue.


 S a n d y

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Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> Anonymous wrote:

> What is important for freedom of speech is not the presence of "closed"
> places like moderated cypherpunks, but the presence of "open" places
> like cypherpunks-unedited.
> I'd probably subscribe to it, as long as its level of noise is tolerable.
> The interesting thing that moderators will soon discover is that
> competition between the moderated and the unedited list would lead
> to so substantial improvement of the unedited list, that lots of
> people will not feel a need for any moderation and will unsubscribe from
> the moderated list and subscribe to the unmoderated one.
> Sandy & Co should not view it as their failure, but rather as their
> success. What they want, hopefully, is not to be control freaks, but
> to make readers better off. (and no one gets any worse off against
> their will)

All this assumes that Sandfort and Gilmore are real, sincere, and
somewhat honest people.  Which of course is not at all the case.

There is an agenda here, it has a hidden money trail, and the dis-
information put out as to the "real" purpose of the moderation should
be ignored, at least by intelligent people.

"Cypherpunks" who assume Sandfort is doing this out of the goodness
of his heart, or that Gilmore is providing a truly "free" service,
should get themselves some better drugs.

The very first test of credibility they failed was when they *renamed*
the original list and co-opted the original name for the edited list.
Don't trust 'em.