Oxygenating the flame in threads was Re: [extropy-chat] a futurist prediction

[Emlyn]

On 26/08/05, Dan Clemmensen <dgc at cox.net> wrote:
> Emlyn wrote:
> 
> >On 26/08/05, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>My idea is similar, only people vote by filtering the
> >>offender rather than having some sort of organized
> >>balloting. You are the computer guy, Eugen, so can
> >>this be done?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >IANAE, but here are my two cents...
> >
> >Filters are passive client side things, so there's no way to detect their use.
> >
> >What you could possibly do is set up an email address - say
> >extropy-crap at lists.extropy.org. People could forward email they
> >disliked to that address, as a vote against it. Instead of killfiling
> >someone, you could forward their entire output to that address, as a
> >permanent mark of disdain!
> >
> >
> >
> IAASA. (I Am a Systems Architect)
> 
> Emylin, If we choose to implement anything at the list level, we should
> implement
> a way to allow each list member to push the member's killfile rules back
> to the list mailer.

Clearly this is a good place from a system design point of view. I've
suggested the mechanism above though, mostly because I think we are an
email based group, most of whose members are fairly tied to and happy
with their email clients.

If experience says anything about the extropy list, it is that you
must either implement it as an entirely email-based system, or no one
will use it.

> 
> First, the mailer can apply the rules on behalf of each member thus
> reducing the mailing of posts that would otherwise be killed by the
> recipient.
> As a general rule it is far cheaper (in CPU cycles and bandwidth) to
> kill a post than
> it is to send it, This is true for the mailer machine. It is
> overwhelmingly true for the
> Internet as a whole.

The traffic is so minimal as to make this pretty irrelevant. We
struggle by now pretty easily (with the extropy list I mean, not
commenting on the entire email world).

> 
> Second, this gives the list mailer the information it needs to feed the
> kill ratio back
> to each poster. Thus, if Eugene posts a message, the list system will
> respond with a
> message that says: "This message was sent to 100% of the list, and 75%
> say  'thank you'
> automatically." If an unknown author sends a message that includes the
> term "viagra" then
> the system will respond with a message that says: " this message was
> sent to 0% of the list.
>  0% say 'thank you' automatically. Based on these percentages, you may
> not post another
> message for 24 hours."
> 
> At a meta level, a list member could decide to depend on the consensus
> of other members to
> kill messages. In addition to personal killfile rules, a recipient could
> ask the list to establish
> a rule such as "kill any post that is killed by >50% of the personal
> killfile rules" or "kill any
> post that is killed by Natasha's killfile rules."
> 

We also need a system of punishing or rewarding posts I think.
Killfiles come about because people become exasperated by crappy
posts. A method of providing feedback earlier might actually minimise
the use of automated rules.

> NOTE: I do not personally use an automated kill system. I when the inbox
> is too full, I manually
> kill messages based on the subject line: this takes about 2 seconds per
> message. If I knew that my
> kill rules were to be implemented at the list level and that they could
> be used by others, I would
> create such rules in a heartbeat.
> 

There is already a karma system on the BBS, maybe that is a start?

http://bbs.extropy.org/index.php?board=71

Apparently I have zero karma, which is just as it should be; the
universe is complex enough without a whole spiritual economy to cope
with...

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *