[extropy-chat] Re: Oxygenating the flame in threads

[ben]

The Avantguardian wrote:

"There is no way for the writer to sense how many
killfiles he is in, but can the listserver do it? Does
the computer that filters out an email give any kind
of feedback that it is doing so? If so the listserver
itself could "moderate" threads by responding to the
democratic behavior of list members. Thus if the
server realizes that less than an arbitrary quorum of
listmembers want to read a person's post, it can just
stop posting that persons's crap."

That's not going to work anyway, even if such a system is possible (and 
i hope it isn't). People like me get a daily(-ish) digest, and simply 
skim over 8/10ths of the posts in each email, looking for the 
interesting stuff amongst the increasing amount of crap. It has been 
rare for me to dump a whole email digest, because they usually have at 
least one interesting post. Although that seems to be changing recently, 
causing me to consider (again!) unsubscribing from the list.
I have better things to do with my time than get irritated by having to 
skim past yet another dozen posts about american politics or the war in 
iraq.

I do like Emlyn's idea. I'd like to see that implemented, or something 
similar, and see if it improves things.


BillK wrote:
"But I don't think this would work anyway. The majority on any list are
non-participants. They read (sometimes) the mail and delete it or file
it. That's all. They won't start scoring posts up or down. "

I'm fairly non-participatory, certainly not a regular or frequent 
poster, but i would definitely contribute to the scoring process, 
because i would know that i was helping to improve things, and that i 
would benefit from it.

"If we have a few keen members, why not make them list administrators
and use the existing Mailman procedures?"

Then the administration reflects only the preferences of those few keen 
members.
There must be more people like me, who would run like a cat with it's 
tail on fire at the mention of doing any list admin, but would happily 
give feedback on individual posts. Maybe not ALL of the posts, but 
enough to be useful. Maybe the silent majority could break their silence 
and comment on this? How many people would vote on post quality, for the 
sake of improving it?

Bret Kulakovich wrote:

"The mailer attaches a footer...<snip> ...Would
also be easier on the user to just click an up or down arrow and hit
submit at the bottom of each email."

How would this system work with daily digests? It would be no good me 
voting on 27 posts all in one email.
Any voting system would have to take digests into account.

ben