[extropy-chat] Oxygenating the flame in threads

[Amara Graps]

(sending it a second time, I haven't seen it appear yet)

Emlyn:
>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!

>I guess you'd also want an extropy-great at lists.extropy.org, to send
>excellent posts and favoured postors to.


Dear Emlyn,

I think that this is a great idea. I would use it.  And I don't
think that this strategy is difficult for the average user either,
because it would just take a few seconds to 'express yourself'. I
think that the posters who poison the list should know that the
readers don't like their words. I think that large feedback is
sorely needed here, in order to improve list quality and encourage
good people to return, and I think that assigning reputation is a
very good first step. Reputation, in free places, greases the cogs of
the human interchange machinery. How else can buyers evaluate a
purchase, and how else can sellers know when they are doing a good
job? Reputation and Feeback.

Presently, if you are a 'seller' of a message on the extropy-chat
list, you'll put your message out there. Feedback for messages here
is occasionally a conversational thread, but more often, a flaming
thread. Flaming threads require alot more time than assigning 0 or
negative to the reputation of the seller, and many opt-out of
wanting to spend that time. A simple reputation assignment
encourages more to express their opinion of that person's words.
More opinions gives more information to the seller that their
strategy is effective or not. If the seller discovers that their
strategy for 'selling their message' is not effective, then s/he can
continue, but it should be clear to her/him that s/he is wasting
her/his time on the list (and that person is being willfully
ignorant). And/or the list owners (Extropy _is_ the owner of the
list), have a very good reason, based on reliable information, to
remove that poster.

In the early 1990s days of the extropians list, we discussed
reputation systems often (in fact Robin's sig line was "Stake Your
Reputation"). Think carefully about how important are reputations.
The best decisions one makes for one's life in some way uses this
data, does it not? For the simplest example of reputations-in-action:
look to Ebay: would you want to buy a product from someone who had
less than a 98% customer satisfaction? The feedback from Ebay users
to push the number so high is astounding when you think about it.

Amara

-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action."
  ---Johann Wolfgang von Goethe